Hacker Cinema
Mon Oncle
Mon oncle
1958 · Film · 118 min
Directed by Jacques Tati
Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.
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6 comments on Hacker News
"…because why would we use machines when we could just walk into a shop and buy cigarettes without ID?"
Exactly, I'm not in France but that practice was pretty common in most Western countries not that many decades ago (see my reply to this post). I didn't mention it but where I am (Australia) it also was pretty common for a kid to go to the shops to pick up cigarettes for, say, a parent.
When I first went to France decades ago (I've relatives in Paris) I found smoking was even more culturally entrenched than where I am, there were posters everywhere for Gitanes, Gauloises and other cigarettes. In fact, France is the home of many classic posters advertising or showing people smoking, many are so good they're now considered works of art.
I've not been to France for some time but I gather in recent years the French's attitude towards smoking has changed dramatically and the practice is now frowned upon culturally—or at least that's my perception from a far. Correct me if I'm wrong.
That's not what I'd have expected (anyway, not to such a degree); unlike the puritanical guilt-ridden English, I'd have thought French culture was more resilient. What brought this change to my attention was the recent kerfuffle over the French icon Jacques Tati's M. Hulot where posters on the Métro were censored—M. Hulot is portrayed sans pipe!
My immediate reaction was 'sacrilege, the vandal who did that had an unmitigated damn hide—what the Hell's going on in France to allow that to happen?'. You see, I'm a great Tati fan and Jour de fête, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Mon Oncle are some of my most loved films—so the 'desecration' affected me personally.
As I've mentioned, I'm a nonsmoker and I applaud the reduction in smoking in recent years but vandalizing a cultural icon is carrying the anti-smoking message too far, it not only rendered M. Hulot's most idiosyncratic characteristic mute, but also make a mockery of the anti smoking message and it's likely to have been counterproductive. If what happened to M. Hulot had occurred in the UK or Righteous America I'd have said 'that's to be expected' but that it occurred in France was a total surprise.
No doubt, there was a backlash from Tati fans. I've not heard the outcome, what occurred in the wash-up?
BTW, As a kid I saw Mon Oncle not long after the film was released and I was enthralled. I never tire of seeing it.
French director Tati's film "Mon Oncle" certainly made satire of the obsession with modernity that post WWII France was experiencing.
All of Tati's films have to be viewed multiple times to be fully appreciated as he pays exquisite attention to details, many of which are small and seemingly insignificant and often missed at first viewing. PlayTime is a visual masterpiece especially for this reason.
In many ways Tati was a silent filmmaker in an era of sound; he neverthelsss embraces sound in a remarkably intuitive way that makes him one of its great film interpreters.
For instance, the buzz of the neon light transformer in PlayTime — an annoying sound we've all experienced. It's a seemingly trivial inclusion in an otherwise complex and 'active' scene. But it's not really trivial, for often when one's experiencing or recalling some real life drama it's often the trivial that one remembers—the main event cannot be recalled without the 'trivial' coming to mind as it's contextually important memory.
Another excellent example is from Mon Oncle, the scene where Monsieur Hulot's 'competence' is being questioned, but one cannot forget the seemingly trivial sound of the secretary's short click-clack high-heel steps† as she briefly enters and leaves the scene—yet her presence is only incidental to the scene's transpiring events. Not only was Tati a master at using sound this way he was also a genius at observing human nature in action.
The other ingredient that makes Tati's films so delightfully memorable is their simple humanity. Decades ago, I first saw Mon Oncle as a kid of about ten—about the same age as Gérard (Hulot's nephew). That was well before I'd learned any French and the version I saw had no English subtitles yet I enjoyed the film enormously and understood what was going on without language—and I still do, I never tire of seeing it. That's part of Tati's genius, he has the remarkable ability to appeal to all ages and new generations.
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† Edit: this is not the scene I described above (that occurs about 1h 31m in the film) but it's the same secretary walking and sounding the same: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YdCSijdyI6E.
But this isn’t true at all. Look at a movie like The Conversation. Or Mon Oncle. Or Pulp Fiction. The lighting when intended to look natural very much does, although the latter also makes intentional use of stylized lighting (such as the taxi ride scene).
This reminds me of Jacques Tati's wonderful film, Mon Oncle (1958). There's a residential house with many similarities to the Nakagin Capsule Tower, and it has so much personality that it's almost a character in itself. Tati gets as much comedy out of its silly, "forward-looking" design as he can, and he contrasts it excellently with an equally ridiculous old house in the centre of the village.
I get really intrigued by these designs (went through a folding obsession phase) then try to judge how usable/learnable the design choices are. FWIW, I constantly find myself comparing the current wave of home automation / IoT to the 1958 film Mon Oncle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9t98Gox60
This said the heinlein house sounds pretty usability-focused: “There are no rugs or any need for them. All floors are surfaced with cork tile that provides a warm, comfortable and clean footing. Nor are there any floor lamps or table lamps. The illumination is built into the house. General lighting for the living room comes from cold-cathode tubes concealed behind a box molding. These illuminate the ceiling. Adjustable wall spotlights are located at all work and relaxation areas in the house. All electric convenience outlets are at comfortable hip height. I'm through stooping over to the baseboard."