009 - PlayTime, 1967, France; Dir. Jacques Tati.

Monday, January 9, 2017

009 - PlayTime, 1967, France.  Dir. Jacques Tati.

Woody Allen has a running gag in his movie Hollywood Ending (2002).

In Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen plays a movie director who goes blind just before filming begins.  The studio decides this is not a problem, as movies are made by blind directors all the time, so they push forward with the film anyway.

So the director Val Waxman--played by Woody Allen himself--brings in his production designer Elio Sebastian--played by real-life fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi--to have him design the look of the film.

Sebastian decides that Central Park is not realistic enough, so he must build his own Central Park on the studio backlot.

Then Sebastian decides that Harlem will not do, so he must also build his own Harlem on the studio backlot.

Finally, he decides that Times Square absolutely will not do, and he demands that he must build his own Times Square on the studio backlot.

It is funny to watch as it plays out in Hollywood Ending.

The other characters are funny as well. 

The wonderful twist is that Hollywood Ending has a Hollywood ending, and the people of France love Val Waxman's blindly made movie and want him to come make movies there.

It is a great send-up.  The joke is that Hollywood, in America, is clueless and pretentious and foolhardy in its approach to filmmaking.

If only we in America made movies like foreign films.

Spare.  Intelligent.  Thoughtful.  Restrained.

Fiscally responsible.

Um . . .

We have been talking about Jacques Tati, have we not?

The joke that Woody Allen made in his movie Hollywood Ending actually happened in real life.

In France!

PlayTime is the height of Jacques Tati's filmmaking.

And his hubris.

And his obsession.

And his folly.

He had the opportunity to film it in the city in buildings that already existed.

No, that was not good enough.

He had the opportunity to build buildings and film in them and then sell them to corporations and make a profit.

No, that was not good enough either.

He simply had to build his own city.

And have a cast of thousands.

Thousands of square feet of buildings.  Thousands of pounds of steel.  Thousands of feet of electrical wiring.  Thousands of feet of plumbing pipes.

Real skyscrapers.   Real plumbing.  Real electrical.  Elevators.  Escalators.  Streets.  Traffic lights.

Shot on 70 mm film.

It took three years.

It bankrupted the studio.

And Tati himself.

And his mother.

The things we do for our art.

It is his most ambitious, most expensive, most expansive, longest film.

The good news for us is that it is fantastic.

Not that it has much of a story.  This is Jacques Tati, remember.

Here is the story.  Some American women arrive by plane to tour Paris.  Funny things happen.  Then they leave.

You could also divide PlayTime into six set pieces.

1) The arrival of the American women tourists at the airport
2) M. Hulot's arrival for some unnamed meeting at an office building
3) The American women and M. Hulot's arrival at a trade exhibition
4) Looking into a set of glass-front apartment buildings from the street
5) Everyone at the restaurant
6) Cars circling a roundabout like a carousel

Each of these set pieces sets up opportunities for visual puns, funny things with gadgets, Tati's perpetual use of sound effects, and commentary on modern life.

Each could stand alone as its own short film.

Number 5 could stand alone as its own feature.  It is deliciously lengthy, with hundreds of people precisely choreographed in all parts of the screen.  The restaurant itself begins to fall apart, and as technology breaks down, human interaction begins again.

This movie requires repeated viewing.  Multiple things are going on in multiple places throughout the screen, in foreground and background.

The movie stays in the master shot, with no close-ups and no medium shots.  Everything is wide.

And as with all of Tati's Hulot films, someone is always sweeping.

The entire city is choreographed.

PlayTime is a masterpiece.