Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism

Turvey, Malcolm

ISBN 10: 0231193033 / ISBN 13: 9780231193030

Published by Columbia University Press, 2020

About this Item

Book has light wear to edges and light smudging to covers and textblock edges. Otherwise, attractive copy with clean, unmarked interior.

Seller Inventory # 1044660

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231193033
• ISBN 13: 9780231193030
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Film

About this title

Synopsis

Jacques Tati is widely regarded as one of the greatest postwar European filmmakers. He made innovative and challenging comedies while achieving international box office success and attaining a devoted following. In Play Time, Malcolm Turvey examines Tati’s unique comedic style and evaluates its significance for the history of film and modernism.

Turvey argues that Tati captured elite and general audiences alike by combining a modernist aesthetic with slapstick routines, gag structures, and other established traditions of mainstream film comedy. Considering films such as Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953), Mon Oncle (1958), Play Time (1967), and Trafic (1971), Turvey shows how Tati drew on the rich legacy of comic silent film while modernizing its conventions in order to encourage his viewers to adopt a playful attitude toward the modern world. Turvey also analyzes Tati’s sardonic view of the bourgeoisie and his complex and multifaceted satire of modern life. Tati's singular and enduring achievement, Turvey concludes, was to translate the democratic ideals of the postwar avant-garde into mainstream film comedy, crafting a genuinely popular modernism. Richly illustrated with images from the director’s films, Play Time offers an illuminating and original understanding of Tati’s work.

About the Author

Malcolm Turvey is Sol Gittleman Professor in the Art and Art History Department and director of the Film and Media Studies Program at Tufts University. He is an editor of the journal October. His books include Doubting Vision: Film and the Revelationist Tradition (2008) and The Filming of Modern Life: European Avant-Garde Film of the 1920s (2011).