007 - Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, 1953, France. Dir. - Jacques Tati.

007 - Saturday, January 7, 2017

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, 1953, France.  Dir. Jacques Tati.

In France, Charlie Chaplin's Tramp is called Charlot, while their home-grown equivalent character is called Hulot.

Yesterday we discovered Jacques Tati, a physical comedian from the music halls who began making his own films.

Today we discover the character that made him internationally famous--Monsieur Hulot. 

Like Charlie Chaplin, who sometimes played the role of The Tramp and sometimes did not, Jacques Tati would play M. Hulot four times in six films and not play him the other two times.

Charlot, The Tramp, has a distinct look.  Can you describe it?

Small derby hat, tight coat, baggy pants, large shoes, small moustache, cane.

Hulot also has a distinct look.

Unusually-shaped hat, trench coat, high-wader pants, striped socks, tobacco pipe, perpetually forward lean and lumbering gait.

Hulot first ambles on the scene, when he goes on vacation to a hotel by the sea and bumbles into and out of the lives of others.

What is this film about?

Nothing.

The television series Seinfeld claimed it was about nothing, but that is not true.  Seinfeld was a tightly written, three-story-interwoven, complex situational comedy that featured high concepts, explored relationships, and focused on the concerns of its day.

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, on the other hand.  Well.  It is a series of incidents by the seashore.  You try to find the story.  He arrives.  Amusing things happen.  He leaves.

The incidents are enjoyable.

The film is entertaining.

It is sweet.  It is intelligent.  It grows on you.

Here is one of those enjoyable incidents.  He gets in a small boat on the shore and begins to paint it while sitting in it.  The paint can sits on his left in the sand.  As he paints, a wave comes in and carries the can out behind the boat.  The next wave brings the can back in on the other side of the boat.  He absent-mindedly dips his paint brush into the can, now on his right side, as though he had forgotten it had been on the left.  As he paints, the tide carries the can back out and brings it back to its original position.  Now he tries to dip his brush on the right side but cannot find the can, so he gets out, stands up, turns around, and finally finds it, scratching his head as to how it happened.

When he goes out in the boat, it capsizes in two with his being stuck inside, and the people on shore think it is a shark.

Jacques Tati was precise in his work.  He planned ahead, rehearsed thoroughly, and filmed many takes.

Listen.

Tati works in sound.

Tati made films in the vein of the silent comedians--Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd--but in the sound era.

So sound is important in his films.

Hulot speaks little, and when he does it comes in mumbles and snatches.  So FOLEY becomes a character.

What is foley?

The sound effects added to a film in post-production.

Remember the screen door on The Waltons?  It screaked, it creaked, it slammed.  A can of WD-40 would have ruined the ratings.  Monsieur Hulot's Holiday has a door too, only it moans like a pained cow.

Watch the background.  Tati films in master shots, wide angles, at a distance.  He avoids close-ups.  So when something is happening near the camera, something else may very well also be happening away from the camera.

All of his films do well with repeated viewing.

This one will make you smile.

https://www.criterion.com/films/360-monsieur-hulot-s-holiday