Monsieur Hulot and Modernity

Hi everyone,
I've talked with a few of you about showing a couple of movies from a highly singular and not-much-heard-of auteur these days, the late Jacques Tati. Tati (born Jacques Tatischeff) began his career as a mime artist who, in the 1930s, began making short films. His first feature length work was Jour de Fete (1949) about a country postman who decides to do his rounds "a l'americain" - extra-fast, with bizarre consequences. This was followed by Monsieur Hulot's Holiday in '53 and Mon Oncle (my uncle) in 1958.
Playtime, released in 1967 - which a few people here know - was Tati's own magnum opus, with an entire set of Modernist buildings constructed on a five-acre site outside Paris. The film took three years to make and bankrupted Tati.
Not surprisingly, his subsequent projects were on a more low-key scale. Trafic from 1971 involved the misadventures of an inventor taking his mini-campervan from Paris to Amsterdam, and Parade, from '75, is essentially a record of his live stand-up show. Jacques Tati died in November 1982.
If you'd like to see Mon Oncle and/or Playtime, get in touch with me on mcro093 and we can organize a time & venue.

Matt