110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

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aox
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#252 Post by aox » Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:59 pm

Hey Sausage,

I was rereading the thread and crossed this post. Did you rewatch? Has your opinion of Playtime changed one way or the other?
Mr Sausage wrote:
Tue Dec 09, 2014 12:17 am
I found Playtime exhausting the first time I watched it. After about an hour I couldn't wait for it to be over just so that my eyes could get some relief. It seems like a film I'd like better in short bursts. At full length, it's all a bit much. I'll revisit it and see if my opinion has changed, but I'm not looking forward to it. Much more excited for Mon Oncle, which I haven't seen since highschool. Also it always reminds of me of the title of that Wallace Stevens poem, Le Monocle de Mon Oncle.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#253 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:56 pm

My second viewing was more pleasurable, maybe because knowing what was coming removed some of the cognitive load. I still think it's all a bit too much, but it's no longer so exhausting. My wife loved it unreservedly, tho'. I introduced her to Tati with Holiday, Mon Oncle, and Playtime from this set, and she loved each one more than the last. Playtime didn't seem to exhaust her, so perhaps she has more of a sense of how best to watch it.

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#254 Post by Lowry_Sam » Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:34 am

I found the opposite to be true for me. I loved Playtime when I first saw it on the big screen & so I picked it up when Criterion released it on dvd. I then upgraded to blu-Ray, then the box. I have found that it’s not as enjoyable at home & only watch bits & pieces now & then, but not the whole thing. It really seems to me That movies that are more of a visual experience require your undivided attention, which a theater experience forces on you (not to mention that a larger screen heightens the sense of immersion). Other films I have found this to be true for: Koyaanisqatsi, Metropolis, Apocalypse Now, 2001, A Space Odyssey & many others that don’t have a traditional narrative structure & rely heavily on the visual composition to convey things.

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Florinaldo
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#255 Post by Florinaldo » Fri Oct 18, 2019 9:16 pm

alisoncastle wrote:
Fri Sep 27, 2019 12:47 pm
Hi Tati fans. It took a lot longer than we expected (7 years!) but the TASCHEN book set will finally be released this November.
The price just dropped by 100 $ on Amazon Canada, which means it is less expensive than on the US site. I have no idea how long that price will last or if it will drop even further.

It is now supposed to be released in December.

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senseabove
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#256 Post by senseabove » Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:11 pm

The Complete Works set is $145 on Walmart.com at the moment: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jacques-Tati ... /611217173

beerme
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#257 Post by beerme » Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:37 pm

Did anyone that ordered the Tati book set from amazon get their copy? I pre-ordered it back in August but it's been "Temporarily out of stock" since the release date.

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soundchaser
Leave Her to Beaver
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#258 Post by soundchaser » Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:46 pm

beerme wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:37 pm
Did anyone that ordered the Tati book set from amazon get their copy? I pre-ordered it back in August but it's been "Temporarily out of stock" since the release date.
Nope. I had the pre-order in for ages but cancelled it after waiting for so long and bought it from Half Price Books instead. Worked out to be cheaper than Amazon's original price anyway, and I should have it Monday. (I'll post some pictures then for the curious.)

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Trace17
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#259 Post by Trace17 » Sat Jan 04, 2020 1:43 am

senseabove wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:11 pm
The Complete Works set is $145 on Walmart.com at the moment: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jacques-Tati ... /611217173
Thank you for posting this. I ordered the set after I saw it and I got the set this past Monday. It came pretty well-packaged and in holiday gift wrapping too. I can post some pics tomorrow if anyone is interested.

schlafen
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#260 Post by schlafen » Sat Jan 04, 2020 1:52 pm

Use code DEAL27 at HPB.com to get 27% off one item. This brings the Taschen Tati book down to $115, shipped. Coupon is good through Jan.7.

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Oedipax
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#261 Post by Oedipax » Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:45 pm

Thanks so much for the tip, schlafen! I've been eyeing this ever since it was announced but the sticker price was just too hard to justify. For $115 shipped I finally bit.

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senseabove
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#262 Post by senseabove » Sat Jan 04, 2020 5:07 pm

Learning this about Tati's grandmother might be worth the cost of the book:
Image

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whaleallright
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#263 Post by whaleallright » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:49 am

Jesus! that would make a good film—maybe by Ophuls?

I'd be curious to know what folks who have spent some time with the Taschen collection think of it. I browsed a store copy in NY over Thanksgiving and I was a little underwhelmed. I saw a lot of production stills and ephemera but didn't see a lot of substance that would be keep me engaged for a long time. But I could have misjudged—I only spent about 10 minutes with the thing.

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HitchcockLang
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#264 Post by HitchcockLang » Fri Jan 24, 2020 9:25 am

My goodness! It's like I am destined to never receive the Taschen box. I had, like many of you, preordered from Amazon but they never seemed to receive any stock so I canceled that order and took the excellent advice and coupon code above to order from HalfPriceBooks. That order went through without a hitch but now my box is floating in the most infuriating tracking circle of all time:

I received a shipment notification when my label/tracking number was created, but the item wasn't dropped at a post office until 9 days later when it was scanned at the Southern Maryland Distribution Center. It sat there for 3 days before departing and heading to a couple of different post office locations both in Bowie, MD (I live in SC). Then 3 days later, it returned to the Southern Maryland Distribution Center. The next day, it made progress to the Washington DC Distribution Center where it sat for one day before moving to the (no it can't be!) SOUTHERN MARYLAND DISTRIBUTION CENTER. It feels like one of those gags in an old sitcom where a character is struggling to get through some bureaucratic red tape in some unfamiliar small town and two offices keep bucking the responsibility back and forth between each other. Seriously, I know this isn't a shipping complaints thread but does anyone have any similar experience or perhaps advice for someone to call to see that the package actually makes forward progress? Here I am 19 days after shipment notification and still no books.

In the meantime, I ordered what appears to be a pretty new release: Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism by Malcolm Turvey. It is so far a very engaging read that is focused solely on dissecting the comedy in Tati's films (not just PlayTime despite the title) and is helping me to finally find some of those long fabled simultaneous gags in PlayTime whose existence I had always thought wildly exaggerated. There's a pull quote on the back from Jonathan Rosenbaum calling it the best book length study on Tati he has ever read which seems like pretty high praise.

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whaleallright
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#265 Post by whaleallright » Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:51 pm

Turvey's book is the best thing I've read on Tati, although it won't satisfy those looking for production histories much less biography -- it's a very focused analysis of the gags in Tati's films and the ideas about humor, spectatorship, and modernity they embody or seek to invoke. One thing I especially like about it is that it takes those ideas seriously, even if it suspends judgment on whether Tati is "right" about audiences, modern architecture, etc. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have written some of the more insightful things about Tati's films, which Turvey borrows from, but one thing I don't like about their analyses is the notion that Tati's ideas are wafer-thin and really just a pretext for his play with form (this is the whole idea of "parametric" cinema that Turvey critiques). That always seemed to me to be a false dichotomy, and Turvey bridges close analysis of the films' formal innovations and an attempt to understand what Tati hoped to achieve through them. I ended up re-watching all of Tati's features while reading the book and saw them with a refreshed understanding and appreciation... (Like the previous poster noted, it also alerted me to the existence of dozens of gags in the films I had previously missed!)

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Never Cursed
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#266 Post by Never Cursed » Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:27 pm

Not sure if this belongs here on in one of the books threads, but today I learned that Monsieur Hulot's Holiday of all films received a fairly elaborate literary adaptation in 1959 written by a 28-year-old Jean-Claude Carrière and illustrated by Pierre Etaix

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markpsf
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Tati on Blu Ray and Criterion Channel - One or both?

#267 Post by markpsf » Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:11 pm

I subscribe to the Criterion Channel. I'm studying Jacques Tati's films. Would there be any value at all in also having the Blur Ray box set?

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jsteffe
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Re: Tati on Blu Ray and Criterion Channel - One or both?

#268 Post by jsteffe » Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:47 pm

That's entirely up to you. I'd watch some of his films on the Criterion Channel first and determine how deeply you want to delve into his work.

The big Tati box is chock full of content, including some special features that I imagine are not on the Criterion Channel. I am not entirely convinced by the color grading on PLAYTIME and MON ONCLE (but I'm open to other opinions here). The original color version of JOUR DE FETE is not as sharp as it was on the older BFI Blu-ray edition. In fact it's a clear step down. All this is to say that the package is comprehensive, but possibly less than ideal in some areas. At the same time, I would argue that any shortcomings are mostly not major, except for the the color JOUR DE FETE, which I value as an example of a rare color process.

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Never Cursed
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Re: Tati on Blu Ray and Criterion Channel - One or both?

#269 Post by Never Cursed » Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:12 pm

The special features are great and, questions of color grading aside, the set is definitely the best way to experience these visually rich films (though you should be warned that Parade and Forza Bastia aren't really in the same style as the rest of Tati's output). The most important thing is that, if you haven't already, you see Playtime on the largest screen you can muster. If you watch Channel stuff on a computer (like I do mostly), you would be doing yourself a real injustice viewing that film on a small monitor if you had a better home theater setup.

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jsteffe
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Re: Tati on Blu Ray and Criterion Channel - One or both?

#270 Post by jsteffe » Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:29 pm

Never Cursed raises a great point about needing to see PLAYTIME on a large a screen as possible. If you don't have a very large home theater setup but have a friend who does, convince them to watch it with you at their place. It's wonderful film and Tati's masterpiece. Also, the video on the Criterion Channel will be more compressed (and thus more artifacts) than the Blu-ray.

So I guess the answer is to buy the set if you can afford it! It's currently 50% off at Barnes and Noble.

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domino harvey
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Re: Tati on Blu Ray and Criterion Channel - One or both?

#271 Post by domino harvey » Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:39 pm

While I don’t love Playtime nearly as much as many do, it started working way better for me on my first viewing when, halfway through the film, I went and sat down on the floor like a foot from my TV to watch the rest. Screen size to eye scope ratio really does matter on this one!

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therewillbeblus
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#272 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:38 pm

I go back and forth each viewing on just how much I love this film (it's great, but is it really one of my favorite 60s films? Sometimes!) but I'm always disappointed that none of the gags ever top the very first one:
SpoilerShow
Something about those wings flapping like birds on the nun's cornettes just kills me with its deadpan irreverence

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bugsy_pal
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#273 Post by bugsy_pal » Sun Dec 12, 2021 8:21 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:38 pm
I go back and forth each viewing on just how much I love this film (it's great, but is it really one of my favorite 60s films? Sometimes!) but I'm always disappointed that none of the gags ever top the very first one:
SpoilerShow
Something about those wings flapping like birds on the nun's cornettes just kills me with its deadpan irreverence
I first saw Playtime about 10 years on a big cinema screen, and it was a revelation.
SpoilerShow
The gag that stands out for me was the shattering glass door of the restaurant - it was so unexpected. On re-watching, it doesn't have the same impact, but it's still brilliant.

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HitchcockLang
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#274 Post by HitchcockLang » Tue Dec 14, 2021 10:59 am

Never Cursed wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:27 pm
Not sure if this belongs here on in one of the books threads, but today I learned that Monsieur Hulot's Holiday of all films received a fairly elaborate literary adaptation in 1959 written by a 28-year-old Jean-Claude Carrière and illustrated by Pierre Etaix
Fascinating! It also appears to be an English translation based on the title. I noticed in the Related Items links at the bottom of the page you linked to that there is apparently also a novelization of Mon Oncle by the same author but the version for sale at abe seems to be a German translation (Mein Onkel Hulot).

EDIT: Upon further investigation, there is also a Spanish translation (Mi Tio) and of course the original French but I can't find an English translation of Mon Oncle so far. There is also a print on demand version of M. Hulot's Holiday on Amazon, claiming to be a "Scholar edition" of a public domain work. I just ordered one as my curiosity is peaked.

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J Wilson
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Re: 110-112, 439, 729-731 The Complete Jacques Tati

#275 Post by J Wilson » Thu Jan 27, 2022 12:00 pm

For anyone who hasn't picked up Taschen's Tati book and still wants it, it's on sale now for $100 (through Jan 30).

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