Jacques Tati: Everyman Magnified
November 5th, 2007 by Steve Bowbrick
We love Jacques Tati in our house. Well, I suppose it’s mostly me that likes him. My kids put up with him but only because they think he’s a sort of bleached Mr Bean. Mr Bean’s creator Rowan Atkinson makes an appearance in Rory Bremner’s half hour about the French genius - Atkinson reckons Bean isn’t as nice a person as Tati’s creation Hulot.
I like the part about Tati’s pioneering and inventive use of sound: the distinctive (and inexplicably hilarious) sound of that hotel swing door in M. Hulot’s holiday and the quite brilliant ’silent door’ in Playtime, for instance (MP3, Real)
The pic is a still from Mon Oncle, which I think is the best of Tati’s films.
