The 400 Blows, directed by Francois Truffaut, is a defining film of the French New Wave. The story throughout The 400 blows shows the events of Truffaut’s own childhood through the portrayal of Antoine Doinel experiencing a very close version of Truffaut’s own childhood. The recreation of ones own life through film creates the feeling of an autobiography and this technique is given the specific name, Camera-stylo, which means to create a film that expresses the filmmaker as if they have a pen and from that pen flows the emotion of the filmmaker creating the film itself. This technique is extremely personal to the director themselves and as such, every director using Camera-stylo has their own ecriture, which can be thought of the individualized pen the director uses to express their emotions throughout the film. The French new wave is very well known for having very realistic scenes by using non-actors and the use of long takes. A long take is when the filmmaker uses a scene that is one long continuous scene, such as Antoine running away from the boarding school. The 400 blows capture both of these principles perfectly through the use of a regular high school student as the lead and then having several long takes throughout the film. The 400 blows truly define the French new wave through Truffaut’s excellent use of Camera-stylo to show the emotions of his own childhood and Truffaut’s abiding nature to the principles of the French new wave through use of non-actors and long takes.