
Jacques Tati: Things Fall Together
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November 04, 2014In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag. Read more »
Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PlayTime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the lovably old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a baffling modern world, this time Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, PlayTime is a lasting record of a modern era tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion.
Monsieur Hulot | Jacques Tati |
Young tourist | Barbara Dennek |
Monsieur Giffard | Georges Montant |
Woman selling eyeglasses | France Rumilly |
German businessman | Reinhart Kolldehoff |
Restaurant manager | André Fouché |
Mr. Schultz | Billy Kearns |
Hulot’s friend | Yves Barsacq |
Singer | Nicole Ray |
Director | Jacques Tati |
Cinematography | Jean Badal and Andréas Winding |
Screenplay | Jacques Tati and Jacques Lagrange |
English dialogue | Art Buchwald |
Music | James Campbell and Francis Lemarque |
Editor | Gérard Pollicand |
Production design | Eugène Roman |
Sound | Jacques Maumont |
By
November 04, 2014In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag. Read more »
By
October 30, 2014Tati’s witty visual comedy also functioned as satire of a rapidly modernizing postwar France. Read more »
By
October 28, 2014What you hear is as crucial—and as funny—as what you see in Tati’s films. Read more »
By
October 27, 2014Though he emerged from established stage and screen comedy traditions, Tati invented a completely new filmic language. Read more »
By
December 02, 2010Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1968) opens in a shiny space: nuns breeze past; a woman in a white uniform clacks through, bearing towels; a baby cries. People wait. The feeling is “hospital.” A second . . . Read more »
By
August 18, 2009I suppose it could be argued that I saw Playtime for the first time in ideal circumstances—as an American tourist in Paris. Yet to argue this would mean overlooking the film’s suggestion that, . . . Read more »
By
April 22, 2009Some of you might have seen the news item on our website regarding the Jacques Tati “centennial-plus” and the exhibits around Paris paying homage to the inventive filmmaker. I had the good . . . Read more »
By
June 03, 2001After the success of Mon Oncle in 1958, Jacques Tati had become fed up with Monsieur Hulot, his signature comic creation. With international renown came a growing dissatisfaction with . . . Read more »
By
November 04, 2014In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag. Read more »
By
October 30, 2014Tati’s witty visual comedy also functioned as satire of a rapidly modernizing postwar France. Read more »
By
October 28, 2014What you hear is as crucial—and as funny—as what you see in Tati’s films. Read more »
By
October 27, 2014Though he emerged from established stage and screen comedy traditions, Tati invented a completely new filmic language. Read more »
By
August 18, 2009I suppose it could be argued that I saw Playtime for the first time in ideal circumstances—as an American tourist in Paris. Yet to argue this would mean overlooking the film’s suggestion that, . . . Read more »
By
June 03, 2001After the success of Mon Oncle in 1958, Jacques Tati had become fed up with Monsieur Hulot, his signature comic creation. With international renown came a growing dissatisfaction with . . . Read more »
December 02, 2016
Pedro Almodóvar is everywhere! Coinciding with the release of his latest film, Julieta, and a career retrospective now playing at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Yorker’s in-depth profile on . . . Read more »
By
November 04, 2014In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag. Read more »
By
October 30, 2014Tati’s witty visual comedy also functioned as satire of a rapidly modernizing postwar France. Read more »
By
October 28, 2014What you hear is as crucial—and as funny—as what you see in Tati’s films. Read more »
By
October 27, 2014Though he emerged from established stage and screen comedy traditions, Tati invented a completely new filmic language. Read more »
By
October 23, 2014The author recalls meeting the filmmaker in a Swedish hotel in the ’70s. Read more »
By
December 02, 2010Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1968) opens in a shiny space: nuns breeze past; a woman in a white uniform clacks through, bearing towels; a baby cries. People wait. The feeling is “hospital.” A second . . . Read more »
April 27, 2010
French animator Sylvain Chomet, whose idiosyncratic, elegant, hand-drawn style and quirky approach to narrative were introduced to American viewers in 2003’s The Triplets of Belleville, is . . . Read more »
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August 18, 2009I suppose it could be argued that I saw Playtime for the first time in ideal circumstances—as an American tourist in Paris. Yet to argue this would mean overlooking the film’s suggestion that, . . . Read more »
June 10, 2009
There’s a cornucopia for Tati fans over at Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell’s blog, Observations on Film Art and Film Art. In a new entry, Thompson spotlights painter Jacques Lagrange, a . . . Read more »
By
April 22, 2009Some of you might have seen the news item on our website regarding the Jacques Tati “centennial-plus” and the exhibits around Paris paying homage to the inventive filmmaker. I had the good . . . Read more »
By
June 03, 2001After the success of Mon Oncle in 1958, Jacques Tati had become fed up with Monsieur Hulot, his signature comic creation. With international renown came a growing dissatisfaction with . . . Read more »