Playtime (1967)
Controlled chaos is Jacques Tati's
milieu. Perhaps that is why his cinematic character,
Monsieur Hulot, is so beloved. Tati creates the most
chaotic world imaginable, one teetering just this
side of total collapse and interjects the unflappable,
unaware and utterly delightful Hulot into this whirlwind
to act as the eye of the storm. The beauty of Hulot
is that, unlike Jerry Lewis or Buster Keaton or Laurel
and Hardy or the bumbling Inspector Clouseau (a French
character played by a Brit), the chaos never collapses
the scene. The joke here isn't that Hulot is unaware
that the world is about to collapse; the joke is that
were all unaware of it and somehow, magically, it
never does quite collapse. Tati's world isn't one
of failure but one where we magically survive in spite
of the obvious doom and peril that awaits us at every
step. In this way, he's a bit more like Mr. Bean than
Clouseau.
Let's face it, if we had to work
in an office with Jerry Lewis, we'd be pulling our
hair out. If we had to work in one with Tati, we'd
be consistently delighted and charmed even though
the destruction would be relatively the same. If you're
looking for slapstick, you won't find it here. This
is a subtle world of delightful, a universe full of
blink-and- you'll-miss-it sight gags that are always
clever, witty and amazingly constructed. This is a
world that is a reflection of our own with just a
hint of whimsy thrown in to remind us of just how
wonderful the world can be if we don't take ourselves
to seriously.
Tati's Hulot is lost in Paris in
"Playtime." He spends the first hour of the film lost
in the mechanical and modern trappings of office life.
He spends the second in a newly opened restaurant
in a segment that is simply one of the most ingenious
and amusing sequences ever to grace the silver screen.
Tati, like the sublime Chaplin before him, skewers
modern life and modern technology with a keen eye
and a biting wit. Unleashed in the spotless, glazed
monotony of modern Paris life (circa 1967), Tati shows
us the confusion and chaos that can result from such
trappings. This world, all shimmering stainless steel
and spotless clear glass, is as relentless and as
unforgiving as the American frontier (circa 1767).
Tati's jest is that man has subjugated himself to
fashion and technology in a way that makes him its
slave much as the frontiersman was slave to the terrain
and the elements. In moving indoors and becoming civilized,
we have nonetheless created are own jungles and forests
with technology, fashion, culture and architecture.
The second part of the film shows
us even more of the cracks in our modern facade. When
the staff of a very ritzy and modern restaurant open
with the space barely clear of workmen and electricians.
It is a comic masterpiece of exquisite timing and
embodies even more perfectly sublime humor. Tati reminds
us that even in our leisure, the world is a teetering
mess nearing chaos at each moment. Tati is brilliant
at skewering modern technology as he proves in the
film's opening but in the second half of the film,
he proves once again that he is sublime at presenting
a glorious satire of our leisure time. It is here
that the film has much more in common with its originator,
"Monsieur Hulot's Holiday." I don't think any comedian
ever made so much pointed social commentary in a single
movie. Tati creates the pinnacle, the ultimate in
leisure comedy in less than half of his film, in less
than an hour.
Film in 70mm, "Playtime" is one
of the most beautiful and awesome visual films ever
created. There is so much going on in every single
frame of the film that it is astounding at times.
Each half of the film is decidedly different with
the first being sparse and grandiose and the second
being jam- packed and claustrophobic. The images of
modern urban life and modern office existence in the
opening segment are filmed with such care and beauty
that they become high art. Tati understood the frame
perhaps better than any one of his contemporaries
and "Playtime" is the ultimate proof of this. His
opening images are arid, expansive, crystalline, metallic
and linear. One only needs to watch 30 seconds of
the film to understand why Tati filmed it in 70mm.
The flickering huge frames, twice as big as 35mm and
flittering through the film gate at 24 glorious snapshots
per second, give the most precise and lush images
imaginable. Tati wastes not a single frame. His images
are glorious, especially in this opening.
Tati uses sets, locales, costumes,
and actors perfectly here. Everything is mapped out
perfectly by the master. At times the images can seem
mathematical in their preciseness. But that is exactly
Tati's point. In his effort to underscore the monotony
of the modern technological world, with its mathematical
precision and its bland s.a.m.e.n.e.s.s. Tati must
present a world of such uniformity that only the chaos
that swirls around his Hulot can abate it, even for
a moment. Hulot's whirlwind eruptions of pandemonium
barely cause a ripple in these large expanses of glass
and steel but we see them nonetheless. To make them
debacle, to make them spectacle would ruin every ounce
of charm they contain and relegate them to the level
of slapstick, the level of the expected. Tati is far
more wondrous than that. Surpassing expectations,
his comedy rises to the level of sublime ingenuity.
Tati may be presenting a world of
linear precision and perfect uniformity, but he does
not do it with a harsh eye. His images of magnificent
steel skyscrapers and vast expanses of glass may permeate
the world that he presents but his loving eye allows
us to see the beauty of such images, if only for their
uniformity and unceasing rigidity. Tati may seem to
present a sharp scolding of this life-style by including
mannequins and cardboard cut-outs to act as "extras"
in the film but this should not be confused as indictment.
This sameness, this interchangeable world he creates
is not one of meaninglessness. Rather, it is a world
of freedom where, like Hulot, we must see what is
around us to appreciate and then reject it. Tati's
Hulot is not stymied nor depressed by such modernity
but, instead, simply delightful bemused by it all.
He is separate from it but his separation does not
demand that we (or his mannequins) detach from it
ourselves. In this way the film becomes a joyous celebration
of uniqueness rather than a harsh rebuking of uniformity.
In the second hour of the film,
the restaurant sequence, Tati veers in his use of
the frame to present not the vast expanse of modern
existence but rather the cramped bedlam of modern
urban gatherings. Here, as in Chaplin's "Modern Times"
(a film that will come to mind more than once while
viewing "Playtime"), Tati moves from the "work" world
into the "real" world and exposes the same comic possibilities
are within each. Here the cracks in the shimmering
facade of modernity are more obvious. Again, unlike
Chaplin or Keaton, who continually cause the chaos
when they innocently inject themselves into the real
world, Tati is simply here to act as the calm in the
eye of the storm. He is not even observer, but rather
blatantly unaware of just how close to the edge everything
is teetering. Sure, Tati's Hulot may inadvertently
cause some things to unravel more quickly by his presence
but things were already in danger of coming undone
before he got here. In this, the film's second and
equally precise sequence, Tati stuffs the frame with
more gags per frame than we could possibly decipher
in seven viewings or more. There is more going on
in this single hour of film then there are in all
of the Jerry Lewis movies ever released.
I feel sorry for anyone who has
had to see this movie in 35mm or, God forbid, on video
on a TV screen. I was lucky enough to see a remastered
70mm print rerelease that screened at the Paramount
Theater here in Austin in the summer of 2004. What
a wonderful event!
I've used the phrase "visual feast"
many times in reviews. I've heard other reviewers
and film savants use the term as well. We didn't know
what we were talking about. "Playtime" is truly a
visual feast, a loving buffet of modern images (that
are still quite relevant in 2004) and a frothy dessert
of urban clustering that reminds us of just how joyously
unpredictable life can be.
Playtime, work time, leisure time,
dinner time, lifetime... In the universe of Tati,
they are one and the same.
Notes:
Also with Barbara Denneck.
Filmed in Paris.
Art Buchwald wrote some of the additional
English looping and dialogue. Tati's film is nearly
silent except for incidental sounds and dialogue.
M. Hulot first appeared in "Monsieur
Hulot's Holiday" (Les vancances de M. Hulot) in 1953,
then in the Oscar Winning "Mon Uncle" in 1958. His
last appearance was in "Traffic" in 1972.
The version I saw was a 126 minutes
restoration print. This is the cut Tati considered
proper for commercial release. Tati's original cut,
seen in a few places, ran a little longer, about 155,
but some of the footage is now lost as it was cut
considerably in its initial American release (93 minutes).
The film was not a financial success although most
critics hail it as a masterpiece.
The restored 70mm print debuted
at Cannes in 2002.
Viewed at the Paramount Theater
in Austin in May 2004. This restored 70mm print of
this film was used to open their 2004 Summer Film
series. I went to the opening night with my friend
Christian and my roomie Amanda. We stopped at Sidekicks
before the showing and had a few drinks. (I'm wondering
now if this was Christian's first venture into a gay
bar). I had a bourbon and Coke at the Paramount as
well (six bucks!)
After the screening we ran into
Spencer Parsons on the sidewalk out on Congress. I
didn't know that he was Christians teacher for one
of his film classes this past year. Spencer hated
this movie much to my disappointment. I can't imagine
anyone disliking this film! I will agree that "Monsieur
Hulot's Holiday" is a better film and seeing it before
this one helps you to better understand what Tati
is doing here - something I mentioned to Spencer,
who had never seen a Tati film before. Spencer said
he was expecting something more along the lines of
Keaton and that he kept waiting for the havoc to ensue.
I can see many elements in my review are influenced
by this idea and I think that even though Spencer
hated the film, his problems with it helped me to
understand better what it was that I liked about it,
so I'm glad we got to talk about the film.
Spencer talked about getting me
some copies of some of the wonderful cable access
shows he screened at Cinematexas a couple of years
ago (where he also highlighted Lube TV and John Christensen's
"Manifesto"), so I hope I hear from him soon. I'd
like him to come on the show and show some of the
clips. They are amazing.
