Hillary Chang -image set is ABOVE

The first image in my sequence is when Hulot wanders into the elevator without knowing what it was, and ends up ascending without Giffard. The second image is when Hulot is waiting to be announced by the aged doorman, and the doorman has trouble figuring out how to call Giffard using the machine in the wall, which makes a series of beeps and loud noises as he presses the wrong buttons. The third image is from the opening sequence of the film as the tourists enter the station.

These images show Hulot's confusion with modern technology. This reflects Tati's commentary on modern Paris; with all kinds of new technological advances, people who are unfamiliar with these new advances come into difficulty when presented with them, resulting in comedic confusion. As Hulot steps into the elevator to read the sign, the doors close and he misses Giffard again. This annoys Giffard through the whole scene as Hulot's confusion with this new city keeps him from Giffard. Similarly, the doorman struggles to remember which buttons were the right ones to press; there were too many for one machine and especially with no distinctions other than lighting up and bleeping angrily when he pressed the wrong one.

Tati also makes a commentary on the architecture of the modern city, by filling his set with grey walls, shiny floors and glass walls Tati emphasizes the banality of "sleek modernity" and modernity's elimination of a few fundamental aspects of architecture. Hulot's confusion also stems from the lack of defining architectonic elements that dictated the small room as an elevator. In the doorman scene, the buttons on the wall are also placed in a uniform grid, with few differences causing the doorman to muddle up the order. The lack of privacy of modern Paris is shown with the extensive use of curtain walls, as well as the lack of separating wall between the hallway and the bathroom in the last image. The lack of walls and the transparency of the curtain walls blurs the indoor and outdoor spaces, causing many characters to confuse them with when the walls were taken out, causing them to bump into them.

The f/x Tati uses are very simple but effective. His use of sound in the second image's scene emphasizes the doorman's error, it also enhances the doorman's frustration with the machine as it bleeps angrily at him. The film is overall very quiet, allowing viewers to focus on the visual effects and comedic moments that happen with the character's interactions with the architecture. Tati uses clever framing and lighting to take advantage of reflections in windows and off the floor to enhance his commentary on the banality of modernity.

Patrick Cheung -image set is ABOVE

The first two images in the set show a block of apartment buildings that  friend of Hulot's lives in. These apartments feature floor to ceiling, wall to wall windows that face the street.  Sounds from the apartment cannot be heard from outside.  During this scene, Hulot and his friend are watching a television that's mounted in the wall separating his apartment from his neighbor's.  His neighbor is watching a television mounted on the same wall in his apartment. 

Tati films this scene from the perspective of the street, so the sound from inside the apartments are blocked out.  Parts of this scene are shot from a full frontal perspective, making the two apartments seem like one.  This creates a hilarious "interaction" between the neighbors as they react to the television program. 

The final image shows the American tourist Barbara in her hotel room, with a similar looking window facing the street.

These scenes both depict places that are supposed to be private, though are completely exposed to a public audience through the floor to ceiling, wall to wall windows.  Both settings are supposed to be places of comfort, though are made uncomfortable not only by the lack of privacy but also by the furniture.  The apartments feature the modern rectilinear chairs that don't quite squish like normal seats and couches, but pop in and snap back out.  The hotel room looks uncomfortably small and features a rectilinear bed that looks equally as uncomfortable as the chairs. 

Both these sets show how the desire for new, luxurious, and cleanly designed homes and furniture can get in the way of human comfort.  Just because people can create large, wall-sized windows, or rigid chairs that retain their shape through stiffness, does not mean that they should.  It is almost impossible to live a comfortable life in these settings. 

Charlie Gao -image set is ABOVE

Maighdlyn Hadley -image set is ABOVE

Milos Mladenovic -image set is ABOVE

The three images here are all from the end of the film, the morning after the dinner, when the tourists are driving back to the airport to leave Paris. This is a particularly lively point in the film and is the resolve after the chaotic fiasco of the dinner party that precedes it. All three images are very unlike the beginning images of the film: this is not stale, artificial, ordered, manicured, consciously presented Paris. And of course they do not take place indoors, as of the scenes before them do. This is Paris the carnival. In the first image, the cars are circling endlessly in a roundabout, imbued with a sense of the natural chaos and happenstance of urban life. In the second, the tourists look out from their bus at what appears to be either a mechanic or fuel station at cars being inspected and going up and down on hydrolic platforms. The third image, similarly, has a technician in working clothes on a mechanical lift shouting to his colleague on the ground, trying to communicate with him, amidst a sea of cars below and around. The facade of the iconic modern buildings we have become so familiar with at this point takes up a third of the background.

These scenes are all in stark contrast to the first half of the film, creating two great counterpoints essentially hinged by the dinner scene between them. On a basic level, the arc of the film in this way transitions from the sterile line to the fluid curve. This is not a modern Paris in which everything is controlled, designed, calculated, and trimmed of excess like the earlier scenes of the protagonist man lost in the modern buildings and their modern furniture exhibition centers. This is instead a Paris where things are happening slightly in a more "natural," unplanned manner. It's also slightly comical and less uptight than the rest of the film - where the dinner party gradually breaks down the sterility into utter chaos (literally the place is falling apart by the end), these images are completely free of restraint, residing in that world with which the dinner party culminates. There is a comical, carnival-like side to them - the cars are oscillating up and down, the mechanic appears like a cartoon waving to his colleague on the ground, and the cars circling in the roundabout create a caricature-like scene. And all of this is being seen by the tourists through their bus windows. It's a perfect close to the entire narrative on modernity, and ends the drive to the airport and the departure of the tourists, the end of their Parisian adventure, in a very appropriate tone.

Kyle Jensen -image set is ABOVE

The three images that I am investigating this week all have a common link which involves the design of modern furniture. The writers of the film add comedy to the plot by poking fun at modern design. ! ! The first image shows the protagonist inspecting the chairs of a waiting room. Everything seems fairly standard until he presses on the upholstery, air is then squeezed out of the seams, creating a vacuum within. The comical aspect is the air’s amusing popping noise as the fabric expands to let air in again. Multiple other times during the film the same designed chair makes this noise, becoming increasingly hilarious the more times it happens.

The second image shows a man falling off of a bar stool. The stool itself is fairly tall making it easy for a drunk person to tip it. The design of the stool is modern in its fabrication, boasting steel construction that appears very stable as the legs do taper to a wider stance at the bottom. But again multiple times the stool is toppled by an intoxicated bar patron, creating comic release as the person is quickly ejected out of the club as soon as he becomes to drunk to sit on the stool. Also the stool was flipped around creating a standing enclosure for a drunk man to stand. This also created comedy as the man was then held up by the stool creating a standing aid out of the same tool that was used as an indicator of a man’s soberness.

The third image shows a crowded dance floor with couples enjoying the music. The circle is emphasizing a mark that the poorly designed modern chairs of the club leave on its patrons after sitting at the tables. The chairs themselves were designed with a trident looking prong for the chair back. Again the chairs are steel with very fine rods coming to a point at the top. It seems like a poor finish may have been applied to them as on both bare skin and fabrics show an impression after the person leaves it.

In all three cases modern furniture is seen to be subpar or quirky because of an aspect of the design. I feel that the film maker is poking fun at the sleek lines and minimalist concepts of the pieces in this movie. I was also interested that there was only one alternative as far as furniture, making an interesting statement of availability in the market when the movie was made. The idea of the clean lined approach to buildings and furniture is seen to be a negative and comical extravagance as the buildings are hard to navigate and the furniture functions poorly.

Overall this film personally was my favourite of all viewed this semester to date as comedy is used to create interesting situations in the city. Stereotypes exist within the characters and there was an overall lightness to the film that appealed to me. I don’t think the film is exactly true to the form of historical accuracy but clear emotions towards the design of the day were portrayed. The extrusion of the film was positive and uplifting and I enjoyed the overall plot development even if it was a bit disjointed.

Arturo Morales Rivera -image set is ABOVE

By the time that Playtime premiered in 1967, Tati was already a known critic of modern technologies and architecture. Almost ten years before, his film Mon Oncle was a well received critique to postwar France in its road to modernism, contrasting it against the old neighborhoods of Paris, where monsieur Hulot -Tati’s most famous character- lives. On this particular film, the plot centers around the mishappenings that Hulot has to deal with while visiting his sister’s new and technologically advanced house, while portraying his view of modern architecture as rigid, dull and bland, all done in a very clever and humorous way; to positively illustrate this statement Tati proceeded to design and build The Villa Arpel along with painter and long-time collaborator Jacques Lagrange in a studio in Nice, France.

Fast-forward to Tati’s next film, Playtime. Production began on 1964 with the construction of the set that came to be known as “Tativille”, which would also end up becoming the real star of the film. There were around 100 workers involved in the construction of two buildings with an approximate total of 340 sqm of glass, 3595 sqm of plastic, 2926 sqm of timber and 45,150 sqm of concrete. The set was so elaborated that it had its own roads and electrical systems, as well as a full functioning elevator in one of the buildings.¹ Some of the other office blocks shown in the background during the movie are in fact on wheels and tracks that could be easily moved around in order to satisfy the vision of the director.² To help with the desired effect, Tati also employed long shots to allow a panoramic view of the architecture, making it the center of attention.

The film continues with Tati’s commentary on the lack of character and spirit of modern architecture, which becomes very clear with the design of the office buildings, displaying a very orthogonal and repetitive language in their overall shape, color and materials, inspired by the ESSO tower, built in 1963 in La Défense, a business district in Paris.

This can be further evidenced by the posters hanging on the walls of the travel agency during one of the scenes, showing practically the same buildings in each of the different destinations and presenting only subtle differences according to the place that the poster advertises, for example, a sombrero on top of a building with a title that reads Mexico. In turn, this becomes an interesting nod to modernism taking over the world.

As well as the visual impact created by the sets, Tati also relied extensively on soundscapes to create and portray the adequate atmospheres required by the scenes, blending the sounds of the city such as traffic, construction workers and street vendors with the dialogues of the characters, sometimes even losing them mid-conversation in order to allow a feeling of chaos and noise to take over the scenes.

Besides Tati’s humorous style and creative soundscapes, as well as the complex narrative and plot, the exploration of his idea of a modern city and how it affects the people as they slowly adopt the rigidity of the buildings still prevails to this day. Sadly, Playtime also became famous for being a massive commercial failure because of its massive and expensive set, driving Tati straight into bankruptcy. Either way, his legacy remains untouched as his films are regarded today as great achievements in the industry, proof of this being the fact that Playtime was regarded with the 42th place in the critics’ list and the 37th place in the directors’ list of the British Film Institute Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time.³

References

¹ IMDb Playtime Trivia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062136/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv
² Cinema & Architecture: Melies, Mallet-Steven, Multimedia. Edited by Francois Penz and Maureen Thomas British Film Institute, 1997. pp 65.
³ Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. September issue, 2012

Simone Tchonova -image set is ABOVE

The three images shown above are from Tati’s movie “Playtime” during the second half of the film in the dinner sequence. One of the main characteristics of this movie is the differentiating contrast between the two main groups of people the tourists and the “modernized” Parisians. The tourists are a bunch of clumsy, seemingly naive people attempting to experience the Parisian modernity. Then there are the calm, assertive locals who seem to casually carry on with all their daily tasks in the background of scenes. It is not until the chaos of the dinner sequence that the ignorance and lack of expertise of both the locals and the tourists is brought to light. In the first image there are two men who are affiliated with this “posh” restaurant. One would expect these men to know their way around the panel of light switches, breakers, control buttons etc to have a smooth running restaurant business. Neither could seem to find how to put the temperature down (a somewhat simple task). Imagine not knowing how to put down the heat in your own house this would be quite embarrassing.

The second image shows a couple dining together. It is important to look carefully at the details the imprint on the womans naked back. The chairs in the restaurant have been custom made for the restaurant with the backs in the form of a crown (the logo of the restaurant). Everytime that someone is leaning against the chairs for a long time this logo is imprinted onto their backs. As many women are wearing backless dresses, they have this crown imprinted on them making them seem quite silly. It is secure to say that the diners are attempting to have a lavish, posh dinner as a modern Parisian might be thought to. Yet this image quickly crumbles as these funny patterns are embedded onto their backs.

The third image depicts two men having a conversation at the bar. What is not shown in this image is that the man on the left is sitting in an upside down bar stool to his intoxication. What seems to be normal from one angle is complete ridicule from another.

In all three images the naivety and ignorance of everyone in the film is displayed by the fact that each image has other people in the scene who seem completely careless and inattentive of the obscurities occurring directly around them. The situations are in effect more humorous than a portrayal of “Modern” Parisian lifestyle.

Yiming Wang -image set is ABOVE

Victor Zagabe -image set is ABOVE

The first image showcases Tati’s experimentation with the reveal of material properties through the use of sound. Evidently, the loud buzz which eminates from the fluorescent green light serves to provide a particular atmosphere of emptiness, a stale and fragile environment whose nature of stillness is easily disturbed. The use of the green hue , when combined with the sounds created, create a compelling and alienating feel to the space. One simply does not want to linger in such a space. Every collision caused by a person’s movement with a material such as the foot with the floor, or a plate on the countertop is carefully tracked due to the film maker’s use of sound effects.

The same can be said for the second image in that the hardness of the working surfaces are further emphasized due to the low amount of background noise in the scene. The contrast in the overall hue of the dining space and the preparation space The way in which the green hue creates a divide between the dining and the preparation spaces serves to create a kind of social division between production and consumption.

The red accent seen in the third image serves to contrast the other two in the sense that it now becomes a mere highlighter of the key people in the scene, without creating any sense of atmospheric effect due to sound. The atmosphere is created, instead, by the extras in the background.

Wesley Chu - image set is ABOVE

Tati’s “PlayTime” is a critique on modernism and its contemporary architectural stylings. As it is entirely shot on built sets, Tati has incorporated steel, glass, and concrete, the “holy trinity” of modernist architectural materiality, into nearly every shot. For glass specifically, he focuses on not only their division of rooms in space, but their visual effect, their brittleness, seemingly smooth and perfect surfaces, and their tactility. Glazing is unique in architecture as the material that allows sight across its bounds, but not movement. Tati never lets us forget this, showing shots of windows tilting and shifting its reflections, or a cleaner wiping a window with an unbearable squeak. The presence of this transparent, invisible material that is normality in the modernist society is suddenly brought to the visual forefront in the film.

The lack of aforementioned glazing is equally important in the film, as shown later when the glass door to the restaurant shatters, leaving the doorman to only pretend that it is still there with the brass knob. None of the patrons notice, or even seem to care, except for the people in charge of maintaining the place.

Tati’s focus on the physical makeup of the space we inhabit, experience, and move through begs us to analyze and pay more attention to the modernist world built around us and how it changes the way we interact with each other in the world. Is it making for a cold, emotionless atmosphere with a solid, monotone palette that is built like a maze where we can easily get swallowed up in and lost? Because Tati seems to believe that the invisible barrier of glass adds to this atmosphere.