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Movies Home About Us Featured Filmmakers Jacque Tati

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The Films of Jaque Tati: M. Hulot's Holiday Mon Oncle Playtime The Comic Film Genius of Jaque Tati Filmmaker and actor Jacques Tati reinvented the art of slapstick comedy, expertly dissecting the nature of sight gags and pratfalls while exploiting viewer expectations to create an ambitious, richly detailed cinematic parlor game perfect for exploring the infinite mysteries of the modern world. Tati created a persona whom he dubbed Monsieur Hulot; a poker-faced cipher perennially clad in a crumpled raincoat, always with a pipe in his mouth and an umbrella in his hands, the perpetually irresolute character proved the unlikely and often unwitting catalyst behind Tati's ambitious gags. First appearing in 1953's Academy Award-nominated Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, the persona became immensely popular, and remained Tati's alter ego for years to come. In his stumbling journeys through the modern world, Hulot became the perfect vessel for his creator's musings on the nature of humanity in relation to the consumerism and mechanization of contemporary society; the persona also allowed Tati to subvert the rules of film comedy by toying with the notion of the punch line, a payoff often delayed or entirely ignored to further play against viewer expectation. The cumulative effect was almost labyrinthine in its comic possibilities, and indeed, Tati's films grew so complex that only repeated viewings allowed his work to achieve its full effect. The intricacy of the Hulot films took Tati years to achieve, and as a result the second film in the series, Mon Oncle, did not appear until 1958. The winner of the Prix Melies at the Cannes Film Festival as well as an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture, it was the last Tati film for close to a decade, as it took the director until 1967 to deliver his masterpiece, the big-budget 70 mm production Playtime, a remarkable essay on life in the post-industrial world. If you have a movie to recommend or if you are looking for something in particular, try the Personal Shopper, we will get back to you the same day. Sign up for the PB1 movie newsletter. You'll recieve regular updates about the best films ever made, with film comment and reviews. Sign me up for the PB1 Movie Newsletter