No Derivative Works. Playtime (1967) focused on the dehumanizing effects of modern architecture in office buildings, airports, and other structures. You’ll walk around town and see variants of the same fast food chains. The people within, on the other hand, are obsessed with work and status. Why have a garden at all if you can’t even step on most of it? This architecture is a convincing character; a con-man even (perhaps con-person) of an Emperor’s-New-Clothes-like calibre. Tati built an enormous set at great expense for… Ephemeral & Set Design Jacques Tati's satire of a postwar French bourgeois family's embrace of the modernism of Le Corbusier is easily as funny as it is memorable. Mon Oncle is a 1958 comedy film by French filmmaker Jacques Tati. While everyone else manages to maintain a shred of dignity while sitting in the famed Acapulco chairs, Mr. Hulot looks like he’s fallen into a bucket. Unfortunately, the designer hasn’t put much thought into how the garden will be used leading to a series of comic moments. What do you think about this approach of how modernity influenced (or still influencing) the way of living of our societies? What about Mr. Hulot’s interaction with the bizarre array of chairs in the house? Mon Oncle Jacques Tati Amazing Architecture Interior Architecture Exterior Design Interior And Exterior Modern House Design Bungalow Beautiful Homes House Styles … The first hint we get of Tati’s attitude comes from his use of music in Mon Oncle. French comic Jacques Tati famously poked fun at postwar Modernism in in films like Mon Oncle (1958), detailing society’s relationship with this strange, “pretentious” new architecture that was encroaching upon older parts of Paris. Mon Oncle is another Jacques Tati satire of all things modern, efficient and soulless, this time represented by a sleekly geometric, automated home that looks (and functions) like a robot.. In March 2019, the Potemkin Theatre was announced as the winner of the Antepavilion architecture prize. In this case, he portrays a garden which, absurdly enough, has been designed to prevent people from using it like a garden. Everyone wanted a car, a washing machine, a television, and a lawn. Walk through a city’s central business district almost anywhere in the world and you’re going to see the same thing. Anywhere in the world, I can find the same building full of the same furniture with the same companies inhabiting them and selling the same products. The first hint we get of Tati’s attitude comes from his use of music in Mon Oncle. One of the most direct differences between the two is their respective places of residence. #architecture #brunurb #film #home #house #jacques_tati #modern #mon_oncle #movie #portugal #retro He found modern life, with all its accoutrements, dull, overly self-serious, and lacking in common sense. All of these elements and many more are combined in Villa Arpel to showcase the modern lifestyle that Tati is critiquing. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Tokyo, Manhattan, Dubai, or Panama City. Original Title: Mon Oncle Year: 1958 Runtime: 120 min. This additional wealth came with the slick aesthetics of modernism which took off in the immediate aftermath of WWI and continued into the post-WWII era. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Dec 31, 2020 - Explore Diane Bandonis's board ""Mon Oncle" :)", followed by 136 people on Pinterest. Interior Design . Image 1 of 14 from gallery of Films & Architecture: "My Uncle". Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. The French filmmaker and actor Jacques Tati answered the era with the fifth film that he directed, a striking critique of modern architecture and design: Mon Oncle. As we see various people interact with modern environments, it’s only Mr. Hulot and the children that are baffled or amused by how little sense they make. Mon Oncle Date: 1958 Director: Jacques Tati Production Company: Specta Films, Gray-Film, Alter Films Stars: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Alain Bécourt Location(s): Île … See more ideas about jacques tati, jaques tati, french films. WE CREATE aesthetic DESIRE Architecture . Wealth lost during the wars was regained. Criterion Collection Edition #111 Slapstick prevails again when Jacques Tati’s eccentric, old-fashioned hero, Monsieur Hulot, is set loose in Villa Arpel, the geometric, oppressively ultramodern home of his brother-in-law, and in the antiseptic plastic hose factory where he gets a job. Opening Statement, June 12, 2017Nostalgia and Realism, June 14, 2014Scenessential: Comedic Discomfort in the Modern World, June 15, 2017First Viewing: Futuristically Dated, June 15, 2017Related Review: The Illusionist, June 16, 2017, Scenessential: Comedic Discomfort in the Modern World. Büşra Ünver Haliç Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, İç … In the film, only Mr. Hulot seems to notice. The most clearly visible manifestation of this trend might be architecture. He is unemployed, and gets around town either on foot or on a rather tired VéloSoleX. Ultimately, with the help of architects like Mies van der Rohe [known for his ‘less is more’ philosophy], this led to those glassy skyscrapers that festoon every major city in the world. These centers of the global economy feel more similar than not. The rest of the adults willfully ignore the inconvenience imposed on them by modern design. While many people were celebrating the increased prosperity, Tati had reservations. Tati was saddened by the steady destruction of old Paris and its replacement by angular, modern architecture such as the infamous Les Sarcelles project (1959-66). Mon Oncle is less about a linear narrative and more about a journey into the small everyday details of a constructed world. Arpel have completely subordinated their individuality to maintain their social position and their shiny new possessions. It was in this era that those gleaming cityscapes of concrete and glass began, and, with a few exceptions, its continued ever since. On the other hand, once we move to more modern settings like the Villa Arpel or the plastic company, the music disappears to be replaced by the clicking and clacking and beeping and buzzing of technology. “Mon oncle,” a 2008 documentary on the making of the film Everything Is Beautiful, a 2005 piece on the fashion, furniture, and architecture of Mon oncle Selected-scene commentaries on PlayTime by Goudet, theater director Jérôme Deschamps, and critic Philip Kemp He found modern life, with all its accoutrements, dull, overly self-serious, and lacking in common sense. Jacques Tati in Mon Oncle. In “Mon Oncle”, the audience commonly observes this contrast in real time between Uncle Hulot and the Arpels. He uses the depiction of distinctly modernist architecture in contrast with the functioning world of the working class to emphasize its impacts. Towards the end of his career, in an interview, Tati said “I am not at all against modern architecture, but I believe it should come with not only a building but also a living permit.” As we rush around our gleaming modern cities, that’s a piece of advice that more people ought to hear. We’re talking about Jacques Tati, the French director, writer, and actor that made his first color movie in 1958, ”Mon Oncle”. Arpel, are firmly entrenched in a machine-like existence of work, fixed gender roles, and the acquisition of status through possessions and conspicuous display. All images are © each office/photographer mentioned. In fact, Tati goes as far as to say that “geometrical lines do not produce likeable people.” He brings this claim to life by contrasting the people outside the walls of Villa Arpel with those within. Each element of Villa Arpel is representational rather than functional, an environment completely hostile to the comfort of its occupants. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Gör. Those glassy towers with their austere exteriors and Barcelona chairs in the lobby are the same in every city. We’re talking about Jacques Tati, the French director, writer, and actor that made his first color movie in 1958, ”Mon Oncle”. Created by Maich Swift Architects, and inspired by Monsieur Hulot’s tumbledown building in Jacques Tati’s film Mon Oncle, the Potemkin Theatre looks over the wharf, the canal and surroundings, providing a stage from which to see and be seen. In France, this movement was exemplified by Le Corbusier who is famed for proclaiming that “a house is a machine for living in.”, Le Corbusier’s famed Villa Savoye eschews historical references and ornamentation in favor of clean, geometric lines. Tati sees modern sensibilities as misunderstanding the essence of the things it touches. Mon Oncle. You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, Mon Oncle won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film, receiving more honors than any of Tati's other cinematic works. You’ll walk into stores and see variants of the same products. Over the past few decades globalization has created a new, global culture, which for better or worse, has eroded local mores. The house belongs to the Arpels, a vain and materialistic couple with a young, browbeaten son named Gerard (Alain Becourt). Films & Architecture: "My Uncle" Zoom image ... and actor that made his first color movie in 1958, ”Mon Oncle”. In a not too subtle piece of sound-design, Tati is telling us that human life is full of music until we hand it over to the rationality of modernity. Arpel turns on only for important visitors). Figure 7 Modern vs. vernacular visual superposition 2 (Mon Oncle)One of the most prominent uses of a filmic technique as a satirical device in Mon Oncle is the exploitation of sound. ArchDaily 2008-2021. “Mon oncle,” an hour-long documentary from 2008 on the making of the film Everything Is Beautiful, a three-part program from 2005 on the film’s fashion, architecture, and furniture design Everything’s Connected, a 2013 visual essay by Tati expert Stéphane Goudet comparing Mon oncle to the other Monsieur Hulot films All the new technologies at that moment are incorporated in the scenes, were the interaction between this new concept of “modern spaces” and people is an element present in most of the movie. These jokes reveal a world where the modern obsession with technology, planning, and geometric rationality override commonsense. Consider the amount of time Tati spends depicting people walking around the Villa Arpel’s garden. In fact, M. and Mme. In 1966 he also admitted that ‘above all, the star is the set’. (A running gag involves a fish-shaped fountain at the center of the Arpels’ garden that Mme. Jacques Tati made Mon Oncle in 1958, when France was transforming its economy from a regional, European one into a global one. From pas japonais positioned like mine fields, to impossible-to-sit-on furniture, to a kitchen with the decibel level of a jet engine, every facet of Villa Arpel emphasizes the supremacy of superficial aesthetics and electrical gadgets over the reality of daily living. Tati shows how the modern age affects and dramatically changes the way that people live. 1 talking about this. Of course, not all hope is lost for the inhabitants of modern architecture. The relationship between old and new worlds is perfectly contrasted in 1958’s Mon Oncle, which, unlike Tati’s other films, goes to great pains to accentuate this collision rather than simply focus on the modern. Tati emphasizes his themes surrounding the Arpel lifestyle (as well as M. Arpel’s automatonic workplace, Plastac) with monochromatic shades and cloudy days; vivid colors and bright light coincide only with the arrival of visitors, particularly Uncle Hulot. M. Hulot (Jacques Tati) is the dreamy, impractical, and adored uncle of young Gérard (nine years old), who lives with his materialistic parents in an ultra-modern geometric house and garden (Villa Arpel) in a new suburb of Paris, situated just beyond the crumbling stone buildings of the old neighborhoods of the city. He saw the new global culture chipping away at traditional France and taking the joie de vivre and common sense with it. Individuals’ spending power increased allowing them to splurge on a range of household goods. If, on one hand, his satires denounce the threat of dehumanisation generated by progress itself and question what he perceives as an architecture of power, on the other hand, both Mon Oncle and Playtime display his aesthetic fascination for the designs of his time. Country: France Director: Jacques Tati Writer: Jacques Lagrange, Jean L’Hôte, Jacques Tati Cinematography: Jean Bourgoin Soundtrack: Franck Barcellini, Alain Romans, Norbert Glanzberg Cast: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Alain Bécourt. Noncommercial. France was in the midst of what has been dubbed Les Trente Glorieuses [The Glorious Thirty]. This distinction in soundscape is the backdrop to a series of gags designed to reveal the absurdity embedded in modern life. These appliances, it seems, have been designed to showcase technology rather than improve life. These three decades from 1945 to 1975 saw France, along with the rest of Western Europe, regain the prosperity that had been lost during two world wars. The people who live in houses like these, according to Tati are not only willfully ignoring inconvenience, but not living life at all. In contrast, Uncle Hulot, the quintessential poète des terrains vagues, lives in a small old corner of the city. Jacques Tati’s 1958 film comedy Mon Oncle is a portrait of a dimwitted traditionalist’s impotent crusade against modern design, architecture and machine processes, while at the same time being a pointed critique of the utopian consumerism of modernism and the modern era. Exasperated at their uncle’s perceived immaturity, the Arpels soon scheme to saddle him with the twin yokes of family and business responsibilities. Despite the superficial beauty of its modern design, the Arpels’ home is entirely impersonal, as are the Arpels themselves. Uncle Hulot, little more than a child himself at times, is completely at home with Gérard, but also completely ineffectual at controlling his horseplay with his school friends, who take delight in tormenting adults with practical jokes. In choosing modern architecture to punctuate his satire, Tati once stated, “Les lignes géométriques ne rendent pas les gens aimables” (“geometrical lines do not produce likeable people”). He wants us to take life a little less seriously just like Mr. Hulot and the inhabitants of old Paris do. The people outside are chaotic, boisterous, messy, and generally fun-loving. Again, Tati shows us a chair that is designed to function as a statement rather than a chair. With its square beds of colored gravel and tidy grass, the garden reveals how a designer thinks a rational garden ought to look. The Arpels fail, for example, to see how their technologically advanced sensor actuated automatic garage door opener leads to far more inconvenience than the old manual one. DİSİPLİNLERARASI YAKLAŞIM İLE SİNEMA VE MİMARLIK ETKİLEŞİMİ: MON ONCLE FİLMİ ÖRNEĞİ CINEMA AND ARCHITECTURE INTERACTION WITH INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH: A CASE STUDY OF ‘MON ONCLE’ Arş. 6 – Mon Oncle (1958) Mon Oncle, a critique of modernism was a French-Italian co-production comedy directed by Jacques Tati in 1958. Tati was playing for the second time a special character, Monsieur Hulot, who became synonymous with this satirical comedy. For all these reasons, Her is a great film to get you thinking about the future of cities and the future of technology. In the context of architecture, it implied a focus on simple, rational forms which avoided ornamentation and historical context. Tati saw the rationality and lack of historical context of modern architecture as discouraging the enjoyment of life. Such works as Mon Oncle or Playtime by Jacques Tati and Peter Weir's The Truman Show make us more critical of the state of our modern planning and architecture. Directed by Jacques Tati, 1958, with Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, and Alain Bécourt. In fact, this gap between Mr. Hulot and the other adults in the film, serves as a central theme in the film. Instead Tati believes that we need to pay more attention to promoting life and living in the moment rather than planning and living for the future. Though he is obviously without possessions, he does not seem to notice; color, light, and frivolity inhabit Hulot’s world. In Germany and later the US, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus school focused on the standardization of rationally planned buildings. As Mr. Hulot wanders through his own neighborhood with its winding streets bursting with life, we’re treated to a cheerful, relaxed soundtrack. Architecture in film can also be used to illustrate a version of our present reality that might otherwise go unrecorded, making commentary on the oddities of our modern world. Tati saw the rationality and lack of historical context of modern architecture as discouraging the enjoyment of life. Jacques Tati is a filmmaker that was greatly inspired by architecture and the role it has to play in our lives. While this change was taking place in a variety of domains at the time, Tati focused on its most conspicuous manifestations: architecture and design. © All rights reserved. Plus, architecture is always influenced by future technology. The era was characterized by rapid economic growth enabled by internationalization and increased productivity. Other articles where Mon oncle is discussed: Jacques Tati: His subsequent film, Mon oncle (1958), in which Monsieur Hulot contends with modern technology, won the Academy Award for best foreign film. A clear opposition between the respective aural treatments of the modernist and vernacular realities is established at the very beginning of the film: the shots showing the technical credits of the movie in … While everyone else adjusts their sitting style to accommodate the chair, Mr. Hulot tries to sit in it as he would a normal chair. Mon Oncle, made during 1956-58, took much inspiration from the rapid post-war urbanisation of Paris and her suburbs. During the dinner party sequence, for example, people are repeatedly shown following or passing by each other awkwardly because they don’t want to step off pavers into the gravel or grass below. This wide-ranging trend encompassed everything from the visual arts to music to industrial design to architecture. Young Gérard, utterly bored by the sterility and monotony of his life with his parents, fastens himself to Uncle Hulot at every opportunity. Look down the street and you’ll see variants of the same cars filled with people headed to the same jobs. They don’t realize how the gizmos and gadgets in the kitchen are an impediment to cooking. Gérard’s parents, M. and Mme. This week we want to introduce a film by one of the filmmakers that cannot be out of this list. Mon Oncle (1958) is totally based on the contrast between the noisy Parisian suburb full of humanity of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, the home of Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati himself), and the aseptic Villa Arpel where his sister lives with her husband and child. Why make a path that’s inconvenient for the sake of aesthetics? The house in Mon Oncle is a mask of aspiration for the Arpels as they try to impress their ‘less-cultured’ neighbours and also try to convince themselves of their new-found path of personal enlightenment. In practice, this meant that the lifestyles of people living in advanced economies like Western Europe, North America, and Japan began to converge. Mr. Hulot is constantly seen hopping over a gap in the pavers instead of following the inconvenient but [supposedly] aesthetically pleasing swoop in the path.