Banned by the French censors until 1946 for its purportedly malicious attack on the French educational system, Zero for Conduct is certainly one of the masterpieces of the French cinema. Drawn from Vigo’s own childhood experiences, the film is situated at a dreadful boarding school in a Paris suburb. Fed up by the petty restrictions imposed on them, four schoolboys organize a revolt. With its blend of poetry and realism, its psychological depth, and its profound sense of anarchy, Zero for Conduct has exerted—and continues to exert—its influence on many directors, from François Truffaut and Lindsay Anderson to Philippe Garrel and Leos Carax. One of only four films made during Vigo’s brief career (he died of leukemia at age twenty-nine), Zero for Conduct remains one of the great subversive works of the cinema, an eloquent parable of freedom versus authority.