In November 2023, I was invited (after asking months in advance) to provide an introduction for Jacques Tati’s 1967 film, Playtime for the Philadelphia Film Society. The movie alone, as well as Tati’s entire catalogue, has been an integral piece to my development as a filmmaker. I present here a written version that approximates my comments that day.

Hello,

I’m Julian Gerace, I’m a filmmaker here in Philly and I help run the Philm Club newsletter. I’m so excited to be introducing my favorite film, “Playtime” by the master, Jacques Tati. I’ve long studied this film and can talk about it for hours, so for the sake of brevity, I hope you’ll allow me to present some prepared words.

Jacques was nearly 60 when “Playtime” was released in 1967. He was fiercely independent, he put 9 years of his life and most of his own money (and many others) into this film and it bankrupted him — the critical success didn’t outpace the commercial failure. He lost his house, all the rights to his films, and access to the resources required to make a film of this scale ever again.

Just one year later, the youth and workers of France would revolt in May 68, calling for the dismantling of the old world and all of its power structures, a world whose slow demise had served as a backdrop for all of Tati’s films to that point. Jacques was in no rush to accelerate the replacement of cobbled neighborhood streets with car-crowded highways lined with glass and steel and it is in this sense that he is a conservative filmmaker. Not for bigotry, or a love for the ruling class, but a recognition of change and joyful mourning for what France was leaving behind.

He started his career performing physical comedy for sports league buddies at dinners and in French dancehalls. He wasn’t particularly intelligent, not skilled or inspired in typical work, a little shy, and wasn’t fond of expressing himself in language. He develops this style of solo mime that eventually evolves into his iconic character, Monsieur Hulot. Opposed to Charlie Chaplin’s famous American Tramp, who gets into trouble and finds himself the center of attention, the equally silent. Hulot, in his hiked up pants, hat and pipe, causes the trouble in the background through his bumbling curiosity, setting off a chain of errors and gags. Whether he’s a bicycling postman in provincial France, a voyeuristic beachgoer, or the fun, but irresponsible uncle in a modernizing city, Tati’s cinema focuses less on us gaining access to Hulot’s inner mind and feeling, and more on using that character to show us how he himself sees the world.

In Playtime, there is a democratization of Hulot, an expansion of who Hulot is or could be. Previous films followed him almost exclusively; in Playtime, Tati gives a little Hulot charm and quirk to a number of characters. There are long stretches of film where he doesn’t appear at all. The main “other Hulot” you’ll see is Barbara, a young American woman on a tour of France and it’s through her we might get the biggest gift of Playtime: the crash course in how to see the banal, the absurd, the loss in every day life with a hint of humor if you can just get the right angle. The second half of the film is dedicated to a large sequence at a very newly-opened restaurant. You’ll see the middle-aged crowd of the travel tour go out for dinner, the ladies have flowered headpieces for a night on the town. They pass the elderly group on the escalator, coming in for an early night, tired from a long day and those ladies’ flower headpieces are wilted, hanging off their hats. Later on at the restaurant, the waiter comes to fill their champagne glasses and Tati shoots in such a way as to make it look as though he’s watering these flowers. If you stood in that restaurant 5 steps to the side, you’d get nothing, but by being AND seeing in that exact place, you get enough for a smile. As you leave the theater, I’m sure you’ll have at least one opportunity to see the world as Tati.

Keep your ears open during the film — Tati turns noise into sound, the jumbled mess of environmental noise is featured rather than cancelled out to focus on actors delivering plot information or character background. Much like Robert Altman’s signature overlapping speech, the fact that characters are talking is more important than what they say. Whether it’s the buzz of a neon sign or a door that can close silently, noise forms the basis for a number of gags. A film like this is either a joy or a terror for anyone doing the captions.

We see Tati’s visual legacy across cinema to this day, but maybe most noticeably in the bleak, Norwegian, single-frame cinema of Roy Andersson. Cinema is a visual art form. The picture on the screen is not an illustration of a story, nor a hieroglyph meant to be read as we read words. The image is more immediate and gives us more than can be strung together in language. When you look at how Tati made his movies, there wasn’t a script, barely a plot, instead a “scenario” laying out some players with a characteristic or two and how they relate to the physical space. Tati hated close ups so his scenes are wide and slow and appear more like a chaotic Bruegel the Elder painting that lends itself to repeated rewatching just so you can look at a different part of the scene. Playtime is screening tomorrow as well, so I hope to see you there again.

There is a story told by all major Tati scholars, as well as the man himself, of when he was a schoolchild and brought up to the front of the class for an exercise: The students are to act out a sentence the teacher says while they repeat it. When Tati’s turn arrives, the teacher says “I open the door. I close the door.” He walks to the door, says the “I open the door.” and as he says “I close the door”, he walks to the other side and closes it from the outside. He notes he had a realization in that moment, a glimpse of the potential of comedy. How does he go back in the classroom, big smile, sheepish grin, funny stinger? He ended up going home and leaving school for the rest of the day. As noted by many before me, here is the earliest recollection of what would become his signature style. A gag with no punchline, a half-told knock-knock joke. Tati is all setup. Rather than building to a big laugh, you’re left smiling as subtle gags stack on top of each other at a blistering pace that never feels faster than afternoon stroll.

I’ll close with this: I first saw Playtime by accident, at a time when I felt as though there weren’t any more movies for me to make — all had been already done and it was too late to catch up. The joy and humor, and imaginative power in this film brought me passion. There is so much more to say, but these are just a few words to describe how I love Playtime, and how I hope you’ll love it too. I’m so excited to join you in the audience.