Jacques Tati/Play Time

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.

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.

yes, this is how i relate to play time, as a beautiful exercise in obsessive patterning and yes, linked to antonioni in the way that both he, and the tati of play time, are much more interested in the images/sensations that happen when you juxtapose bodies and buildings, than in the psychological 'depth' of their characters. at one level, play time is sublimely relaxing, like watching the tide going in and out - until you think abt the monomania of the creator behind it, abt the way such regulated perfectionism is just another word for...

as for his other films, i want to live in the modernist house in mon oncle, and adore the way that the richly colourful cinematography captures the topography of post-war paris - would be sweet to see these films MAPPED, literally.

i tend to have a rather romantic attachment to films where groups of people stay up all night, and playtime does this in such a wonderful and different way

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.

Priceless

r u mocking me

Nope. Completely sincere. Playtime's up there with His Girl Friday and, I dunno, The Red Shoes for me.

good good (ps i couldnt reply to the web thingy)

http://issuu.com/interiorsjournal/docs/interiors0912

having issuus w/their format, ugh

would kill to see this in the cinema :(

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 3 September 2012 07:58 (3 months ago) Permalink

they played this on sunday at the white cube in bermondsey but i missed it :(

shows again in NYC end of month

...hence I'm seeing in an hour

70mm?

yup

Walking the streets around Lincoln Center afterward -- tourists taking pictures, pedestrians crossing in front of buses, everybody seemed to have stepped out of the film. This happens every time; the movie turns urban life into Tativille.

yep -- that's why it's so magical. one of the few movies that seems to merit the word.

great Momus posts up there in 2003 btw.

i always thought it impossibly sad that old people don't fit in the future;

― cozen¡ (Cozen), Tuesday, December 30, 2003 2:19 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

need to give this line its props 8 years after it was written

the Self-Styled Siren saw Playtime in December with her mom, and links to a Brit journalist who worked on the English dialogue (and gags) before Art Buchwald:

http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-i-watched-with-my-mother-good-ones.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/jul/23/features.peterlennon

Bought Play Time (on Blu-Ray) late last year on the strength of this fine thread, having never been attracted to it before and it's amazing (of course)

man i feel like watching this again in a theater. why can't there be a theater in every town that just shows this every year.

otm

tati had wanted a theater in paris that would show this every day forever

that would wear a lot of pricey 70mm prints

this movie really doesn't make much sense on a small screen; wonder if it's ever had any TV broadcasts?

when i created this thread ten years ago this film seemed like an obscurity with a small but fervent cult, but it seems to be everywhere now! made a strong showing in 2012 sight& sound poll, and is a criterion/BFI best-seller.