Michel's quest for Patricia is presented as a race against time hampered by the Paris police. Police forces are, of course, particular to modernity, and the use of one as the main factor in keeping them apart implies that they are facing the indifference of modernity itself. At one point Inspector Vital remarks, "Don"t fool around with Paris police.' The police, therefore, represent Paris and modernity simultaneously: both are active participants in maintaining Michel and Patricia's solitude. Consequently, they never do find each other.
Les Quatre-Cents Coups (1959) deals with the solitude morale of Antoine Doinel. Antoine is painfully aware that he is the result of an unwanted pregnancy and that his mother wanted to abort him (as he announces to the psychologist). His real father is absent, and Antoine lives with his stepfather, who has little sympathy for him. Never overtly stated there is an evident yearning on behalf of Antoine to know his real father and therefore understand himself better: 'Where is the father?' a pupil is required to ask during an English lesson.
Faced with the indifference of his parents, Antoine resorts to stealing "as a gesture of hope on the part of a child who feels he or she has been deprived of the love to which he or she was inalienably entitled."5 This attempt at escaping his solitude actually strengthens it: the theft of the typewriter is plotted inside a children's' puppet-show. The bizarre juxtaposition reflects Antoine's distance from innocent childhood.6 His delinquent behavior isolates him from his family, society, and from the mini-society of the classroom7 (he is forced to stand behind the board and is left behind during break). Antoine's Paris becomes a prison that prevents him from escaping his solitude.
Playground/Anonymity
A favored device is the portrayal of Paris as a playground. This appears to contradict the prison theme, but in fact the duality is made inevitable by a necessary condition of the solitude found in the city. These characters, marginalized by society and greeted with indifference, acquire an anonymity that allows them a certain freedom. The claustrophobia induced by the restricted camera movement and prevalent close-ups in Antoine's flat is contrasted to the freedom of the streets. It has been argued that the exuberant tracking shots in these exterior scenes portray the streets of Paris as a haven where Antoine is free to roam and play, reveling in his anonymity. Even the meeting with his mother has surprisingly few consequences, and anonymity is scarcely disturbed because "She too is an imprisoned child who longs to roam the streets of Paris with her lover."8
Antoine's freedom allows him to perform several thefts which are never discovered (the cinema poster and milk bottle). No one on the streets ever actually accosts him for his truancy. It is true that Paris is largely a playground where Antoine is "a child free to roam, play and explore."9 This is emphasized by the disparity in his behavior inside and out: at home he is submissive, in the streets he acquires a "swaggering demeanor"10, indicating that here he is free to be himself.
For Jules et Jim Paris has a similar function. The two friends encounter an intriguing statue on an island and resolve to find its human likeness. The fact that they return to Paris to accomplish this indicates that they see it as a Promised Land where everything is possible. Their placid existence in Bohemian circles of Paris, represented by the endless array of cafés and women, recalls Les Quatre-Cents Coups. For Jules and Jim Paris is an adult's playground just as it was for Madame Doinel.
Furthermore, Jules and Jim are denizens of Parisian Avant-garde culture - they attend plays, write novels, quote Baudelaire etc. This marks them as being compliant with modernity, since it was modern life and urbanity that gave rise to this cultural condition. In contrast, Catherine is, in Jules' words, "a force of nature, a cataclysm." That they believe she is at odds with Avant-garde culture and modernity is evident when Jules uses them to deride her. Quoting Baudelaire he says, "Scarecrow, monster, enemy of art . . ." In other words, Paris is for Jules and Jim an Avant-garde paradise. Because Catherine is presented as someone insensible to the values of Avant-garde culture, she also rejects the city, insisting that they leave for a rural environment: "Let"s go to the seaside. We leave tomorrow.'
The Paris of A bout de souffle offers freedom, via anonymity, to Michel. He is an even more prolific thief than Antoine and his thefts have no repercussions (it is the murder that destroys his anonymity). Paris is also a land of opportunity for him. Although his goal is to leave for Rome, everything he really needs is in Paris: his primary concern is to find Patricia and the money owed him by Tolmatchoff.
