Any Jacques Tati fans here?

My wife and I spent 24 hrs last month at Saint Marc Sur Mer, the location for Tati's Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot.

The hotel on which the film is centred is now run by Best Western. Besides its location, edifice and beach-view rooms, inside it doesn't have any of the character of Tati's film, whose interior scenes were shot on a studio set. But the sounds of kids on the beach and the resort itself remain strongly reminiscent of the film, consequently I spent the whole of the next week with the theme as an ear worm. I've posted a few photos on my website in a section titled 'Les traces de M. Hulot'. If they don't make you think of that theme, the magic isn't working.

I like to imagine that Tati would also have enjoyed this superlatively unhelpful French road sign.

I’m a fan. Probably wouldn’t go as far as to seek out the locations unless I was in the neighborhood anyway.
Brilliant filmmaker - one of the greatest!

snusmumriken said:

this superlatively unhelpful French road sign.

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While it may feel unhelpful to you, as you might have noticed, this type of sign is very common in France. It's frequently just like that, with one two exits on the roundabout labeled and the other ones just indicated as an exit. Its use, as far as I can tell, is mostly in anticipating negotiating the roundabout, for which purpose I've always found it quite useful. Especially so before the days of in-car navigation aids, but today it's still useful.

Nitroplait said:

I’m a fan. Probably wouldn’t go as far as to seek out the locations unless I was in the neighborhood anyway.
Brilliant filmmaker - one of the greatest!

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Yup, we were in those parts anyway. I’m a devoted fan of Tati - his movies haunt me - but I’m definitely not a set-chaser.

I encountered M. Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday perhaps 60 years ago and was entranced by the whole idea of a film seemingly of random moments in a beach holiday. The saltwater taffy sequences were inspired...will the taffy hit the sand or....? "Holiday" is a work of understated genius.

As my life has progressed I have come to realize that the film does reflect vacations or holidays as experiences recalled by the participants in different ways. My family members and I saw our shared trips through our own individual lenses; we all have varied recollections, our shared memories yield a wonderful composite.

"Mon Oncle" and "Traffic" are my favorites.

I remember laughing myself silly at "Jour de fête", shown one Saturday night in our school hall. About 1958, I suppose. It remains my favourite; but I did enjoy various others in west Surrey cinemas and, agreed, they are thoroughly evocative of their time and place(s).

koraks said:

While it may feel unhelpful to you, as you might have noticed, this type of sign is very common in France. It's frequently just like that, with one two exits on the roundabout labeled and the other ones just indicated as an exit. Its use, as far as I can tell, is mostly in anticipating negotiating the roundabout, for which purpose I've always found it quite useful. Especially so before the days of in-car navigation aids, but today it's still useful.

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Still baffles me. Should travellers in all directions make a U-turn at the roundabout? And if so, where do all the other exits go, since clearly there are no remaining directions they could go? Or is it just a picture of a roundabout, celebrating the fact that it has exits in all directions?

Some years ago - Saint Marc sur Mer - Mr Hulot and a friend

I'm a big Tati fan.
Thank you for posting.

There is a couple of interesting photographic references in Playtime I heard about some time ago. (So hopefully true!) In the scenes of all the modern offices, looking like metal boxes, they are actually large mural darkroom prints of a metal surface pasted onto wood. Presume because it might have been cheaper at the time, but also easier to move about for sets.

The other one, which is only noticeable when you know, is that when the camera looks down at all the open plan offices, many of the people are actually photographic cut outs, similar to the life size Kodak girls which used to be a constant of their marketing.

Just found an interesting article by David Campany on the the film‘s relevance to photography. I might have not remembered the exact details about what was fake metal (photographic) panels.

i first saw the film years ago at an outside screening in a pavilion in Hyde Park in London. There was a problem with the digital projector and it had be shown in black and white. Next time I saw it was a proper cinema viewing a few years later and had forgotten it was in colour, which was a surprise when it started as I had remembered it in black and white!!

"Playtime" is a fun film...
I love how Tati pokes fun at 'modern' life. I love the scene with the wheeled chair going back & forth.
I saw it in an art-house movie theater back in 1975 (?)
Genius.

I love the pretentious fish-fountain in "Mon Oncle" and how Tati contrasts the sterile, impersonal modern world with the comfortable, disordered traditional way of life. The scene where the boys distract people walking with whistles so that they bump into street lamp posts is hilarious too!

Big fan, just rewatched it last week, love it's tempo and atmosphere..

I've checked your gallery out, the beach area still seems to have such charm. Pity the hotel interiors are just a set, would have loved to stay there!

a bientot!

Mike Crawford said:

There is a couple of interesting photographic references in Playtime I heard about some time ago. (So hopefully true!) In the scenes of all the modern offices, looking like metal boxes, they are actually large mural darkroom prints of a metal surface pasted onto wood. Presume because it might have been cheaper at the time, but also easier to move about for sets.

The other one, which is only noticeable when you know, is that when the camera looks down at all the open plan offices, many of the people are actually photographic cut outs, similar to the life size Kodak girls which used to be a constant of their marketing.

Just found an interesting article by David Campany on the the film‘s relevance to photography. I might have not remembered the exact details about what was fake metal (photographic) panels.

Jacques Tati’s Playtime and Photography | David Campany

davidcampany.com

i first saw the film years ago at an outside screening in a pavilion in Hyde Park in London. There was a problem with the digital projector and it had be shown in black and white. Next time I saw it was a proper cinema viewing a few years later and had forgotten it was in colour, which was a surprise when it started as I had remembered it in black and white!!

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Fascinating, thanks for posting.

The film The Illusionist was also well worth watching, although I was left feeling quite mixed-up. It is at once by Tati, and not by Tati; and about Tati, but not. And it is a cartoon.

payral said:

View attachment 347360Some years ago - Saint Marc sur Mer - Mr Hulot and a friend

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Lovely photo! I thought it a pity that the statue is over-sized, because the whole point about Hulot is that he is in no respect a god. Also so pathetic that someone has broken off the statue’s pipe. Apparently this happened quite soon after installation.

Nitroplait said:

I’m a fan. Probably wouldn’t go as far as to seek out the locations unless I was in the neighbourhood anyway.
Brilliant film-maker - one of the greatest!

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It's true that he had his own style as a comedian, but in the last active years of his career he became more and more socially critical, which many people simply didn't find funny any more. In the end, his attacks on the modern world and its supposed weaknesses were simply more tragic than funny, and filmgoers no longer understood that. His subsequent changes to “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot” also resulted in a total of four different versions. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to change the sequence of scenes and the editing of the film several times. It would have been better to keep the original version.

koraks said:

While it may feel unhelpful to you, as you might have noticed, this type of sign is very common in France. It's frequently just like that, with one two exits on the roundabout labeled and the other ones just indicated as an exit. Its use, as far as I can tell, is mostly in anticipating negotiating the roundabout, for which purpose I've always found it quite useful. Especially so before the days of in-car navigation aids, but today it's still useful.

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What is DA BEP LECH underneath TOUTES DIRECTION? Do you know why the other 2 exits are not labelled with where they lead. Is it that they literally lead to nowhere that takes you out of the town and that by turning on the third exit for all directions you will find further directions on the next exit?

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

What is DA BEP LECH underneath TOUTES DIRECTION?

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Google suggests it's a (tiny) brewery. I assume this sign would be in the vicinity of Morlaix (Bretagne) where this brewery is apparently located. While I've passed through Morlaix a couple of times (long ago), I'm not familiar with the brewery or its produce.

pentaxuser said:

Do you know why the other 2 exits are not labelled with where they lead.

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Generally they're exits of minor importance. It's for instance common for exits to a gas station or DIY store etc. to not be labeled. The labels in italics (such as the one you referred to above) are generally private names instead of generally accepted geographical indications; i.e. names of specific stores/shops/businesses, industrial zones, specifications to regular geographic names etc.

pentaxuser said:

Is it that they literally lead to nowhere

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Yes, you will fall off the planet's disc if you take any of these exits. You will then tumble past the four major elephants and may eventually smash onto the turtle's shield, unless your vehicle had sufficient escape velocity to clear it, in which case you may catch a glimpse of the turtle's belly once you've passed it.

pentaxuser said:

and that by turning on the third exit for all directions you will find further directions on the next exit?

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The sign does indeed mark the entry point of the geographical equivalent of the 'Droste effect', where taking the appropriate exit will get you stuck into an infinite loop of identical roundabouts that succeed each other. The existence of such anomalies is one of the causes of the trend of depopulation of the French countryside.

To pre-empt the question you have not yet asked, likely because you so far have overlooked it: the break in the circle of the roundabout signifies a further trait of French road design and signage, where each roundabout is in fact a single-story element of a spiral with N cycles, with N = 0...∞, and N furthermore not being limited to integers. For instance, take this sign here:

This signifies a roundabout that is the section of a 3-dimensional spiral, with the number of cycles being 30m, with 'm' standing for 'milli'. Hence, there are only 30 milli-cycles and thus, the roundabout only covers 38880 arcseconds. Since it is in effect a real roundabout (i.e. you do find yourself facing the same direction as you traverse a full cycle), you can deduce from this that in constructing French roads, it is common that the fabric of spacetime is subtly twisted or (as is the case here) bent quite significantly in order to allow for the unique and inventive arrangements of French logistics. It may also be more obvious to you now why France is the place where nuclear fusion has been in developed for decades, high-speed rail originates and supersonic passenger airflight was once upon a time fairly common - it is in the nature of French transportation to be flexible when it comes to Newton's suggestions of how we (and indeed, all physical bodies) should relate to each other.

Edit to correct a bleedingly obvious math error - duh!

Been a Tati fan since early 1950s, when his films were shown in “art houses”. I was introduced to the very innovative postwar Italian filmmakers in late 1940s at midnight showings in regular theaters.
Tati’s genius is revealed by how well his films still remain relevant. For example, the street sweeper in Mon Oncle is your typical government employee.

Jacques Tati spotted on Brighton beach

Been a bit of a fan ever since I saw L'Ecole des Facteurs on British TV sometime in the 80s. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to find any locations but am certainly interested in how they look now compared to his films.

My favorite is "Jour de fête". Mail distribution the American way... That was in the fifties. In 2024, in the name of economic efficiency, post offices are closing everywhere.