Jacques Tati

Playtime makes me wonder “What if Buster Keaton had been able to transition into sound?”. Well Tati did make it in the sound era and excels at using sound effects brilliantly for gags which is basically all the Playtime is anyway, a long string of gag jokes. In fact, the title gives it away, this is just a fun film full of fantastic jokes (couldn’t finish the alliteration).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiVzzuiyssc

In this example, Tati shows how he uses sound simply and effectively for a giggle. His laughs don’t come from dialogue like in most films and that’s unique in our current landscape. All of Tati’s jokes in Playtime are nonverbal hence the comparison to Buster Keaton, mainly in the body language of M. Hulot. Some of his gags like only work through the medium of cinema like when we don’t see that there is glass separating two characters. He can draw attention to someone in a shot of 20 people by just letting the audience hear one set of footsteps and suddenly we focus on that person out of the whole scene. And who knew just the sound of footsteps could be so funny. Like the reading says: “Playtime is full of shots that invite us to scan the frame searching out interesting and significant details-it doesn’t tell us where to look.” By doing this, Tati keeps the whole modern circus in play while we can still see M. Hulot slamming a soundproof door or whatever is going on.

Honestly, I started losing interest during the drunken restaurant scene, either because it went too long or I was getting hungry. The gags eventually started to go nowhere or became too silly for me. The restaurant seemed to be too long and by the next morning hangover scene I was ready to finish. Maybe that was Tati’s intention, because after a raucous, drunken party everyone is ready for some peace and quiet.