L’École des Facteurs
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The
postman’s bicycle knows his rounds, |
To
the airport, to meet the mail plane.
Tati’s
bristled galoot, newly graduated from the P.T.T.’s
institut des hautes études.
A brilliant reel et demi with a
Keaton flurry at the finish.
jour de fête
Arrival in the
little town of the even littler carnival, which nevertheless brings news of the
outside world, the “rapidité” of the United States Postal Service, which
sets off a remake of L’École des Facteurs.
The film gets
drunk with François halfway through, at the height of the festivities.
Fellini is a
great beneficiary of this, Satyajit Ray borrowed the
old woman for Pather Panchali.
The soundtrack is
very fulsome, more than anybody’s.
“A poem is
a jour de fête in the
world’s eternity,” wrote Borges.
A film
universally praised and admired.
The “version couleur”
goes a long way toward redressing a misadventure, in color the film is fauve, that is to say wild.
Tati’s
affinity for les Britanniques
gives rise to something very like Spike Milligan or Monty Python’s Flying
Circus, his imperishable postman.
He knows better
than anyone how to regulate a film, for a hundred minutes he shows this. For
one second François back at the post office stops the film (“this is
starting to drag”) while he freshens up, then it’s off to the
punchline, “if it’s good news, it’ll keep” (Robert
Frost has his version, “Why hurry to tell Belshazzar
/ What soon enough he would know?”).
“With
him,” says Godard, “French neo-realism was born. Jour de Fête resembled Rome, Open City in inspiration.”
Les Vacances de
Monsieur Hulot
The great Keaton
went to France and did not come back emptyhanded, the
opening scene of holidaygoers and passing trains at
the depot proves it (with a bit of Mercier and Camier’s
mixup over the horaire).
From
Chaplin the loudspeaker and the horn on Hulot’s
rattletrap, etc. Something of Octave about him, somewhat in the Renoir genealogy, Boudu...
Les foules, a great study of the crowd, as Baudelaire has it
from Poe. Tati’s
strongest resemblance in this role is to Laughton as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (dir. William Dieterle), another great
study.
A technique
exactly akin to Ozu takes the measure of the scene with the camera quite still
for a moment on the tableau before it.
Hulot’s service, thrust and slam.
His riding crop and spurs are too much for the Hôtel
de la Plage, but it’s a matter of keeping the
salt water taffy from hitting the sand, merely. The Minister of State, “de quoi s’agit-il?”
Robbe-Grillet
takes up the continuous soundtrack. The refreshing and illuminating
fireworks-finale is a feature of Stevenson’s Mary Poppins.
“The
best French director of comedy since Max Linder” (Godard).
Bosley Crowther of the New
York Times would have lopped it off somewhat, “most of it is good,
fast, wholesome fun.” Variety, “a load of yocks.”
Halliwell’s Film Guide is of
two minds, Penelope Houston’s and the Monthly
Film Bulletin’s.
Mon Oncle
The subject is
very Baudelairean, it begins with “Les bons chiens” and ends
there as well. “Le soleil”
properly applied has the same effect as in the poem. “Paris change! mais rien
dans ma mélancolie n’a bougé!”
The nature of the
enemy, the enemy of mankind, the enemy of M. Hulot,
is Tati’s great discovery or invention here. M. et
Me. Arpel live in a fashion world more
severe than Versailles, he extrudes hoses in an endless stream of Plastac products, she administers the kitchen like a
clinic.
Outside of their
world is PARIS, nothing less. The natural hostility of Arpel
toward his brother-in-law is increased to rage by his son’s liking for Hulot. “What does he want to do, take my
place?”
The Baudelairean
position par excellence. Kafka’s Die Verwandlung
conveys the uncle off at the airport, where a certain joke is, in spite of all,
imparted to the wisdom of Arpel, whose brand-new
tricolor car is Baudelaire or Rimbaud pink-and-green and purple. Hulot is to be a traveling salesman for Plastac.
Workmen are busy dismantling the city right in front of the camera as Tati
films them at it.
“Quarter
after quarter the liquidation of the world goes on without interruption,
without distraction,” says René Char in the poem called “Common
presence”, and he continues with a word of counsel that certainly
explains something at the very least about Tati’s preternatural calm in
the face of complete disaster, well before the alarming and terrible histoire
of Play Time, at the summit of his art, headed him toward the ranks of
failure on the order of Rembrandt and Whistler, no less. “Swarm the
dust,” Hypnos concludes, “naught will
manifest your union.”
Baudelaire’s
own version of the little joke is told by him at some length in “Une mort héroïque”.
“Tati, like
Bresson, invents cinema as he makes a film,” says Truffaut, “he
rejects anyone else’s structures.”
Play Time
“Il faut être
absolument moderne.” Tati, heir of Chaplin (Modern
Times), Lang (Metropolis), Welles
(The Trial). The jour de fête theme in Schneller
(“time is money”), vieux copain from the Armée.
An exacerbation per
terribilità of Mon Oncle,
Paris is subsumed, gone without trace (cf.
Godard’s “Laviamoci il cervello” in Rogopag), but there are various monuments reflected à la The
Magnificent Ambersons, cities and whole nations have gone the way of La Ville Lumière...
A wealthy American is instrumental in the Liberation, but first blood to
M. Hulot.
The filming is very close in style to Hitchcock, from Torn Curtain and The Birds to North by
Northwest. Fellini is in evidence (and Keaton, of course). The conclusion
is reached along with Antonioni (L’Eclisse), streetlights that are
lilies-of-the-valley... and the next year, Blake Edwards filmed The Party.
It did not occur to critics that a point was in question,
therefore it was not even reported missing. Vincent Canby of the New York Times praised the film in spite
of that, in spite of everything, like Petruchio
he’d buckler it against a million,
“Jacques Tati’s most brilliant film, a bracing reminder in this all-too-lazy era that films can
occasionally achieve the status of art.” Variety, “funny and constantly inventive.” Desson Thomson (Washington
Post), “we can use as much sophistication as we can get.” Elliott
Stein (Village Voice), “the
tiniest plot ever filmed in 70mm.” Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times), “a
species already extinct at the moment of its birth.” TV Guide,
“Tati’s most ambitious and costly film.” Dave Calhoun (Time Out), “genius.” Ronald Bergan (Radio Times),
“left him virtually broke. No wonder.”
Peter Bradshaw (Guardian),
“fascinating, flawed”. Halliwell’s Film Guide, “needs
control,” citing Stanley Kauffmann of The
New Republic, “Tati still seems the wrong distance from his
audience,” and Brenda Davies of the Monthly
Film Bulletin, “how sad”.
The glory of the
French cinema is reduced by numérisation to a runny blue cheese, not M. Hulot but Mr. Smith. That is particularly galling for a
contemporary of Fellini, Jerry Lewis, Hitchcock of the cameo surprise, and
Buñuel. Above all else, it’s ironic that Tati should be the butt.
Capra’s Meet
John Doe janitor and Kienholz’s The Art
Show are perhaps explained in this latter representation of the work by
Resnais’ Mon oncle d’Amérique,
some way or other, after some fashion of a kind.
Trafic
The
moon and turnpikes. You can get
there from here, M. Hulot’s camping-car has
twin beds and a small television that swivels over to show the moon landings,
there’s a very efficient factory turning out cars all day long for a
drive where you please, but human frailty being what it is, you can’t get
the Altra camping-car to the Amsterdam International
Auto Show in time, what with breakdowns and running out of gas and great
nose-picking traffic jams.
The belle of the
ball is a spiffy public relations gal for Altra, she
too shares the roadway’s dream and danger, M. Hulot
lands on the moon in rainy Amsterdam and walks off with her (avoiding the trap
of mass transit) through a maze of stationary automobiles.
Parade
Rimbaud, “j’ai seul...”
Tati in Stockholm, where they hand out the prizes.
Spectators who are a troupe of wandering players, clowns, gypsies in bright
habiliments (cf. Lindsay-Hogg’s
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus).
Vigo’s audience of authorities (Zéro de Conduite).
“In
improvised costumes...”
“Sports
of all sorts.” Circus of
roustabout-saltimbanques,
Calder’s celebrated circus.
Around the ring
the circus rider runs... Goya’s mule, that can’t be rode or throwed save be one only...
Intermission,
when fruit juice spouts from the barman’s head...
Antonioni’s
Blowup with contortionist photog... Fellini-number with orchestra... you are on my foot... Maurice Chevalier
and Jerry Lewis combined in “No Age for Rhythm”, with a bit of the
television camera on its crane (Gunnar Fischer and
Jean Badal directors of photography).
L’après-show, Sousa’s
Liberty Bell.
Roger
Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times),
“slow, offhand and meandering, and not Tati at his best.” Time Out, “an eccentric slice of light entertainment”.
Film4, “not
up to much.” Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader) “a far greater achievement than most accounts
would lead you to expect.” Catholic News Service Media Review Office,
“genial family fun.” Hal Erickson (All Movie Guide), “fascinating but
monotonous”. Halliwell’s
Film Guide, “pleasant, sometimes boring”, citing the Monthly Film Bulletin, “curious,
unresolved”, as well as Sight and
Sound, “moments... and flashes”.
Forza Bastia 78, ou L’île en fête
A Corsican team
goes to the European Cup final, faces inclement weather and loses to the Dutch.
This is not a comedy but a documentary filmed by Tati and assembled by Sophie Tatischeff. Brilliantly comic in any
event, and for all that providentially satirical.
The fans are
ecstatic, parading around town. The muddy field is laboriously sopped. The
first game is a scoreless tie. After the second, also held at night (a player
limps off the field), quiet. The litter of the seats next
day, “Una antra
matina”.
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All the rumor anguished sore Still to reckon loss persists Snow accumulates in drifts Upon these empty spaces Winter’s stubbornly galore Sharpening its knives Our feasting is no more In this empty speechifying But Monte Cintu wears a
crown anew of another dawn |