Les 400 Coups Sparknotes

Les 400 Coups by François Truffaut displays personal cinema by sharing his own thoughts through the eyes of Antoine. As stated in the lecture video, cinema was a way for Truffaut to escape from his unhappy home life. His unfortunate home life is shown through the perspective of Antoine to display how Truffaut may have felt when he was a child. François Truffaut makes the audience feel sympathy and a sense of understanding for Antoine's predicament through the use of realistic and noteworthy sets.
Because the film is told in the perspective of Antoine, the audience is better able to create stronger feelings for his situation than if it were told in the perspective of the teacher or parents.
Truffaut shows some reasoning behind why Antoine may act out of place or misbehave. Antoine's battered home life mixed with his feeling of not belonging shows the audience a different side of Antoine compared to if the film were told in another perspective.

In Antoine's home, you can tell that the family is of lower income and social class before the characters tell the audience that fact. The apartment is very small, and Antoine's room only had space for his bed and a chair. The decorations were limited and simplistic in that basic photos and vases were scattered around the apartment. The absence of extravagant or elaborate pieces in the apartment further displays the social standing of the Doniel family.
Truffaut deliberately compared Antoine's apartment to René's to display his own feelings of what his life felt like when he was a child. When contrasting the doors and door frames from Antoine's apartment to his best friend René's, the audience can see that Antoine's friend has much more money than him. René's apartment door is well painted, bigger, and more presentable. When the audience looks at Antoine's door, it is apparent that it is old, worn down and poorly