Playtime, Jacques Tati, 1967. © Les Films de Mon Oncle, France. Official Jacques Tati website: www.tativille.com
Traffic, Jacques Tati, 1971 © Les Films de Mon Oncle, France. Official Jacques Tati website: www.tativille.com
Traffic, Jacques Tati, 1971 © Les Films de Mon Oncle, France. Official Jacques Tati website: www.tativille.com
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Article
Tati: on the holiday road
In the history of cinema, Jacques Tati was the French answer to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. His Mr Hulot character left a trail of hilarious disasters in the France of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, which was opening up to leisure and modern transport. Cars played a leading role in these films.
Photo credits: © Les Films de Mon Oncle, France. Official Jacques Tati website: www.tativille.com
In three of Tati's six feature films, cars or drivers are a source of gags, and one film (Traffic, 1971) is a whole satire about the new car-centred society.
The automobile played an important role in post-war France, both as a spearhead of industrial revival and as a means of individual and family emancipation, in a country that rediscovered holidays and trips to the seaside from summer 1946. Tati depicted this society of holidaymakers in Mr Hulot's Holiday, in which the supporting actor is a car. The automobile also helped rebuild France's image as an industrial power, symbolised by such models as the Citroën 2CV and the Renault 4CV.
From the factory to the motor show
No aspect of the automotive industry escaped Tati's gentle mockery: the motor show, the factory, the road network, the service station, customs, the garage, the carpark and even the wreckers. All of them are turned into funny situations in Traffic, which was shot just after the first motorway was opened in France.
In that mock "road movie", the team from Altra, a company that makes custom-built cars, attempts to transport its only vehicle (a motor home equipped with a plethora of useless gadgets) to the Amsterdam motor show where it is to go on display. Mr Hulot, the vehicle's designer, wreaks havoc and the straight trip from Paris to Amsterdam turns into a series of disasters, from flat tyres to traffic jams, from a faulty clutch to total breakdown.
Pile up
The climax of Traffic is a monster pile-up, in which a DS comes to a halt on a 45-degree angle, a VW Beetle with a munching bonnet chases its driver like a hungry cat, and a priest dives into the engine of his dented car. Tati was undoubtedly inspired by a serious accident in which he was involved in 1955. After the crash, the film ends peacefully as a ballet of cars turns in a circle to a hurdy-gurdy tune. Nothing flows smoothly in Traffic and the cars start to zigzag. A character puts two coins into a parking meter and the quirky roundabout starts up again, while cars being repaired in a garage move up and down. Tati liked to see drivers playing with cars like children, rather than always looking for speed and power.
More about Tati.
[07/13/2004]
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