Auteurship: Jacques Tati

Jacques Tati is an incredible French filmmaker of the early to mid 20th century. His use of color and subtle humor has made his style extremely unique, and each one of his films tends to reflect this.

First, there is the matter of Tati's characters, with one in particular: Monsieur Hulot. Hulot was written and preformed by Tati himself, and appeared in several of his films, including Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Play Time, and Mon Oncle. While it wasn't explicitly stated, I also believe that Hulot "appeared" in an animated film based upon a script written by Tati and directed by Sylvain Chomet, entitled The Illusionist. Hulot is often found in similar costumes in each film: a coat, pipe, and hat tend to be prominently featured. The humor of Hulot's character is usually due to how awkward he is when required to interact with any sort of technology. One may even be able to compare him to Charlie Chaplin's character.

Even with Monsieur Hulot as an icon, Tati's true genius and style come from the way he uses composition and color in his films. Each shot is clearly carefully art directed, with certain colors removed or added. In Play Time, this technique actually led to Tati's downfall. He spent so long agonizing over making each visual detail flawless that he abandoned all story and plot completely, and the film fell flat.

The themes of Tati's work often revolve around the same principles as well. In particular, he was very fond of bringing up the "modern family's" obsession with technology, and the industrialization of the west. The atmosphere in his films is usually rather cold and sterile between the characters, contrasting with the appealingly awkward nature of Monsieur Hulot.

Jacques Tati's unique visual style and specific subjects make his films some of the greatest of the mid-1900s, and certainly some of my personal favorite French films.