Francois Truffaut's film classic, "The 400 Blows," can provide artistic material for English teachers who wish to design a unit on the individual and society, on alienation, or on growing up. In the film, a powerful image of the terrifying isolation that the adolescent, Doinel, experiences is presented through repeated camera shots of symbolic barriers in his environment--his cramped and cluttered apartment-home, the drab decay and gloom of the inner city, the selfish preoccupation of his teacher and parents, and, finally, the immense and impersonal ocean. To help students understand this film as art, such questions can be discussed as--(1) how natural background-effects, camera angles, and film sequences establish the sense of Doinel's environment, (2) how images and symbols heighten the effect of the boy's complete isolation, and (3) how the boy's world is brought into sharp conflict with the adult world. (JB)