008 - Sunday, January 8, 2017
Mon, Oncle, 1958, France. Dir. - Jacques Tati
If we were to play a game called Name That Movie In One Word, and if the word were "Plastics," which movie would you name?
Think about it and we will get back to it.
Meanwhile, have you ever seen Time Bandits?
We will see it later this year.
It begins with a family of three sitting in their living room. The parents are seated on plastic-covered chairs, watching a game show where people are threatened and humiliated, talking about their new appliances. Their son sits at the kitchen counter reading and learning about history. The parents obsess over material products, while the son sits alone reading and learning.
The director of Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam, states openly in his commentary that he was criticizing modern society's materialism, lack of human interaction, and illiteracy.
Jacques Tati made a similar statement 23 years earlier in Mon Oncle.
In Mon Oncle the parents obsess over their new gadgets to the neglect of their only son, while he spends time with his uncle, our beloved Monsieur Hulot. M. Hulot takes him places and amusing things happen.
Now, remember our game? Name That Movie In One Word. The one word is "Plastics." What movie did you name?
Did you say The Graduate?
In The Graduate, Mr. Robinson gives Dustin Hoffman one word of advice. "I want to say one word to you. Just one word. . . . Plastics. . . . There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"
That is a good answer. It is a popular answer.
You could also say It's a Wonderful Life.
The Graduate came out in 1967. It's a Wonderful Life came out in 1946, 21 years earlier.
Do you remember plastics in It's a Wonderful Life? If not, let me show you. The entire plot revolves around it.
George Bailey is in a bad mood. He skipped college to help out with the family's Building and Loan, and now four years later his old friends are home from college. He finds himself at Mary's house. He pretends he just happened to be walking by. Mary tries to encourage him but he responds cynically, thinking it all a big joke. While they are talking their mutual friend Sam Wainwright calls Mary on the phone. When he learns George is there, he asks to speak with him, and he offers him the chance of a lifetime--to get in on the ground floor of a new industry and make it rich.
George in his cynicism turns him down. He loses his temper and yells at Sam, and in the midst of it begins kissing Mary, and in the next scene they are married.
This is what George says to Sam--
Now, you listen to me! I don't want any plastics, and I don't want any ground floors, and I don't want to get married--ever--to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do. And you're . . . and you're . . .
Later in the movie, when he is still struggling, still desperate, still stuck in his hometown, Sam Wainwright passes through town on the way to his Florida vacation with his beautiful wife, now rich from his investment in plastics.
Later still Sam will make an even bigger fortune during the war effort, using plastics to build hoods for planes.
All of this implodes on George Bailey, and he tries to commit suicide, which leads to the angel and the lesson of the movie, which has touched so many people over the years.
So we're talking about a French film called Mon Oncle, and I have brought up three American movies: Time Bandits, The Graduate, and It's a Wonderful Life. What do they have to do with each other?
A lot.
M. Arpel, the father in Mon Oncle, is the owner of Plastac, the successful plastic factory, the products of which dominates their lives.
Here we have films spanning four decades that seem obsessed with plastics.
Something was happening in the 20th Century, and filmmakers were trying to understand it.
On the one hand, new technologies bring opportunities for advancement, comfort, and wealth.
On the other hand, they isolate people from one another, take us out of nature, distract us from what is important, and lower our intelligence.
Have you ever looked around the room and seen everyone on his own electronic device and no one talking to one another?
All the time these days.
Technology separates us.
And yet here you are on your device right now reading this blog, and you and I are connecting with one another. We are not in the same room. We might not even know each other. Yet I can communicate with you.
Technology connects us.
Remember the first image Tati gave us in his first film? (Two days ago, on Friday, January 6--Jour de Fete.)
Plastic horses in the back of a wagon spooking the real horses they pass along the way.
The plastic threatens the real. The man-man threatens nature. Technology challenges life.
Now it is nine years later, and we have left the country for the city, the past for the future, black-and-white for color, and Jacques Tati throws modern life on the canvas--or on the screen.
Mon Oncle is funny. It is amusing. It is enjoyable.
You may watch it for its entertainment and not focus on social commentary.
Look for M. Hulot's footprints. He steps in something and marks his steps without knowing it. Or he does not step somewhere and someone thinks he has! The people who see his footprints misunderstand him and his motives. Oops.
Look for the electric eye that opens and closes the garage door.
The electric eye appeared 18 years earlier in the Warner Bros. film They Drive By Night. Ida Lupino uses the opening and closing of the garage door to commit a heinous crime.
But in Mon Oncle it is funny. The family dog triggers the garage door and traps them inside. Oops!
Mon Oncle won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and introduced Jacques Tati to Americans.
He is charming. He is clever. He is witty.
He is a different kind of filmmaker.
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