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(Redirected from Playtime)
'''Play Time''' is French director Jacques Tati's fourth major film, shot in 1964 through 1967 and released in 1967. Tati plays Monsieur Hulot, a comic character who appears in several of Tati's films. In ''Play Time'', however, there are no real main characters and Hulot is often just a small part of the events on the screen. ''Play Time'' is notable for its enormous set, built specially for the film, and for Tati's trademark use of subtle, yet complex visual comedy supported by creative sound effects, with dialogue frequently reduced to the level of background noise.
In ''Play Time'', Tati's character, M. Hulot, and a group of American tourists lose themselves in a futuristic glass and steel Paris, where only human nature and a few hints of old Paris briefly breathe life into the city. New technologies, billed as conveniences, are represented as merely complicating life and an interference to natural human interaction.
''Play Time'' is structured in six sequences linked by two characters who keep bumping into each other in the course of the story: Barbara, a young American tourist visiting Paris, and M. Hulot, who has a meeting with someone important. The sequences are as follows:
★ The airport: a group of American tourists arrive at Orly and discover a futuristic Paris made of cold, impersonal glass and steel buildings.
★ The offices: M. Hulot arrives for an important meeting but gets lost in a maze of offices and ends up in an exhibition.
★ The exhibition of inventions: M. Hulot and the American tourists see new inventions including a silent door and a broom with headlights.
★ The apartments with glass walls: as night falls, Mr. Hulot meets an old friend who invites him to his ultra-modern flat.
★ The Royal Garden: having escaped his friend, Mr. Hulot finds himself at the inauguration of a new restaurant with the American tourists. However, the building work has hardly finished and there are various problems.
★ The carousel of cars: in the midst of a car ballet in a traffic circle, the tourists' coach returns to the airport.
The film is famous for its enormous, specially constructed set and background stage, known as 'Tativille', which cost enormous sums to build and maintain. The set required 100 construction workers to build it, and its very own power plant to function. Storms, budget crises, and other disasters stretched the shooting schedule to three years. Budget overruns forced Tati to take out large loans and personal overdrafts to cover ever-increasing production costs.
As ''Play Time'' depended greatly on visual comedy and sound effects, Tati chose to shoot the film on the high-resolution 70mm film format, together with a complicated (for the day) stereophonic soundtrack.
On its original French release, ''Play Time'' was acclaimed by critics. However, it was commercially unsuccessful, failing to earn back a significant portion of its production costs. One reason may have been Tati's insistence that film be limited to those theaters equipped with 70-mm projectors and special stereo speakers (he refused to provide a 35-mm version for smaller theaters).
Results were the same upon the film's eventual release in the U.S. in 1973 (even though it had finally been converted to a 35mm format at the insistence of U.S. distributors and edited down to 103 minutes). Though Vincent Canby of the ''New York Times'' called ''Playtime'' "Tati's most brilliant film", it was no more a commercial success in the U.S. than in France. Debts incurred as a result of the film's cost overruns eventually forced Tati to file for bankruptcy.
Despite its disastrous financial failure, ''Play Time'' is regarded as a great achievement by many critics, who have noted its subtlety and complexity: it is not easily absorbed at one sitting. François Truffaut wrote that ''Play Time'' was "a film that comes from another planet, where they make films differently". British critic Gilbert Adair has noted that the film has to be viewed "several times, each from a different seat in the auditorium" in order to view the many small, tightly-choreographed sight gags by several different actors, sometimes displayed nearly simultaneously on the huge 70mm screen. Nor is the humor restricted to human behavior alone — a gag may revolve around an everyday object or phenomenon such as the mundane hum of a neon sign.
★ List of films recut by studio
★
★ Details about distribution, the 2003 70mm restoration and historical data
★ Criterion Collection essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum
★ DVDTalk review of the 2006 Criterion DVD, and comparison with the 2001 version
'''Play Time''' is French director Jacques Tati's fourth major film, shot in 1964 through 1967 and released in 1967. Tati plays Monsieur Hulot, a comic character who appears in several of Tati's films. In ''Play Time'', however, there are no real main characters and Hulot is often just a small part of the events on the screen. ''Play Time'' is notable for its enormous set, built specially for the film, and for Tati's trademark use of subtle, yet complex visual comedy supported by creative sound effects, with dialogue frequently reduced to the level of background noise.
| Contents |
| Themes |
| Synopsis |
| Production |
| Reception |
| Cast |
| See also |
| External links |
Themes
In ''Play Time'', Tati's character, M. Hulot, and a group of American tourists lose themselves in a futuristic glass and steel Paris, where only human nature and a few hints of old Paris briefly breathe life into the city. New technologies, billed as conveniences, are represented as merely complicating life and an interference to natural human interaction.
Synopsis
''Play Time'' is structured in six sequences linked by two characters who keep bumping into each other in the course of the story: Barbara, a young American tourist visiting Paris, and M. Hulot, who has a meeting with someone important. The sequences are as follows:
★ The airport: a group of American tourists arrive at Orly and discover a futuristic Paris made of cold, impersonal glass and steel buildings.
★ The offices: M. Hulot arrives for an important meeting but gets lost in a maze of offices and ends up in an exhibition.
★ The exhibition of inventions: M. Hulot and the American tourists see new inventions including a silent door and a broom with headlights.
★ The apartments with glass walls: as night falls, Mr. Hulot meets an old friend who invites him to his ultra-modern flat.
★ The Royal Garden: having escaped his friend, Mr. Hulot finds himself at the inauguration of a new restaurant with the American tourists. However, the building work has hardly finished and there are various problems.
★ The carousel of cars: in the midst of a car ballet in a traffic circle, the tourists' coach returns to the airport.
Production
The film is famous for its enormous, specially constructed set and background stage, known as 'Tativille', which cost enormous sums to build and maintain. The set required 100 construction workers to build it, and its very own power plant to function. Storms, budget crises, and other disasters stretched the shooting schedule to three years. Budget overruns forced Tati to take out large loans and personal overdrafts to cover ever-increasing production costs.
As ''Play Time'' depended greatly on visual comedy and sound effects, Tati chose to shoot the film on the high-resolution 70mm film format, together with a complicated (for the day) stereophonic soundtrack.
Reception
On its original French release, ''Play Time'' was acclaimed by critics. However, it was commercially unsuccessful, failing to earn back a significant portion of its production costs. One reason may have been Tati's insistence that film be limited to those theaters equipped with 70-mm projectors and special stereo speakers (he refused to provide a 35-mm version for smaller theaters).
Results were the same upon the film's eventual release in the U.S. in 1973 (even though it had finally been converted to a 35mm format at the insistence of U.S. distributors and edited down to 103 minutes). Though Vincent Canby of the ''New York Times'' called ''Playtime'' "Tati's most brilliant film", it was no more a commercial success in the U.S. than in France. Debts incurred as a result of the film's cost overruns eventually forced Tati to file for bankruptcy.
Despite its disastrous financial failure, ''Play Time'' is regarded as a great achievement by many critics, who have noted its subtlety and complexity: it is not easily absorbed at one sitting. François Truffaut wrote that ''Play Time'' was "a film that comes from another planet, where they make films differently". British critic Gilbert Adair has noted that the film has to be viewed "several times, each from a different seat in the auditorium" in order to view the many small, tightly-choreographed sight gags by several different actors, sometimes displayed nearly simultaneously on the huge 70mm screen. Nor is the humor restricted to human behavior alone — a gag may revolve around an everyday object or phenomenon such as the mundane hum of a neon sign.
Cast
★ Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot ★ Barbara Dennek as The young American tourist ★ Jacqueline Lecomte as friend of Am. tourist ★ Valérie Camille as Mr Lacs's secretary ★ France Rumilly as seller of glasses ★ Laure Paillette as 1st lady at the lamppost ★ Colette Proust as 2nd lady at the lamppost ★ Erica Dentzler as Mr/Mrs Giffard ★ Yvette Ducreux as la demoiselle du vestiaire ★ Rita Maiden as Mr Schultz's companion ★ Nicole Ray as the singer ★ Luce Bonifassy as customer at Royal Garden ★ Evy Cavallaro as customer at Royal Garden ★ Alice Field as customer at Royal Garden ★ Eliane Firmin-Didot as customer at R. Garden | ★ Ketty France as customer at Royal Garden ★ Nathalie Jam as customer at Royal Garden ★ Olivia Poli as customer at Royal Garden ★ Sophie Wennek as the guide ★ Henri Piccoli as the important man ★ Léon Doyen as the doorman ★ Georges Montant as Mr Giffard, head waiter ★ John Abbey (actorJohn Abbey]] as Mr Lacs ★ Reinhart Kolldehoff as the German director ★ Grégoire Katz as The German salesman ★ Marc Monjou as the false Mr Hulot ★ Yves Barsacq as Mr Hulot's friend ★ Billy Kearns as Mr Schulz ★ Michel Francini as Manager of the hotel |
See also
★ List of films recut by studio
External links
★
★ Details about distribution, the 2003 70mm restoration and historical data
★ Criterion Collection essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum
★ DVDTalk review of the 2006 Criterion DVD, and comparison with the 2001 version
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