Jacques Tati/Play Time

Please, is name-calling necessary :'(

artist ppl like is kind of an asshole, film at 11

So nobody finds it interesting at all? I'm not saying he needs to be raked over the coals, just that it's an interesting story. I don't think anyone on here would claim that the details of Roman Polanski's life aren't worth knowing because, hey, artists are assholes - y'know?

Hey, it's Tati's birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_92Cm8gl7Ls&feature=share

With his films, I pretty much watch the backgrounds the whole time.

http://patrixurban.tumblr.com/post/27772525541/iznogoodgood-jacques-tati-marlon-brando-on

both doormen (the one with the buzzers and the one with the detached handle) kill me

the one with the buzzers = one of my favorite moments in the movies, ever.

funny thing is i was expecting a chekhov-style gun-firing what with the amount of time they lingered on the buzzers. but no - only once!

This was such an ordeal for me. Glad I saw it in a theatre--it would have taken me a week to get through it at home.

I would happily watch this film over and over for a week, oh for the spare time to accomplish this project

I know people love it--not trying to provoke anyone. I just didn't get it; didn't laugh once. I was prepared for what I knew would be a droll/whimsical tone, but even on that level, I didn't find it remotely funny. (I thought of a scene in The Graduate at one point, which was also '67: the part where Hoffman's left holding the door for half the wedding party. To me, that's much funnier than anything here.) And the Hulot character annoyed me intensely. I wasn't sure...of anything--who he was, why he was there, why he never talked (until all of a sudden, for no reason that I could tell, he did). I don't mean to be cruel, but I find Hoffman in Rain Man funnier. I got the doing-battle-with-modernity theme, and I guess that's kind of interesting, and I liked some of the cinematography, and found the main woman very attractive. But I won't be working backwards to the earlier films.

clears the decks for paul ryan interviews

(I thought of a scene in The Graduate at one point, which was also '67: the part where Hoffman's left holding the door for half the wedding party. To me, that's much funnier than anything here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKY0FsUEMyw

If I like something, or don't like something, I try to explain why in a fairly straightforward manner. If either of you guys would care to do the same, like other people do upthread, that'd be great. Otherwise, I don't know how to respond.

I guess, as with Keaton, Tati is more about astonishment than laughter to me.

yeah, your post makes it sound like you came into it looking for "laffs"; recipe for disappointment imo

would kill to see this in the cinema :(

same! every few months i google it to see if theres a screening coming up, never any luck

to be fair there IS something strange and imo verging on creepy about hulot; he is someone who has wilfully stunted himself, refused to enter the world of adulthood (yet smokes a pipe!); he seems to want to inhabit the sort of character built by chaplin but doesn't have the weightlessness of chaplin, or the grace, which reinforces the overt message of a man out of sync with the world with another message: that he is even out of sync with himself, of the inevitability of adulthood.

clemenza i think often we like or don't like things based on their entry vectors into an existing grid of expectations. this movie in particular has been lionized to such an extent that i don't blame you at all for having a bit of an arms-folded, "ok, impress me" POV when you sat down to watch it. though i think few films can stand up to this sort of expectation, this one does particularly poorly by most metrics. it drags in the middle and at the end. for a "funny" movie it has precious few belly laughs. it is so completely its own animal. for me, one of the things i value about it is that it requires me to do work that ends up being pleasurable - work to clear my own preconceptions of what sorts of things movies should do, work to notice background details, work to pay attention to the soundtrack; but all this work may be dipped into and out of, a bit like a baseball game where you can just let your mind drift for awhile, taking in ancillary sights and sounds and only snapping focus onto the main action when the crowd yells.

If I like something, or don't like something, I try to explain why in a fairly straightforward manner.

Basic.

it's not the expectation of funniness that's the problem w/r/t tati and particularly this film. whether i sat down expecting to be impressed or expecting to laugh i'd just wind up, as i always do with him, as a tight little ball of anxiety expanding to pure hatred until the point where i just have to switch it off because it's no good for me. i wouldn't expect it to be funny but it's so completely the opposite of funny to me. if this is proof that it's working then fine but i'll keep it as far away from me as i can.

I also had a poor experience of Tati's supposed masterpiece.

I went to see Playtime after a long absence from my local multiplex, a six-screener. I was disconcerted, upon arrival, to find that the place had been subdivided even further. From the escalator I could see individual viewing cabins, open-topped, stretching to the horizon, all painted the same shade of grey. Each one was occupied by a single viewer watching a single film via a head-mounted audio-visual apparatus.

Wandering around the premises with my umbrella in hand and my hat and coat still on, I was able to observe a peculiar charade taking place. No sooner was a viewer led to a vacant cubicle by a grey-suited hostess (more like an air hostess than a cinema usherette) and fitted with a helmet than a second occupant was surreptitiously ushered in, a typist or junior clerk who sat at a desk beside the oblivious viewer, making telephone calls or typing. It would seem that the cinema business, in itself, was considered by the new Anglo-American management an insufficient source of revenue.

I was soon apprehended by one of the hostesses, who asked me what film I was here to see, then led me to my own cubicle, which was number 12,346. The air-conditioning in this unit was overwhelmingly loud, making the hostess' instructions to me completely inaudible. She had to demonstrate the use of seat-belt, tray table and visor in a kind of dumb-show, by the end of which I had changed my mind about the whole thing. I escaped while her head was buried in the helmet, pausing only to indicate the cubicle to the typist waiting outside.

I now became lost in the featureless warren of grey corridors, punctuated only by sleek security cameras which craned to follow my movements. Since the floor was slippery as ice, these became increasingly erratic, and I found myself slithering around, completely out of control. Yet no matter where I slithered, the security cameras craned their necks to watch, like a flock of storks choreographed by Busby Berkeley.

It was suddenly very silent in the multiplex, and I became conscious -- slumped on the ground -- of three sounds: the ticking of my watch, the beating of my heart, and the sound of the ripping skin of the banana I had produced from my inside pocket and now began to eat. These sounds were so loud that several booth doors opened and angry customers gesticulated at me, waving me away. I waved back in greeting, only to find strong metallic hands gripping my wrists.

A couple of apelike robots escorted me to the emergency fire exit and threw me out onto the helipad (so shiny I could see the Eiffel Tower reflected in it), where a jazz band was playing furiously, welcoming a VIP just then touching down in a helicopter.

"I came here to see some Jacques Tati," I mimed to the tuba player, who was playing a deafening series of farting noises, "but this place isn't what it used to be".

"But have you seen Playtime?" the brass-player mimed back over the din of the arriving helicopter. "It's a brilliant deconstruction of 20th century Taylorist rationality, juxtaposing the modernity of Max Weber's worst nightmares with 70mm vaudeville routines. Great sound design, too!"

The helicopter door opened and Charles de Gaulle himself popped his head out. "Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution," he mimed over the din. "We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry her to these times. Are you coming with me?"

I shook my head. "No, Monsieur le President," I mimed. "I'm going..." And I looked around and saw, amongst the cubic office blocks, a windmill. "I'm going to that windmill. That's my France!"

"That's the Moulin Rouge," smiled de Gaulle. "That's where I'm going too. Hop in!"

A+

Tracer Hand: appreciate that you took the time to explain why you love this.

As I say, I had a pretty good idea of what the film's tone would be; I really didn't go into it expecting to laugh out loud (which I don't do all that often at films anyway). The humour in Bill Forsyth's Comfort and Joy operates in the same general sphere, and that I love. I'm not always laughing, but I smile from start to finish--in astonishment, if you will, at how perfect it is. The expectations were there a bit, and that is a problem, but really only as a result of its high finish in the recent S&S poll--I'd been skipping Tati films for 30 years, based upon, as I said in another thread, the sense that he wasn't for me. So unlike other films, I hadn't been waiting forever to see it; more like piqued interest for about two months.

There were 10,000 little bits of business in this. I wasn't astonished, just worn out. I don't know if that requires much analysis beyond the most basic truism of all: humour is a very subjective thing.

well again, i'd say as "humour" it will fail you, there's a huge sadness to it as well. a sadness that verges on condescending at times.

grampsy!! that is tremendous!!!!!

are you Boris Vian????

The sadness didn't come across for me; not in the way that is always does with Chaplin and Keaton. I don't know about putting humour off to the side, though...if you do, it seems like you're left with an extremely elaborate contraption in the service of a rather basic theme. I thought the main appeal of Play Time--besides its back story, which I find interesting but irrelevant to my own experience of the film--was that it treated the idea of grappling with modernity in a humorous way, thus avoiding the trap of pretension that other films addressing the same theme can fall into.

I would repeat the truism (likely quoted above -- Rosenbaum?) that yr experience of this film will be different if you sit elsewhere in the theater.

The first thing I'd do is move away from the couple to my left, who periodically talked, and away from the guy behind me, who laughed at everything for the first third (but not as much after that). I don't think so, though. One day, down the road a few years, I may try it again at home, keeping in mind that the humour is secondary.

the humour is secondary

It's not, really, despite what the movie's fans try to desperately tell non-converts.

Anyway, snark aside, I wasn't taking exception to your dismissal of the movie as much as I was poking fun at your comparing it unfavorably to The Graduate, of all things. Self-parody?

hmm yeah i'm not saying the humor is secondary, but that i don't think you have to share tati's sense of humor to like the movie. not explaining this well, i realize.

Well, I was comparing it unfavorably to one specific scene, Hoffman standing there holding open the door as one person after another files through, that was very similar in tone to the Tati film (and even similar to very specific scenes, like the woman being interrupted by one person after another as she tries to take the picture at the flower stand). Seemed like a very apt comparison. (xpost)

This is one film I p much will not watch at home.

There seem to me to be lots of affinities between Play Time and The Graduate, especially in the dopey impassivity of their central characters, further underscored by the coincidence of them being released in the same year. I was curious if a search would turn up anything; not much that I can see, other than lots of people putting them both on ten bests for that year, but I found this 1968 review:

http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/16th-august-1968/6/1----freda-bruce-lockhart-ta-fillip-from-two-smart

I can relate to clemenza's reaction -- I started this a few months ago and turned it off about 1/3 through.

's OK. I won't harp on it anymore. That you can only see all other movies through the lens of American filmmaking c. 1967-1977 is well documented.

That Grampsy post! holy smokes!

playtime is probably all-time top 10 for me

That's my frame of reference, yes--why that seems so odd to you is beyond me. Most people, I think have one--a frame of reference, that is. That I "can only see" things through that window makes about as much sense as me saying you judge everything against Showgirls.

The difference is if you said that, it would be untrue.

Jeez...easy there, Killer.

Hulot is not even of the same species of character as Ben Braddock.

I tend to focus on similarities where other people focus on differences. I talked about this on another thread--I think that's just a difference in how you see things. (I.e., I'm aware of obvious differences between the characters, but I also see points of similarity.)

jesus he compared it to ONE SCENE in a movie that is playtime's contemporary

You're right, clemenza has never before out of the blue brought some mid-period Bob Rafelson movie into some random horror movie conversation, or speculated about whether Mean Streets counts as a musical.

Reductio ad absurdum, right? Or, as you would have it, untrue, at least as applied to those two examples. I did bring up Taxi Driver in both the horror and comedy polls, and I don't think that's particularly outlandish--it's that kind of film.

it's interesting that you had similar responses to this film and to 'l'avventura,' clemenza, because i think of them as being very similar films. they're both films i love to look at, that take me out of myself, and that move at a pace that i wouldn't typically enjoy in a movie. they're both basically visual -- not narrative -- experiences, and thus are pretty much automatically going to hit you as 'boring' if you go into the theater expecting anything but. i think of them both as being deeply mysterious films, but where 'l'avventura' sort of demands that you fill in the blanks yourself, 'playtime' is a completely self-contained object, like a faberge egg or a joseph cornell box. it's there for you to look at and enjoy. maybe there are people who find it hilariously funny, but i usually just smile through most of it. i like a thousand films with real stories and real characters, but 'playtime' reminds me that the real world is more mysterious, fascinating, and hilarious than any movie.

i'm working on how to explain why this is one of my favourite films. it's simply unlike anything else. i can't even deal with any of tati's other stuff. but this one is special... almost a whole other kind of movie, one without protagonists or dialogue as we know it... it's a film about the crowd, about groups of people. and the way time passes in it, from day to evening to night to dawn, is just sublime.

i can't even deal with any of tati's other stuff. but this one is special.

^^^ this

I dunno. I thought Parade had its fair share of graceful moments.

c'mon the pail in the water, in hulot's holiday!! i still don't know how he did it! one of his few successful purely chaplinesque moments imo

Nice posts, J.D. and slocki. Irrationally, you do make me want to try again soon.

There are many films I love that, in broad outline (and at least to my eyes), fit your descriptions of Play Time. I’m not at all averse to slow and contemplative, especially as I get older--when I was 20, different story. I like L’eclisse, was very attentive through Satantango recently, so on and so forth. And as I watched Play Time, I always felt like I was aware of the effects and the little touches that I was supposed to be responding to. I simply didn’t. I’m just going to put it down to being one of those unusual films that some will connect with and some won’t. It sounds like jed and WmC had experiences similar to mine.