Zero For Conduct (1933) Director: Jean Vigo
★★★★☆
Jean Vigo’s third film, Zero For Conduct is a strange, surrealist, short vignette lasting about 41 minutes. It tells the anarchic story of children revolting against their un-amusing and midget boarding school headmaster during commencement (the secondary title of the movie was “Young Devils at College”). Zero For Conduct was initially shown in 1933, but was subsequently banned in France during the war until 1945. The title refers to the mark a teacher threatens to give the children for their recalcitrant behavior. Numerous later directors have paid homage to this film in one way or another (it had a tremendous influence of François Truffaut’s 400 Blows in 1959).
Throughout the production of this film, Jean Vigo and his wife were in poor health, but luckily they befriended a wealthy benefactor who financed the film. It was shot over a couple months between 1932 and 1933, and it features all amateur actors from straight off the street. Zero For Conduct is not a polemic nor a commentary, but rather it is an expression, or a glimpse, of the revolutionary spirit –a surrealist portrayal of rebellion. Sadly, Vigo –by all accounts a sickly person since childhood– died of tuberculosis at age 29 in 1934.
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Credits:
- Director: Jean Vigo
- Written by: Jean Vigo
- Produced by: Jean Vigo
- Starring: Jean Dasté
- Cinematography: Boris Kaufman
- Edited by: Jean Vigo
- Music by: Maurice Jaubert
- Production Company: Argui-Films