Zero for Conduct
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Zéro de conduite (English: Zero for Conduct) is a 1933 film by French film director Jean Vigo. It was first shown on April 7, 1933. It was subsequently banned in France until February 15, 1946.
The film draws extensively on Vigo's boarding school experiences to depict a repressive and institutionalised educational establishment in which surreal acts of rebellion occur. The title refers to a mark the boys would get which prevented from going out on Sundays. It also shows the influence of Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi. Though the film was not immediately popular, it has proven to be enduringly influential. François Truffaut paid homage to Zéro de conduite in his 1959 film The 400 Blows by copying, practically shot-for-shot, the scene in which a line of schoolboys jogging through Paris loses its members one by one to the attractions of the city. Lindsay Anderson's film If... in its whole is a less whimsical reimagining of Zéro.
