Shorts, Documentaries, Unfilmed Screenplays & Abandoned Projects
While Tati only made six features, he directed and was a part of many short films during his lifetime. “L’École des facteurs” (“The Postman’s School”) is a key entry, featuring the spindly-limbed character of Francois who would later star in “Jour Du Fete.” It’s essentially just a short practice-run for the larger feature, but it does have a significant gag later appropriated by Tim Burton and Pee Wee Herman: the postman on his bike easily outgunning a group of speeding cyclists (the same exact visual quip was used in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” and in that sense, Paul Reubens’ creation is perhaps a more chatty, distant spiritual cousin to Hulot). There’s also “Cours de Soir,” which hilariously speaks volumes about Tati himself, perhaps just as easily distracted and absentminded going about his own tasks. Directed by his assistant Nicolas Ribowski, ‘Cours’ was shot during the production of “Playtime,” and stars Hulot as an instructor teaching his adult students the delicate art of mime. “Playtime” shot over 100 days, and sometimes took all day to shoot one small carefully-organized movement of cast members, and ultimately bankrupted Tati, so perhaps starring in a short while making his financial disasterpiece wasn’t the best idea.
Tati’s ideas of social observance, quotidian ritual, and democratic participation were explored one last time beyond “Parade” in the abandoned project “Forzia Baza.” A documentary study of a European soccer crowd during a fubol finale, ‘Baza’ barely showcases the match and instead focuses on the seemingly banal actions of the crowd, watching and cheering on the match, including the tailgating preparation for the game. Left unfinished, it was eventually completed by his loyal daughter Sophie Tatischeff, who spent much of her life committed to her father’s incomplete works.
And finally, while director Sylvain Chomet, known for “The Triplets of Belleville,” famously paid homage to Tati by making “The Illusionist” in 2010—one of Tati’s semi-autobiographical unmade scripts—as an animated movie with an animated caricature of Tati as the lead, perhaps the motherlode of abandoned projects is “Confusion.”
The only other known script that Tati wrote, but failed to make before his death in 1982, “Confusion” was supposed to be made as a collaboration with with Ron Mael and Russell Mael, aka the theatrical, absurdist 1970s glam rock band Sparks. According to legend, and in accordance with Tati’s growing disdain for the character, Mr. Hulot was supposed to be killed on-air. “Confusion” was planned as story about a futuristic city (Paris) where activity is centered around television, communication, advertising, and modern society’s infatuation with visual imagery. The members of Sparks were to play American TV producers who fly to Paris to show the French how it’s done (though Tati is quoted as saying that one version of “Confusion” would take place in the “new tunnel in the Concorde and it would be about tourists and a guide.”) Tati would pass away and never make the film, but Sparks would at least write the song “Confusion” which would be featured on their 1976 album Big Beat.
Six features, a few extra shorts, and supplementaries and a Sparks song—it may not be the most extensive filmography in history, but Jacques Tati created an indelible legacy with just that. He was that good. – with David Ehrlich and Nik Grozdanović
