Jacques Tati
1949
viewed at Cinemateque, Aug 2009.
I thought I’d seen a Tati before, but was not sure. Now I’m sure. It’s slapstick, and looks like it’s from 1930. Now I like physical comedy, but this is heavily over-emphasized (like the early dramatic transitions from silent to sound film) and has no clever angle or subtlety to counterbalance the ‘blockheaded-ness’ of the physical aspect. It’s the three stooges, done by some other three guys. Not so good. The audience, though, liked it. I guess they knew what they were in for. I myself don’t think it’s funny to watch a person flail around in the air for 2 minutes to try and hit a fly, and then to have a cyclist go by and watch him flail around in the air as the fly has transferred to him. There’s nothing funny in that, at least the way Tati does it. It’s just ’signs’ of comedy, without the comedy itself. But I was glad to see it, so I cross him off my list of ‘film makers to look out for’.
