All language subtitles for Jacques Tati, tombé de la lune (2021, FR) [SD]

It's just half past the hour.

- Shall I turn it on?
- By all means.

Tonight as each night
at the same time

we bring you Prof. Platoff!

Today's subject:
"Work it out yourself"

Jacques Tati
Fallen From The Moon

The year is 1958.

Jacques Tati is in New York,
dressed as Mr. Hulot,

the character he invented
a few years earlier.

With his nose in the air
and trousers too short,

he hauls his figure
through the city's streets.

Tati isn't there for a vacation.

He's accompanying the
release of his new film,

Mon Oncle, which is about
to be a hit in the United States,

Like everywhere it's shown.

It will soon be in the running for
the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Already, Tati is thinking
about his next project.

He is about to embark on the biggest
and most ambitious film of his life.

The one into which
he'll pour his genius,

his energy, his health, his house.

The one that will burn
his wings and ruin him.

But let's not get
ahead of ourselves.

Before stumbling, one
must first climb the mountain.

Before the fall, we
must tell the ascent,

step by step.

The story begins in the mid-1930s,

in a music hall club.

Jacques Tati performs his
show Sporting Impressions,

in which he mimes the
gestures of a tennis player,

a goalkeeper, or a boxer.

A good comedian, Tati would
say, is above all a good pair of legs.

From his very first
short films as an actor,

and later as writer and director,
he applied this principle.

He makes his body and movements
the raw material of his cinema.

Jacques Tati was 40 when he set out,

just after the war, to
make his first feature film,

Jour de fête.

He reprised the
character of François,

which he had already played
in The School for Postmen,

and his unique way
of using his body.

From one scene to the next,
he makes his character twirl,

To spin, waltz as if by accident.

A bit like in the films of the
silent-era legends of American cinema,

Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd,
whom Tati greatly admired.

Tati made his first
comedy with string and glue.

He had a very small
team of technicians,

some of whom also acted in the film.

He recruited extras in the
village of Sainte-Sévère,

where he had spent a
few months during the war.

He had promised the locals he
would come back to make a film.

And so, we plunged into this
adventure with full commitment.

It was like waking up one morning
and deciding to make a film.

People said "You're crazy,
you want to shoot a short film?"

"No, it's a feature film!"

Tati didn't hesitate to take risks.

He shot his film
using a new process,

Thompson Colour, which was
supposed to make Jour de fête

one of the first French
feature films in colour.

Insoluble technical problems
eventually forced him to give it up.

Tati resigned himself to releasing
the film in black and white,

but no distributor wanted
to screen it in cinemas.

For a year, the film-maker
searched in vain for a distributor.

Fortunately, Tati had the perseverance
of a long-distance runner.

Jour de fête eventually
made its way into cinemas.

Released in 1949, the film was
a great success with audiences.

Tati's career was launched.

But the film-maker did not
forget the people of Saint-Séver.

In June, he returned to the village
to share his success with them.

You, who live all
year in nervousness,

agitation, turmoil.

You're thinking about it.

You, who spend most of
your life in offices,

factories, workshops —
You're thinking about it.

You, who are already beginning
to have obligations and worries.

You, who are burdened
with responsibilities.

You, miss.

You, sir.

Well, rejoice,

because soon,
you're all going on vacation.

Here comes summer.

Here comes the beach.

Here is a film where you'll find
all the atmosphere of vacation.

It's the great comic
revelation of Jour de fête,

Jacques Tati.

Tati has an independent spirit.

He likes to experiment
with each new project.

For his second comedy, set in a small
seaside resort on the Atlantic coast,

he invents a new character,
once again played by himself.

This character, who will go
down in cinema history,

is Monsieur Hulot.

A dreamy, almost mute man

whom Tati makes instantly recognisable
by his look and his accessories.

Monsieur... Monsieur?

What?

Allow me.

Hulot.

Tati, the mime, gives
Hulot a tall, lanky silhouette,

a way of standing up
very straight on his legs,

while remaining
supple in his joints.

But most of all, Tati gives Hulot a
way of walking that is uniquely his own.

Monsieur Hulot is a lunar character,

Tati would say.

In fact, his walk proves it, since he
barely puts his heels on the ground.

He walks only on the balls of his feet,
as if trying to get closer to the Moon.

As a child, Jacques Tati-Chef could
spend hours lost in his own world.

He loved doing impressions and
was not a very good student in school.

I had the good fortune of being
sent to the corner quite often.

And from the corner, since
you're a language professional,

you notice that the teacher you saw
from the front and who seemed perfect,

from the corner you see that
he's lowered his socks a bit,

he's scratching his calves — that
is, you get to see behind the scenes.

That's how observation begins.

It's how I started to
realise there was more

than just impeccable
and proper people.

From a good Franco-Russo-Dutch-Italian
bourgeois family,

he left high school
before his baccalaureate

and failed the entrance
exam for arts and trades.

He preferred to party.

He married late in
life, to Micheline Winter,

whom he falsely loved.

But his mother-in-law, who organised
the wedding with an iron fist,

refused to invite his
Music Hall friends.

Tati never adapted
to bourgeois codes.

Tati would often claim that Monsieur
Hulot is a bit of an everyman.

But he is still
very much himself:

the nonconformist, who causes chaos and
never does anything quite like others.

Tati plays with sound and
dialogue like no one before him.

In his directing, the film-maker
adopts a method he will never abandon.

Before filming a scene,

he mimes every gesture for the actors
to perform in front of the camera.

Tati is an obsessive film-maker

who meticulously
prepares every scene

and sometimes shoots more than
20 takes to get exactly what he wants.

He also has to deal with the
wind and the whims of the weather.

Grains of sand get into the camera

and cause irreversible
scratches on the film.

Tati has to reshoot some sequences

even though the summer
of 1951 is already over.

Making a comedy is not
exactly a vacation.

And creating the impression of
lightness is the hardest thing of all.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot.

In the middle of winter 1953,

Les Vacances de Monsieur
Hulot is released

and is a triumph with the public.

The film is promptly selected
for the Cannes Film Festival,

where it wins the
International Critics Prize.

But Tati, likely not
yet famous enough,

is not filmed by the news cameras.

A few months later,

the cameras are definitely there when
he is awarded the Louis Delluc Prize,

A kind of cinema competition rewarding
the best French film of the year.

The film-maker plays the society
game and quietly continues his rise.

Abroad, Jacques Tati begins
to make a name for himself,

notably in England, where Mister Hulot
is showing at London's chicest cinema,

and where the film sparks
a true British passion.

The film-maker comes to
witness his success in person and,

keen to adapt to local customs,

he equips himself with an umbrella that
he will soon entrust to Monsieur Hulot.

In June 1954, Tati lands in New
York to attend his film's premiere

on the other side of the Atlantic.

Les Vacances de Monsieur
Hulot soon becomes

the most successful French
film ever in the United States,

surpassing The Baker's
Wife by Marcel Pagnol,

which had held the
title for 15 years.

Tati takes advantage
of his stay in New York

to re-enact his sports impressions

in front of photographer
Philippe Halsman's lens.

But above all, he spends his
days observing American gigantism

and the conquering modernity
in the land of progress.

He observes the human species
in its American variant.

By watching passers-by, he draws ideas
for a character or picks up a gesture.

Tati is a film-maker in
constant reconnaissance.

I flirt a little, I take my time.

Yes, I find it pleasant.

And I walk and
observe on the street,

then I see if my subject
holds up, if really,

yes, it's good like that, that's it.

Then little by little, while
observing, I build and tell my story.

Back in France, Tati
could rest on his laurels.

Why not allow himself a detour
into the world of advertising,

as his impresario suggests?

Tati's response is cutting.

I'd like to point out
that I particularly love my work

and under no circumstances do I do it
to promote some brand of auto-mobile,

let alone the quality of spaghetti.

Tati thinks only of his
art and his next film.

This time, there's no
question of changing character.

But Tati wants to continue
renewing himself and experimenting.

His new comedy, entitled Mon Oncle,

Will be shot in colour,
and for the first time,

He decides to film
partly in a studio.

He asks one of his
artistic collaborators,

the painter-architect
Jacques Lagrange,

to design the plans
for an ultra-modern villa,

like a robot-house, with
windows shaped like eyeballs.

More than just a set, it will be a true
character at the centre of the film,

revealing bourgeois
snobbery and convention.

"Everything is connected,"
says Tati's heroine, Madame Arpel.

But in this sterile villa,
no one is connected to anyone.

In his third film, Tati innovates
again with the soundtrack.

He uses it to make a
visionary critique,

Not of technology itself,
but of how it is used.

As usual, Tati takes the time to mime
every gesture to each of his actors.

He even does it for
Dacky, the Arpels' dog,

who stands out as the disruptor
in a world that runs too smoothly.

Oh Dacky!

Come here!

- I'm sure it's its fault.
- Dacky!

We've got to get it to walk in
front of the sensor again.

Dacky, will you come here?

- Come on!
- Ah, he's coming.

Come on, Dacky, come.

- Dacky!
- It's not working any more.

What are we going to do?

Oh, listen...

Go, Dacky.
Go on, go.

Of course he'll go if you scold him.

We need to get out of here, right?
We'll have to call Georgette.

In Mon Oncle, the
surprising Mr. Hulot

has traded his vacation
attire for city clothes.

And his rickety car from the previous
film must have given up the ghost.

He is the uncle who
gives the film its title,

but above all, its free
and offbeat spirit.

For Mr. Hulot struggles greatly

to conform to the harsh
laws of social life.

And he cares little for
the illusions of success

pursued by his sister
and brother-in-law.

Oh, you're not coming in?

If you hadn't gone into cinema,
what would you have liked to do?

I worked in a shop—my
grandfather was a framer.

- A framer?
- Yes, a framer.

The framer of Toulouse-Lautrec,
a friend of Van Gogh.

My father took over the shop.

Normally, I should be
working in that shop,

framing paintings by Buffet.

Would you like that?

I'd rather be framed.

I'm in too much of a
rush to be a framer.

Yes, of course.

Jacques Tati is a workaholic.

After six exhausting
months of filming,

he devotes fifteen months
to finishing his film,

working ten hours a day.

Finally, in the spring of 1958,

the perfectionist is ready
to face the public eye.

Five years after
Mr. Hulot's Holiday,

Jacques Tati's new film is selected to
compete at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film-maker insisted on coming
with his entire technical team and cast.

On the evening of
the awards ceremony,

Mon Oncle receives the
prestigious Special Jury Prize,

for the originality and
comedic strength of the work.

Mon Oncle is a huge
success in France,

and across Europe, where Tati
embarks on a tour to accompany the film.

In Switzerland, Denmark, and
Sweden, he is welcomed like a star.

In Rome, Tati takes the opportunity
to visit Federico Fellini.

The Italian director offered
him the role of Don Quixote

in an adaptation he
hoped to make someday.

But sadly, the film
would never be made.

In September 1958, Tati leaves
for a two-month tour of America,

travelling from city to city
to present Mon Oncle,

in a version specially made
for the American audience.

His tour culminates in Los Angeles,

where Mon Oncle is in competition
for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

And the winner is... My Uncle.

I would like to say a few
words with my very bad English.

I find that people who
speak the worst English

want to talk more than the others.

But for my first visit to Hollywood,

I feel I'm doing fine.

After the ceremony, Jacques Tati—French
star among Hollywood stars...

specifically requests to
meet his silent film idols,

including Harold Lloyd
and Buster Keaton.

Back in Paris, he is
welcomed as a victor.

The film-maker is at
the height of success,

but there's no question of
him taking himself too seriously.

In the small town hall of Le Pecq, the
city where he was born 52 years earlier,

he performs a low-budget
remake of the Oscars ceremony,

surrounded by his mother,
his wife, and his friends.

From the mayor of his town to
the President of the Republic,

Jacques Tati is congratulated
by all of official France.

Tati meets De Gaulle,

but he politely declines
the medal of Arts and Letters

the government wishes
to bestow upon him.

"My behaviour in the
exercise of my profession

allows me to walk the streets
whistling," he writes.

"Hands in pockets, in
the least formal outfits,

and I would feel obliged, in order
to wear this decoration with dignity,

to change my habits,

which are the safeguard of my
artistic and philosophical independence.

"Tati fully intends to remain free.

At the beginning of the 1960s, he gives
up a film entitled The Illusionist,

which would have told of his
beginnings in the music hall,

likely judging it too conventional.

He embarks on his boldest project,

his most difficult, the film that would
become his greatest masterpiece.

"I'm taking all the
risks," he declares.

"Either I succeed, or I fail.

There is no middle ground."

During his international tour,

Tati observed the latest inventions
in the service of efficiency and speed.

Well-ordered office lives,

but also a new kind of
architecture beginning to rise.

Tati decides that his
next film, Playtime,

will take place entirely
in a standardized

and ultra-modern urban environment.

Far from the small
village of Jour de Fête

or the seaside resort
of Mr. Hulot's Holiday.

He begins a location scouting
campaign that lasts ten months.

He collects photos of new
buildings in European cities:

Berlin, Milan,

Helsinki, or Geneva.

In Paris, the La Défense
district does not yet exist.

But Tati closely follows the
construction of Orly Airport

and films scouting footage there.

Today, when you take
a flight from Orly,

You have an airport very
similar to the one in New York.

And when you arrive in London,

you find almost the same
layout as in Stockholm.

And since the chairs in
homes also look the same,

you find at your friends' place
the same chairs as at Orly Airport,

the same chairs at
Orly as in New York,

and soon you begin to
wonder why you even travel.

Natural locations are
deemed too limiting by Tati,

Who decides that most of his film
should be shot in an open-air studio.

It would no longer be just
one house, as in Mon Oncle,

but an entire business district

that Tati has designed by
production designer Eugène Roman

and built in the Paris suburbs
starting in September 1964.

This enormous construction
site is filmed,

as will be all the upcoming stages
of Tati's extraordinary project.

An 8-hectare vacant lot,
50,000 cubic metres of concrete,

4,000 square metres of plastic,
1,200 square metres of glass,

a piping system, asphalted roads,

traffic lights and street
lamps are built specifically.

Thanks to these two power stations,

Tati's set could supply electricity
to a town of 15,000 inhabitants.

It is the largest set ever
built for a French film.

Here we are in front
of the model of Tativille.

Mr. Tati, it’s a truly
ultramodern city.

Why call it "Tativille"?

Because I don’t have
a name for the city.

You co-designed this city
with architect Roman.

- It’s a modern city.
- Yes, it's a highly functional city,

that's what it is.

There is glass, steel. Why all
these ultramodern materials?

I don't believe it's ultramodern;

I think it's what is
being built today,

and we're not here to
criticise modern architecture.

Once the set is completed,

the film-maker starts casting
the inhabitants of Tativille.

He often hires non-
professional actors who,

in real life, do the job
they will portray on screen.

Because Tati seeks
accurate gestures:

the right body posture or
the correct way of moving.

Tati leaves nothing to chance.

He tests bright colours

that must stand out in the sea of grey
dominating the first part of the film.

He even takes time to test the
colour of Mr. Hulot's socks,

matching the rest of his costume.

Will they be grey with
mimosa yellow stripes,

with brown suede shoes
and slate grey trousers?

Or perhaps greenish socks,

with black leather shoes and charcoal
grey trousers would suit better?

To Tati, these details matter.

Especially since he decided
to shoot his film in 70mm.

A large format film that
shows every detail clearly

and is usually reserved for
big blockbuster productions.

Tati's new film will
be a poetic comedy

shot with the technical
resources of a Hollywood epic.

Every set element is calibrated,
measured like a mannequin,

according to its
size and proportions.

Tati also has extras
photographed in frozen poses,

as if caught mid-motion.

These photos are then cut out
and become life-size silhouettes,

which will populate Tativille

and coexist with real
flesh-and-blood extras.

Like here, on the
right of the screen,

where a cut-out silhouette
stands next to a motionless man,

like a robot whose battery has died.

For Tati, businessmen are robots and
their movements form a strange ballet.

For the lead female role, Tati
definitely did not want a major star.

He chose a former au pair
of a couple of friends

who worked as a secretary
at Findus, in Frankfurt.

- What's your name?
- Barbara Dennek.

- That's your name in Playtime as well.
- That's right.

- Is this your first role?
- Yes. I've never acted before.

- Do you know the script?
- No, I don't.

Why not?

Mr. Tati doesn't want
us to read the script.

He thinks it would make
our acting feel unnatural.

It is through Barbara's eyes
that we will discover the big city,

which, Tati says, must
be the film's only real star.

Why does the character
of Mr. Hulot appear again?

Because I like Mr. Hulot.

The character proved successful
and was well received abroad.

Audiences like him in America,
and they like him in England.

I have no other heroes.
He's simply mine.

At the start of
filming, in spring 1965,

Tati focuses on scenes where Mr. Hulot
wander through a maze of offices.

More than ever, Hulot
is a misfit character,

lost in a world devoid
of any human warmth.

But in Playtime, Tati refuses for
Mr. Hulot to occupy the film's centre.

The film-maker stages the calculated
withdrawal of his character,

who sometimes steps aside
to let others take centre stage.

Tati even plays with
fake Mr. Hulots,

who appear from time to
time around a scene's corner.

In the month of June 1965, filming
of Playtime is interrupted by a storm.

Tativille suffers
considerable damage

and the production
falls irreversibly behind.

But it would take more
than that to throw off Tati,

Who has committed himself to
a magnificent slow-motion race.

The film-maker applies his usual
method before filming each scene.

But on Playtime, there
are many actors involved.

So everything takes longer.

Tati's direction
becomes a choreography,

a show in itself.

The director and mime occasionally
grants himself a small role.

Which he enjoys placing
in the background,

an invitation to observe
every detail of the image.

I put the film before my private life
and before my personal comfort,

whereas often, to
make things easier,

people sign quickly for other films

just to change their
car or their bathroom.

Tati has doubts.

He searches for release.

He rehearses for hours,
sometimes for entire days.

He always wants a better take.

Some members of his technical team
start calling him "Tatillon".

The film-maker doesn't mind.

He's not there to bend to the
constraints of his massive crew,

but to pursue his dream and
stage his vision of the modern world,

in a film like no one
has ever made before.

The shoot drags on.

As the months go by, tensions rise.

Bills pile up, bankers and
suppliers grow impatient.

The company renting the camera orders
the seizure of a lens during the shoot.

All means are considered
to try to bail out the ship.

Tati, who is also the
producer of his film,

decides to mortgage his house.

A grand quixotic epic,

the shooting of Playtime finally ends
after 365 cumulative days of work,

spread out over nearly three years.

The athlete is exhausted
by this mammoth production,

but his fight is not yet over.

He works day and night, fine-tuning
his piece until the very last minute.

But what is that little
background music we're hearing?

Wait, I'll tell you the exact spot.

Several times, Tati
delays the film's release,

Unable to feel fully satisfied.

People sometimes say a Tati film is
never completely finished, is that true?

- That's not a very kind thing to say.
- But it's true, you said it yourself!

Yes, I think so, because we're
always afraid it's not quite right,

that something is missing.

In December 1967, after
five years of relentless work,

Tati finally premieres his
film at the Cinéma L'Empire.

He is surrounded by
his family, his team,

and all of Paris from
the French film world.

Tell him I'm at the Royal Carrefour.

The day after the premiere,
François Truffaut writes to Tati,

Playtime is unlike anything
that already exists in cinema.

No other film is framed
or mixed like this one.

It's a film that comes
from another planet,

where films are made differently.

Playtime is perhaps Europe of 1968
as seen by the first Martian film-maker.

He sees what we no longer see,

hears what we no longer hear,
and films differently from us.

The film audiences discover on
screen indeed resembles no other.

It culminates in a
grand, euphoric scene

that responds to the robotic
ballet at the start of the film.

Playtime is a dazzling
artistic success.

But it cost so much to make that French
audiences alone can't cover its deficit.

A success in the United States, where
his previous films had done so well,

could still save Tati
from financial ruin.

But nothing goes as planned.

Playtime finds no takers in America.

The film-maker had dreamed that his set
would survive the filming of Playtime

and be used by film school students.

On the day they're demolished,

he throws the film's script under
one of the collapsing façades.

For Tati, the consequences of Playtime's
commercial failure are brutal.

He must sell his house before seeing
his company placed in receivership

and his first four films
put under sequestration.

Now that Playtime is over, it really
was a long adventure, a difficult one.

I’d probably scare the production
manager, Bernard Maurice, if I said,

“Alright, on Monday we’ll think about
the first shot of the next film!”

But no, I need to take a break.

You're going to rest.
Will you change environments?

I don't know.

I've had... enough.

From the end of the 1960s,
Tati is no longer in demand.

Hindered from realising his dreams

or achieving the miraculous
rise he had hoped for.

French producers turn away from him.

He works thanks to
foreign investors.

In 1971, he makes Traffic,

produced in the Netherlands and partly
filmed to try to pay off his debts.

What happened?

Traffic is a more modest
film than Playtime,

But it offers a unique
gaze—both poetic and unsparing...

on the standardized
civilisation of the car.

For the only time in
all of Tati's work,

Mr. Hulot opens his
signature umbrella.

Jacques Tati, will we ever see M.
Hulot on screen again?

Yes, yes, yes, I hope so, because
I believe that as he gets older,

he's going to become
even more eccentric.

And I think at that point, I
have nothing to do with the story,

on the contrary, I think we can
really let loose as we get older.

In 1973, Tati stages Parade,

produced thanks to Swedish television
and filmed at the Stockholm circus.

In front of the camera, he recreates
acts from his musical hall performances,

sporting impressions that had
made him famous in his youth.

After a long battle, Tati manages
to recover the rights to his films,

which are re-released in
theatres and find a new audience.

Proof that he hadn't lost his spirit
and was still seeking innovation,

Tati decides to shoot new scenes for the
canoe sequence in Mr. Hulot's Holiday,

which he integrates 25 years
later into the final edit of his film.

Shortly before, Tati had seen
Steven Spielberg's Jaws,

which he had found very impressive.

One November night in 1982,
Jacques Tati takes his final holiday,

without his final
screenplay, Confusion,

which was to open with the death of
M. Hulot, ever being filmed.

Shortly before his
death, he had declared

"Playtime caused me great suffering,

physically and financially, but it's
truly the film I wanted to make.

I'm proud of Playtime,
it will always be my finest film."