There are so many cultural institutions in Chicago that it'd be easy to overlook the Alliance Française de Chicago. In addition to being located inside a really cool building, this non-profit cultural exchange organization sponsors everything from language classes to lectures and gourmet food tastings. And movie screenings too. Tomorrow as part of their Ciné-club they'll be showing Playtime, Jacques Tati's 1967 classic.
It demands to be seen on a big screen. First, picture a Mies van der Rohe skyscraper. Then picture an entire city block of Mies van der Rohe skyscrapers. Constructed on the outskirts of Paris, to scale, just for the movie. Then picture Tati's gently befuddled M. Hulot, gaggles of clueless tourists, fishtank apartments with floor-length windows, the disastrous opening night of a swank nightclub, and nonstop fluid movement like the world's most complicated ballet. That's Playtime.
Tati shot the film over a period of three years, and its expense eventually bankrupted him. But he made a movie that's totally unique in its ability to use a monumental canvas to delight and dazzle without even the merest whiff of cynicsm. It was shot in widescreen 65mm, but there's nary an explosion or car chase. It was recorded in multi-track stereophonic sound, but there are no essential lines of dialogue (instead, the soundtrack is a complex assemblage of sound effects and overheard dialogue). It's the Lawrence of Arabia of humanist visual comedy, with a predeliction for treating technology like an expensive toybox.
Although tomorrow's showing will be via projected DVD, you should still be able to appreciate the countless sight gags (involving such paragons of modernity as neon signs, plate-glass windows and escalators). It's at 1 p.m. in the Auditorium at 54 W. Chicago and includes a post-film discussion (in English). There's a $5 suggested donation.
Image via moviediva.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
People should really take any opportunity they can get to see this movie on a big screen.
"The Lawrence of Arabia of humanist visual comedy"
that's the kind of phrase you only get to read in film and music criticism....
anyways, great film, go see it.
Ditto. Maybe Tati's best, though I'm very fond of all his stuff.
People should really take any opportunity they can get to see this movie on a big screen.
It really should be seen in the 70mm restored print.
Francois,
I totally agree! Let's hope the 70mm print plays again in Chicago sometime soon. I don't think it's been back since the Music Box screening a few years ago.
Actually, they screened it in 70mm earlier this year.
Ferdy: The Music Box screenings this last February were of a 35mm print. They explained that setting up 70mm screenings was too expensive for just those two weekend matinee shows.
BTW, my understanding is that the new Criterion DVD reissue (which has a new, restored hi-def transfer) is a vast improvement on the previous Criterion issue.
In any case, the film is a must-see (again and again) for anyone interested in the art of cinema.
Just when I thought I had achieved some plateau of cultural snobbery - decently read, well traveled, 'superbly' informed - I saw this movie a couple years ago at the music box and was bored to tears.
To. Tears.
It's not awful or without artistry - but the director is trying to alienate and annoy to prove that modernism is alienating and dehumanizing - and succeeds spectacularly.
Maybe a better person will enjoy it? Bravo(a) for you then!
Hmmm. Well, that's disappointing. They've done 70mm projections before, notably for 2001. Sorry I passed some misinformation.
JustNotReady - There is nothing snobbish about loving Playtime. It's a very accessible, if somewhat long, film. It is very much in the slapstick, silent-film tradition. Sorry you couldn't enjoy it.
Only someone dead from the neck up wouldn't find this movie funny!
I've always loved the scene with the doorman opening the glass doors after they've been shattered. He holds the metal handles & "opens" them.