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“A film that comes from another planet, where they make films differently.“ - Francois Truffaut, on Playtime

Truffaut’s quote above could indeed apply to all of Tati’s work, for this unusual comedian did make films differently than anyone else. Starting his career with an unusual mime act that vaulted him to stardom in ‘30s Paris music halls, Tati’s path to filmmaking was unlike many others: his debut directorial effort hit the screen when he was 40 years old, and from there, he made only a mere five more, yet each showed him to be a massive and unique talent. Watching Tati’s films shows that the final frontier of all great pantomimists is obsessive choreography; his incredible perfectionism and desire for innovation caused him to reexamine every aspect of the filmmaking process from his idiosyncratic perspective, as his use of sound, blocking and distinct approach to the structure of the “gag” itself enraptured international audiences, making him a star abroad and a hero at home. Join us in the month of September for this delightful retrospective highlighting his entire ouevre!

Series co-presented by the Film & TV Office of the French Embassy in Los Angeles, and CulturesFrance

9/02 @ 8:00pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
SPECIAL THURSDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE:
The Circus (new 35mm print!)
shown with
Parade

The Circus - 8:00pm
“It is Chaplin's great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.” - Christian Baluvelt, Slant Magazine

After the epic venture of The Gold Rush made him an even bigger star than he previously was, Chaplin focused the subject matter of his Gold Rush follow-up inward, turning the spotlight on the act of comedy-making itself. The Circus finds The Tramp running afoul of the law and hiding out within the confines of a travelling three-ring operation; accidentally barging in during the middle of a performance, the Tramp inadvertently displays astounding comic skills on the stage, and becomes the circus’s new hottest act. The film’s deceptively simple set-up gives Chaplin one of his greatest possibility-laden canvases, one onto which he projects an fantastic run of iconic, beautifully executed comic setpieces: the funhouse hall of mirrors chase, the monkey-laden tightrope walk, and his perilous, hilarious stint stuck in the lion cage. As well, The Circus’s core romance, between Chaplin and co-star Merna Kennedy, is possibly his most realistic and bittersweet, lending a fittingly somber farewell to what Chaplin had, in the end, falsely assumed would be his final silent.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1928, 35mm, 70 min.

Parade - 9:30pm
“[A] sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum

After both Playtime and Trafic failed to connect with audiences and critics alike,, Jacques Tati graced the screen one final time with Parade, a seemingly simple, yet densely layered videotaped spectacle made for Swedish television, and a work that harkens back to the master filmmaker’s roots in the music halls of 1930s France. Extensively interweaving documentary technique, Tati presents for us an effervescent series of circus acts performed in front of an arena audience: acrobats, jugglers, trained animals, clowns and the like, with the performances bookended by Tati himself performing sublime pantomimes, such as a brilliant “slo-mo” tennis match, with a expert grace that belies his advanced age. While on the surface Parade appears to be merely a filmed record of a stage show, it in fact effortlessly blurs the lines between “real” and “staged”, from the intermingling of Tati’s handpicked actors and extras amongst “real” patrons, to those “real” patrons interacting with the “real” performers as audience and performance become one. To quote Fernando Croce of Cinepassion.org, Parade is “[a] distillation not of Jacques Tati per se, but of communal spectacle and creation -- cinema.”
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1974, 89 min.

Watch an excerpt from "The Circus"!


Tickets - $10

9/03 @ 8:00pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
SPECIAL TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE:
Playtime
shown with
Modern Times

Playtime - 8:00pm
Jacques Tati’s Playtime is an essential experience in theatrical viewing -- and reviewing, and reviewing; it begs to be seen on the big screen. It is not just a brilliant and graceful observational comedy about “modern living”, but one the most massive undertakings in film history (shot over two years, with a total of 365 days of shooting, and edited for another year). Tati invested every penny he had, and then borrowed more, in order to create the ultimate movie set as playpen, constructing on the outskirts of Paris a “Tati-ville” for Mr. Hulot to wander around in: a complete futurist office building and its surrounding urban environment were built exactly to his specifications. The results are spectacular in a way that no other film accomplishes; it blows you away not with titillation, suspense or pathos, but rather with the pure perfection of its audio-visual ballet. And this heavenly dance requires repeat viewings; Tati made it his goal to fill every piece of the frame with activity and action, in an effort to “democratize the gag”. Every actor, every single extra is doing something funny, whimsical or interesting at all times -- so that you, the viewer, can choose how you are entertained, and no choice is wrong.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1967, 35mm, 155 min.

Modern Times - 10:45pm
“The ‘road’ ending has been stock for Chaplin almost from the beginning. But this time it is definitive.” - Walter Kerr, “The Silent Clowns”

In the process of producing his farewell to silent film as a medium, Chaplin crafted in Modern Times a superlative statement about the American everyman’s place amongst the crushing realities of the Great Depression, all couched inside truly memorable slapstick conceits whose images haven’t lost an ounce of their power. From its Metropolis-meets-Devo “mechanized man” opening act (which would later inspire I Love Lucy’s classic “assembly line” routine), to its later “department store fantasia”, political demonstration, prison break and high-class restaurant sequences, this send-up of both capitalism and its socialist counterpart delivers its powerful message amongst a non-stop parade of magnificent antics handpicked and re-created from Chaplin’s early days, and a clever, subtle sound effects backdrop that never intrudes on the “silent”-ness at the film’s core. Serious and silly, contemplative and crazy, Modern Times is an unmissable treasure.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1936, 35mm, 87 min.

Watch an excerpt from "Playtime"!


Watch an excerpt from "Modern Times"!


Tickets - $10

9/04 @ 7:30pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
SPECIAL SATURDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE:
The Gold Rush (new 35mm print!)
shown with
Jour-de-fête

The Gold Rush - 7:30pm
The Gold Rush is simply one of the towering giants of 1920s silent film, and stands alongside Buster Keaton’s The General as the largest-scale epic comedy event of its time, packed full of astounding visual gags, a tender romance full of heartbreak and butterflies in the stomach, truly suspenseful peril, and the perfect balance of slapstick to pathos (a delicate mixture of which Chaplin was the undisputed king.) Partly inspired by the real-life Donner Party(!), the film finds Chaplin as a Klondike gold prospector; while trapped in a tiny frozen cabin with no food during an intense winter, the Tramp performs some of his all-time most famous bits: Walking Against The Wind, the Chicken Suit, and Eating His Shoe. These satisfying, energizing sequences are matched by the film’s second half, with The Tramp falling in love from a distance with Alaskan beauty Georgia Hale, giving us our hero’s most tender act: the Dance of the Dinner Rolls, a indelible moment that so perfect that only a virtuoso like Chaplin could’ve mastered it. Charlie often claimed that The Gold Rush was the one film he wished to be remembered by -- and rightly so, as this enduring classic richly deserves the title. NOTE: our screenings of The Gold Rush come from the 1942 re-release version that features Chaplin’s narration (the only currently available restored 35mm version of the film.)
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1925, 35mm, 69 min.

Jour-de-fête - 9:15pm
Inaugurating one of the great careers in comedic filmmaking, Jour-de-fête is itself a cause for celebration. Jacques Tati filmed this joyful 1948 debut feature in the remote French village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre, where he and screenwriter Henri Marquet spent the WWII years avoiding German recruitment. At first, plot takes a back seat to the whimsical elaboration of sight gags and comic scenes of village life; things kick in to high gear when a sensationalized newsreel on American postal methods persuades Tati’s bumbling-yet-beloved mailman Francois to streamline his delivery service. The gradual accumulation of character and detail pays off in the delightfully frantic finale, which follows Tati on a calamitous bicycle chase through the carousels, bars, butcher shops, bell towers and hay bales of this seemingly sleepy hamlet. Tati’s inimitable style is amply in evidence even this early on, as he deftly updates the classic techniques of silent comedy with stunningly confident sound design; every frame is stamped with the incalculable craftsmanship, warm humanistic sentiment and the miraculous control of space and movement which are Tati’s stock in trade.
Dir. Jacques Tati 1949, 35mm, 79 min.

Watch an excerpt from "The Gold Rush"!


Watch an excerpt from "Jour-de-fête"!


Tickets - $10

9/10 @ 8:00pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
Jour-de-fête
shown with
Tati Shorts

Inaugurating one of the great careers in comedic filmmaking, Jour-de-fête is itself a cause for celebration. Jacques Tati filmed this joyful 1948 debut feature in the remote French village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre, where he and screenwriter Henri Marquet spent the WWII years avoiding German recruitment. At first, plot takes a back seat to the whimsical elaboration of sight gags and comic scenes of village life; things kick in to high gear when a sensationalized newsreel on American postal methods persuades Tati’s bumbling-yet-beloved mailman Francois to streamline his delivery service. The gradual accumulation of character and detail pays off in the delightfully frantic finale, which follows Tati on a calamitous bicycle chase through the carousels, bars, butcher shops, bell towers and hay bales of this seemingly sleepy hamlet. Tati’s inimitable style is amply in evidence even this early on, as he deftly updates the classic techniques of silent comedy with stunningly confident sound design; every frame is stamped with the incalculable craftsmanship, warm humanistic sentiment and the miraculous control of space and movement which are Tati’s stock in trade. Also showing after Jour-de-fête are three shorts featuring rare appearences by Tati outside of his feature films!
Dir. Jacques Tati 1949, 35mm, 79 min.



Watch an excerpt from "Jour-de-fête"!


Tickets - $10

9/17 @ 8:00pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
Trafic
shown with
Parade

Trafic - 8:00pm
Stinging from the mystifying critical and commercial failure of his chef-d’oevre, Playtime, Tati bounded back with this simpler, more practical feature. Trafic brings Hulot back front and center in a rollicking road-comedy satire of automotive mischief: our hero is now a beleaguered auto inventor, traveling across Europe to showcase his absurdly feature-rich new camper at an auto show. Between the anemic efforts of his American fashion-plate PR woman, the constant mechanical failures of his truck and the absurd border beaurocracies he encounters, it’s clear that car culture is less the target than the vehicle for this satire on modernity; an alternate title could have been Breakdown, considering how communication (in at least three languages!) and civility fall apart as much as engines in Trafic’s brisk 96 minutes. Despite the scaled-back nature of the production, Tati’s production design is brilliant, especially in its gorgeous use of color. As well, his way with large-scale physical comedy reaches an apex in what may be the funniest car crash sequence ever. Certainly the most underrated of Tati’s features, Trafic provides an unobstructed view of Tati’s genius, and provides a fitting bon-voyage to the beloved Mr. Hulot.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1971, 35mm, 96 min.

Parade - 10:00pm
“[A] sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum

After both Playtime and Trafic failed to connect with audiences and critics alike,, Jacques Tati graced the screen one final time with Parade, a seemingly simple, yet densely layered videotaped spectacle made for Swedish television, and a work that harkens back to the master filmmaker’s roots in the music halls of 1930s France. Extensively interweaving documentary technique, Tati presents for us an effervescent series of circus acts performed in front of an arena audience: acrobats, jugglers, trained animals, clowns and the like, with the performances bookended by Tati himself performing sublime pantomimes, such as a brilliant “slo-mo” tennis match, with a expert grace that belies his advanced age. While on the surface Parade appears to be merely a filmed record of a stage show, it in fact effortlessly blurs the lines between “real” and “staged”, from the intermingling of Tati’s handpicked actors and extras amongst “real” patrons, to those “real” patrons interacting with the “real” performers as audience and performance become one. To quote Fernando Croce of Cinepassion.org, Parade is “[a] distillation not of Jacques Tati per se, but of communal spectacle and creation -- cinema.”
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1974, 89 min.

Watch an excerpt from "Trafic"!


Tickets - $10

9/24 @ 8:00pm / Series: The Films of Jacques Tati
Mr. Hulot's Holiday
shown with
Mon Oncle (brand-new 35mm print!)

Mr. Hulot's Holiday - 8:00pm
Tati’s second feature introduced the world to the indelible comic creation of Monsieur Hulot, one of the most beloved and influential personages in world cinema -- both a paragon of politeness and sociability, and an unstoppable, elemental force of anarchy. Chronicling a summer holiday in a sleepy seaside town, the film has Hulot interacting with, and thoroughly disrupting, a perfect cross-section of society types, from snide name-checking gadflys to the aging corporal still prone to playing field commander during picnic outings. Tati builds up each seriocomic episode from a wealth of detail, using deep-space compositions to pack the frame with objects and characters, only to wreak havoc on his creation like a capricious deity. That said, Holiday is also the loosest and most carefree vehicle for its eponymous hero; like Alain Romains’ infectious jazz score, it’s a perfect reflection of its summertime setting, and the spirit of controlled experimentation and innovation at its core.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1953, 35mm, 114 min.

Mon Oncle (brand-new 35mm print!) - 10:15pm
Tati hinted at the themes of industrialization and modernization in Jour-de-féte and Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, but it was not until Mon Oncle that the director found, in the perfectly de-personalized spaces of modern Parisian homes and factories, the great muse of his satirical vision. From his quaint, stone-brick old neighborhood, Hulot travels to visit his adoring nephew in a nightmarishly mod suburban development, where Arpel, his wealthy industrialist brother-in-law, schemes to find gainful employment and suitable companionship for our hero. The perfectly functional furniture, fountains and kitchenware of the immaculate Villa Arpel soon fall victim to Hulot’s tempestuous civility, and the rigid geometrical lines of the Plastac factory become the ideal counterpoint to Tati’s fluid physical comedic business. Though Playtime would refine and expand on many of its elements, Mon Oncle is distinguished by an unrivalled simplicity and clarity -- it’s also perhaps the greatest vehicle for Hulot himself, who would become but a background player amongst the hustle and bustle of Tati’s next masterpiece.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1958, 35mm, 120 min.

Watch an excerpt of Terry Jones (Monty Python) proclaiming his love for "Mr. Hulot's Holiday"!


Watch an excerpt from "Mon Oncle"!


Tickets - $10

Stephen King and film are inseparable at this point. His populist aesthetic, his storytelling mastery, his prolificness and his runaway popularity have combined to make him one of the most adapted American authors of our time. Has any modern writer had as many of his stories adapted into major (and minor) motion pictures? His novels were immediately brought to Hollywood, right from the first one (Carrie), and it hasn’t stopped since; even his short stories have spawned adaptations galore. Best of all, Stephen King clearly loves movies, and wants to see films made of his work -- the “dollar baby” phenomena alone (in which he allows student filmmakers adapt his work, non-commercially, for just one dollar is testament to that fact. So come see just a fraction of the adaptations made from his work, including a brand-new 35mm restoration of Christine, courtesy of Sony!

Christine (brand-new 35mm print!)

Rob Reiner Double Feature:
Stand By Me

Dreamcatcher

Frank Darabont Double Feature:
The Shawshank Redemption

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