Jacques Tati's globalization gag 1965

In Jacques Tati's film "Play Time" the only remaining element of real Paris, apart from the reflections of French icons in office glass windows and doors, is the flower seller on the corner. American tourist "Barbara" attempts to photograph this scene, exclaiming "It's really Paris," but she is interrupted by a series of international figures, including two American teenagers. The rude gesture comes from 17 year old Michael W. Finkbeiner, selected from a mail line at American Express, to play the part. Tati fastidiously prepared the scene and shot this rude gesture with exact presentation, using the young American, rather than anything French, to offend another "American" with the globalized features of modern life in the 60's - American youth culture.
Shot in 1965, this scene presages the world's awareness of the negative side of the globalization process. By the film's release and the events of 1968 in France and the US, the social landscape had changed radically.
Most other Americans in the film were connected to the NATO base near Paris. Barbara's final effort to take the picture fails, when her place as the photographer is taken over rudely by an American soldier, for his own private enjoyment of the scene, leaving her pictureless.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• globalization discontent
• Jacques Tati
• Playtime
• Play Time
• Finkbeiner
• rude gesture
• gag
• Barbara Denneck
• Michael Finkbeiner
• mwfinkbeiner

[mwfinkbeiner]

@redcardinalist - The original script involved visits to many cities, all of which would look the same. The globalization word hadn't come into use yet, but the point of this video, as Tati explained it to me as the American kid (I was 17 then), is that's all that remained of Paris. The reflection of the Eiffel tower was merely that - a misty memory seen through modern looking glass. All of Tati, starting with the postman on the bicycle, carries this sub-text against modernity. YouTube it!

[feckingbillgates]

1967.  Not 1965.

[mwfinkbeiner]

@feckingbillgates The scene was shot about August 8, 1965. The anti-globalization theme of the movie by the time Tati went bankrupt producing and finishing "Playtime" in 1967.

[redcardinalist]

Nice video!

I don't know why people think that the "old" Paris in Playtime has been swept away and nothing remains but the modern environment seen in the film. The film is set in the suburbs of Paris and in fact the historic Paris (including the Eiffel tower) can clearly be seen in the distance in one scene).

The ongoing joke through the film is that the characters never manage to get to the real Paris. - The American tourists only ever see the concrete and steel buildings :)

[feckingbillgates]

@mwfinkbeiner Thanks for the clarification.

[snapz18]

cool! hey ur the guy w/ the blonde hair