– Parmenides
Pie-in-the-sky urban tromp-l'œil vanishing perspectives at Tativille studio outside Paris
Tati’s Theater of the Observed:
Of Sound Mime and Gait Recall
by Jamie Jobb
By flocking to busy urban plazas to study all walks of life, mime students learn how to observe a potential character moving in public. The mime’s first step is to closely observe and then mirror the particular walk of a particular subject. It’s not difficult to do, if the student is paying strict attention and taking good mental notes.
Does the character walk with long or short strides? Is the gait fast or some slower pace? Does the person lean or approach matters from a more rigid angle? How aggressive or tentative is the walk? Where do the knees and elbows go? How do the feet hit the ground? How do the shoulders move? Etc. etc.
This sort of “personal field study” could be called “gait-recognition without subject cooperation” as law enforcement cooly classifies it. Engineers who trained computers to remotely distinguish traits of any individual’s walk, now have perfected gait-recognition technology to a point where secret agents use portable surveillance kits in search of suspects on the move. Each person’s gait is like a fingerprint in motion … exclusive to that individual.
Rather than taking criminals or militants out of circulation, the mime’s goal is to “inhabit-at-a-distance” the observed subject – to literally “walk the walk” of that specific individual. After mimes recognize the gait and learn to copy a subject’s movements, they’re then ready to place that character into some “story” which most likely never will be seen by the original subject when the mime performs it.
An intuitive silent clown can mimic details of the subject’s movement, exaggerating them to fit the artist’s particular frame. The goal is not to overthink each movement, but rather to convey emotions inherent within those movements. The mime tries to “occupy” the bones of the subject, and imagine how that character feels and moves from the inside out. Author Ron Jenkins fittingly refers to these kinds of performers as “Acrobats of the Soul” which is also the title of his superb book on the subject of public clowning.
A mime’s process is similar to animators who create fictional characters in cyberspace: they start with the skeleton, the bones of the subject. Even if the character is a total Star-Wars fabrication, it still needs a backbone. All that foundational work gets done before any “skin” is added to the beast.
The same inside-out structural approach of CGI animation finds further similarities with monumental sculptors who work in large blocks of marble and carry on the same working process as the old Italian masters. As Michelangelo began to hammer into a new work, he looked for the “line” suggested from striations within the stone. That “line” led to the secret of the sculpture hidden there. Is it the start of an arm, or a leg, or something else?
The mime goes on a similar creative discovery when “inhabiting” specific movements of a character observed “in the wild”. The mime is looking for a “line” in movement or in thought, like a line of silent “dialog”. Aboriginal Australian dancers invoke the same kind of observational mimicry when they perform their angular rhythmic story-dances. Clearly, mimicry is basic human stuff with deep ancestral roots. Yes … And ...
A ten-minute exercise was all we needed to discover how to “inhabit” a character’s movement in the only mime class I ever took. As we walked around the classroom in a circle, we tried to mimic the walk of the student in front of us. To our surprise, we each had created, in our tight circle, a wholly different character from the same original movement of the person right in front of us! That was the point of the exercise, to demonstrate how movement can be “internalized” uniquely from outside observation.
Anyone who lives where lots of pedestrians gather can try this pantomime exercise: follow behind someone at a safe distance and out of their sight, then slowly begin to walk the way the subject does. Start with the most obvious part of the person’s walk, and master that movement before moving on to mimic any other aspects of the gait. The more we observe, the more we absorb.
-- Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
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No study is necessary to appreciate the work of the speechless clown and French mime known simply as “Tati” (1907-1982). No language is needed to understand what Tati does on screen. David Company calls it “chaos choreographed” (see link to “Playtime and Photography” below). Unlike Woody Allen, who structures his stories around jokes and plots, Tati structured his films around sound and sight gags which drove the humor.
Although known as a funny Frenchman, Jacques Tatischeff knew his last name was an aristocratic Russian name of great antiquity. But it was a little too long for theatre marquees, so he shortened it to its most linguistically logical reduction: Tati.
One very short name for a ridiculously elongated man who based his odd walk on someone he knew – an architect. Accentuated by his odd rain hat, Tati lurched forever forward, bouncing off his toes and steadfastly leaning into any force opposed to him. On the set, he had a special way of lacing his shoes as an orthotic reminder for his odd gait.
Dropping the final six letters from his last name certainly made his stage name easier to pronounce and recall in foreign languages. Making movies with few subtitles meant his films could find popularity in foreign markets. With simple stories, sparse dialogue, and essentially silent comedy, Tati’s films were internationally friendly, full of sight gags like the works of early film pioneers Max Linder, Charley Bowers, Buster Keaton and his own colleague, Pierre Etaix.
However Tati’s filmography is firmly rooted in his performances before live French music-hall audiences, which placed more emphasis on clowning than on the boxy works of mimes performing in “legitimate theatres”. Elsewhere in France and Europe, a more avant garde and theatricalized style of mime was carried forward in the more refined work of Étienne DeCroux, Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau. Music-halls featured rough-and-tumble clown acts like Little Tich and his Big Boots, whom Tati idolized as a boy.
Tati was very shy and lanky for his age, “a beanstalk child” who always felt “out of place” as the “jovial alien”. Adults considered him “droll” and “a very dull boy”. Tati knew his heritage was “a European cocktail” – part Dutch, part Italian, part French, part Russian. The man with “a painterly eye” who would become “a poet of moving pictures”, Tati was Everyman.
He grew up among privileged classes in Edwardian Saint-Germain outside Paris, but had to forego his family’s famous picture-framing business because he failed the basic math proficiency exam required for such precision work.
A self-acknowledged dimwit oddball who never finished school, Tati had no formal education at all. A perfectionist who wasn’t particularly keen on reading and couldn’t be bothered to write down things, Tati eventually fell off the pedestal provided him at birth. Clearly he didn’t want to grow up. Half the titles of his feature films -- “Play Time”, “M. Hulot’s Holiday” and “A Day Off” -- telegraph this fact. Who would want to grow up a Tatischeff?
The family intrigue began in the 1880s, when Tati’s grandfather and French-Russian attaché Count Dmitri Tatischeff was apparently murdered in a rural riding accident. The next day, Georges-Emmanuel, his infant son, was kidnapped and rushed off to Russia. Eight years later, the son was abducted back to France by Tati’s grandmother who’d plotted her revenge the whole time. Tati biographer David Bellos notes that the famous family story is probably untrue, but it has “a mad and violent energy in utter contrast to the world of Jacques Tati’s films.”
A show-business career was no easy choice for privileged young Jacques, who was expected to apprentice, and eventually take over, the family’s prosperous Paris art dealership and frame shop. Tati’s grandfather, Cadres Von Hoff, earned the trust of famous European painters like Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh, meticulously framing their works and brokering their sale. His grandfather’s business was well renowned among art patrons who wanted the precious works exhibited properly, with a well-crafted frame that did not detract from the picture on exhibit. Although a failure at framing pictures, young Tati at least learned how to frame a storyline.
As a seventeen-year-old on a summer holiday, Jacques tried out his first pantomime sketch on his family. Their encouragement led to further mischief after he joined a rugby team and entertained teammates with his play-by-play mime of their matches. At 20, he enlisted in a cavalry regiment and his observations of that institution led him to mime both rider and horse. From there, he worked out other comic routines for boxing, dancing, tennis ... all done in solo-duet, i.e. Tati mimed both opponents and/or partners himself.
Gradually his storylines morphed from mundane pursuits to grander themes. His films began to focus on the concerns of his time – urban renewal and modernization, leisure class with leisure time, the ubiquitous motor car and mass entertainment – none of which could be brought on stage easily for sight gags on the scale envisioned inside Tati’s head.
* * *
that would inspire envy in Jim Carey.”
-- Roger Ebert
* * *
Although Tati amassed a filmography like none other, it slowly evolved. He said his films were “shot by heart” meaning most of the filming consisted of unwritten low-key slapstick bits worked out on the set in long improvisations. Sometimes his gags had several beats to them, like some Rube Goldberg invention with many parts moving in precise sequence. So those took extra time to design, plan, set up and shoot. From the beginning, Tati developed very costly work habits.
With help from his music-hall cohorts, Tati made his first short, “Oscar, Champion of Tennis”, in 1932 but that print was lost. Two years later he acted in another music-hall short “On Demande Une Brute”. Then in 1935, he performed with famed French clown Rhum in “Gai Dimanche”. Tati directed none of these titles.
While acting in short films, Tati also was developing his own stage reputation, with live shows at the Ritz in 1934, Theater Michel the following year and ABC Music Hall in 1936. That same year, Tati finally got to act and direct himself in his own film short “Soigne Ton Gauche”. In 1937 he “wrote,” starred and directed “Retour a la Terre” which was unfinished with work-prints lost.
Tati possessed a choreographer’s eye for movement on stage, and he was able to transfer that faculty to the big screen as well. More curious still, he directed himself while performing – a very difficult point-of-view for normal human beings to achieve. Harder still for someone whose entire act is based on precision of movement.
Having worked as his father’s apprentice, Tati certainly understood picture-framing, and composition. This allowed him to quickly develop his own muse-en-scène, and at times his pictures were as densely complex as the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. All the viewer needs to do is take the time to look closely within the frame. Tati gave his audiences time for that, holding his shots on screen for longer than most modern eyes can tolerate.
Tati worked very very slowly, producing only six features in twenty-seven years -- one picture every four-and-a-half years. Unfortunately, tight budgets and unbridled perfectionism constrained Tati’s output, particularly after his stories began to demand studio sets and controlled situations with huge crews. More money in other words.
French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette wrote that Tati was “something at the crossroads between sport, dance, satire and ‘tableau vivant’.” Indeed, Tati made his own brand of “living pictures”. Jean-Luc Godard has stated “French neorealism was born with the cinema of Jacques Tati.” Originally, Tati did film his stories on location; however, that didn’t last long. By his third film, he’d retreated to studio settings, eventually building “Tativille” – his own private studio backlot – in southeastern Paris on the Plateau de Gravelle near Joinville-le-Pont.
Tativille’s set for his urban masterpiece “Play Time” was a huge tromp-l'œil puzzle of false fronts and undersized skyscrapers movable on tracks with photo-enhanced traffic jams. Long before CGI, Tati used lots of printed graphics on set to suggest a larger scale. The trick proportions involved in Tativille’s exaggerated vanishing perspectives were nothing like Hollywood studio backlots with their realistic yet manageable street-level views.
Tati’s indecisive perfectionism and his bad habit of reshooting expensive set-ups – notwithstanding his lack of math skills – made his demise as a studio producer easy to foresee. Adding to his misery, a sudden windstorm blew down much of the set and rebuilding Tativille further stressed his budget. The fact that the film failed at the box office meant Tati faced a loss of seventeen million francs at the time – which tapped his finances to the point of bankruptcy. Also limiting his appeal, Tati demanded that his audiences pay attention. David Cairns cites a perfect example in his short video “Anatomy of a Gag” (see link below) in which he deconstructs the very complex “doorman-without-a-door” gag of “Play Time”.
Tati can be very confounding for a modern audience attuned to small screens, short attention spans and no depth of field. His films contain no closeups, so we don’t really know any characters’ feelings. We can’t get close enough to anyone to find out. It seems, once Tati got inside a character, he didn’t want to leave. He hid there, again staying always “one step removed” from everyone else. With the films of Tati, we have to pay attention. We might fall asleep. Or maybe we’ll find his dream awake, the way Tati intended?
-- Jacques Tati
* * *
Six Tati Features
Families seeking child-friendly movies seldom venture beyond Pixar and Disney titles. Branding of characters for those pictures runs deep within the retail-o-sphere, so kids get hooked on the toys before the films are released. Few modern parents consider viewing older, less-commercial kid-friendly films, although there is much to be said for a family watching a Marx Brothers or W.C. Fields movie together. Or the silent film comics: Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd – all of which are readily available on line.
The films of Jacques Tati stand apart from those classic film clowns, but our chances of seeing the funny Frenchman on big screen are slim. Tati’s films are seldom screened anymore, although they exist in a good Criterion boxed set (see links below). If you do get a chance to see a Tati picture, be sure to watch it on the biggest screen available to you.
* * *
François on the merry-go-round of mail delivery
Jour de Fête (1949)
“I know this neck of the woods.” “Nature’s done him proud.” Winding through post-war French countryside on his bicycle, François the bumbling village postman (Tati) bobs and weaves to avoid cattle, but not trouble. “Are you crazy, coming in here with your bike? Come down from there.”
“It’s time you and I got to know each other other. A man don’t get to see a pretty face around these parts very often ...” Married carnival roustabout Roger (Guy Decobie) flirts through a window with lovely local lass Germaine (Santa Relli) who flirts back over dialog of American Western. “ … And I reckon yours is about the prettiest in the whole state of Arizona.”
“A little drink always helps get things sorted out.” Follainville work crew can’t get organized to resurrect annual one-day carnival in Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre town square. “I don’t think these gentlemen were working sufficiently in harmony.” “I should say not -- not with him on the whistle!”
“This should turn everything topsy-turvy.” Tati’s first feature acting and directing himself is merry-go-round funhouse of howdy-stranger bicycle bumble-bee marching-band attack, billy-goat telegram, mail “the American way” by helicopter, single-handed bird-catcher, cross-eyed roustabout, horse-and-buggy laundry service, drunken hose tricks and other surreal stunts of dedicated postal service. “The postman demonstrated notable personal initiative.”
Directed and performed by Jacques Tati, written by Tati and Henri Marquet. While he’s no Hulot here, Tati speaks more than any other character of his later films. He also creates an historic and sonic landscape of utmost comedic effect, a loving portrait of rural French life at the end of WWII. “It’s not my fault if your goat eats my mail, is it?” Although there are subtitles, it’s a great film for kids. Look for the restored tri-color version. (France)
M. Hulot helps with the family snapshot in “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday”
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
“Mommie, why’s that boat gone to sea with no one in it?” Fish-out-of-water fisherman and bouncy-bachelor tennis-buff jazz-fan Monsieur Hulot (Tati) eats dust of every hound and vehicle thwarting his ducky Amilcar convertible on Brittany back roads. “I like these small places. One gets to know people.”
His destination: seaside Hotel de La Plage in Saint-Marc-sir-Mer on south coast where summer civilian invasions have returned to post WWII beaches. Hotel proprietor Mr. Heinard (Lucien Fregis) may slice his roast based on size of each conformist diner, but he’s constantly distracted by Hulot’s self-absorbed mouthful of pipe and apologetic brolly. “Some people are worse than children!”
Enigmatic, light-footed Hulot seems “very gentlemanly” toweling himself off on utility pole. Who needs napkins with Hulot’s boardinghouse reach? Who needs volleys with Hulot’s monster slicing serve? “But that’s not right. That’s not tennis!”
“It was very good of you to play with him. You see, his father is so busy.” Stately young blonde with earphone hairdo, Martine (Nathalie Pascaud) seems on solo holidays until her prudish Aunt (Michele Rolla) arrives. But where to touch her on the back!?!
Directed and performed by Tati, written by Tati and Henri Marquet. Tati’s visual evocations of summer seaside breezes whispered in low-key sight-gags of kayak shark, coatrack footprints, surfing paint can, spur-tangled fox, funeral-tire wreath, rockets’-red-glare nose band-aid and last-second taffy-catcher. “How did it happen?” “Nobody seems to know.” (France)
http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-17-513-863-821-988-view-comedy-romance-5-profile-1953-bmr-hulot-s-holiday-b.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGKRa5pN90
His and Her reading logs in “Mon Oncle”
Mon Oncle (1958)
“We’ll write if we need you, we don’t need any acrobats.” Perpetually prepared for rain on sunny days, wordless Monsieur Hulot (Tati) is “always a little vague” and probably needs “an objective”. But he “doesn’t seem cut out for factory work” because he’s “gone too far this time.”
Only his nephew, Gerard (Alain Becourt) appreciates him, seeing the predicament of his uncle stuck between two cities: old and new. When Gerard’s Mother (Adrienne Servantie) says “I just can’t make him obey”, we know she means her son AND her brother. Otherwise in command of his remote-controlled ultramodern house, Gerard’s father and M. Hulot’s brother-in-law Charles Arpel (Jean-Pierre Zola) is “a remarkable man” and director of sterile Plastac Factory. “It’s practical. All communicating.”
Directed and performed by Tati; written by Tati, Jacques LaGrange, Jean L’Hote. In his first color work, Tati hones his incisive, cerebral silent storyboard with odd links of sun-lit canary window-song, telephone and pipe tobacco, cockeyed hat and quaking sock, foxy runner-rug as fashion statement, street-sweeper gossip and white shoe-prints, doggy’s tail and electric garage-door, gurgling barracuda and stepping-stone rumba. “Don’t ask me to do that. I’m afraid of electricity.” (France)
https://vimeo.com/22395026
M. Hulot gets downright cubistic in “Play Time”
Play Time (1967)
“Well, I feel at home everywhere I go.” But what about the French? And WHERE is this very foreign place called “Paris”? This modern mess of glass, steel, neon, traffic? These nuns with wagging wings and quacking shoes? These women in oversized fireman’s hats?
What is this: hospital or airport? “Oh, come on girls. Wait ‘til you see how modern it is! And they even have American stuff. Come on!” Bent makeup glasses? Greek column garbage can? Angry German slamming door “in golden silence”?
Even well-lit broom “looks real practical”. Ever prepared for rain with umbrella and brolly, Monsieur Hulot (Tati) promptly keeps his appointment at National Oil Corporation only to find himself trapped in glass room. There he finds squeaky leather chair slowly retains shape, while his umbrella finds no good use on slick tile floor. Punctuation Man makes his every move percussive. “We’re gonna have a hot time tonight!”
Tati almost gets to connect with tourist-next-door Barbara (Barbara Dennek) at opening night of “very exciting” French night club – The Royal Garden! Evening dress and coat tricks galore! Floor tile stuck to shoe! Fish platters too big to serve! Instant jitterbug and seats that rip clothes! Tati’s surrealistic silly “La Dolce Vita” finds M. Hulot mulling enigma of doorman without door, preening waiter without food, cheese sponge, marble road-map and Eiffel Tower trompe l’oeil. “I didn’t know they had a parking problem in Paris!?!” (France)
https://filmmakermagazine.com/88157-anatomy-of-a-gag-in-jacques-tatis-playtime/
Trafic (1971)
“Stop! This is a camping car. Let me prove it to you for heaven’s sake.” Altra auto-designer Monsieur Hulot (Tati) is entrusted to transport his company’s new automated camper-van to International Auto Show in Amsterdam.
Car is high-tech marvel of bumper-seats and air mattresses, tent-shower and horn-shaver, wine-on-demand and front-grilled steaks. And while astronauts walk on moon, little highway disasters of flat-tire-and-bad-break turn into one colossal highway wreck.
On road to show, hapless Hulot speaks multilingual gibberish but needs public-relations diva Maria (Honore Bostel) to translate as they negotiate Dutch border patrol.
Directed and performed by Tati. Written by Tati, Jacques LaGrange, Bert Haanstra. Tati proves he’s the Antonioni of Comedy … we really have to pay attention for he shows us rather than tells us the story. Hulot’s balletic auto-wreck complete with post-wreck stretching exercises is marvelously beautiful and very very funny. Compare with Jean-Luc Godard’s horrific “Weekend” wrecks. “Don’t forget that commercials keep us informed.” (France)
https://www.criterion.com/films/859-trafic
https://youtu.be/RUCJK877J5Y
Tati getting ready to paint set of “Parade” his “film” for tv
Parade (1974)
Written, directed and performed by Tati, his last “film” -- shot entirely on video. Mostly wordless out-front backstage circus collage of parking-cone hats, trampoline pianos, audience cutouts, upstaged scene painters, hammer-band balloon music, paint-brush jugglers, bullfighting clowns, full-speed slow-motion tennis, military marching gymnasts, dung-swept show horses, bucking-donkeys, backside sword eaters, clown-white ice cream, lethargic rock-and-roll, contortionist fashion photos, symphony coattail cabaret, back-row orchestra loafers, out-of-place bass player, society bra trombone and underplayed performing spectators. “You’re on my foot!” (France)
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