Slapstick comedy was an enormously important part of early cinema. By its very nature, the silent film was prime territory for comedians with a focus on the visual. As such, the wacky and physical works of figures like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton understandably became some of the biggest hits of the silent era. As the “talkie” film was introduced, however, taste in comedy quickly shifted. By the early 1930s, audiences would much rather have heard clever one-liners and silly back-and-forths from the likes of The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. Physical comedy was so denigrated in the public eye that mainstream tastes still tend to relegate slapstick to lowbrow humor. But French filmmaker Jacques Tati never cared what the public thought. For him, slapstick was always an art.
Consciously going against the grain, Tati wrote and directed a series of slapstick features from the 1940s through the 1970s, usually starring in them himself as recurring character Monsieur Hulot. Recognizable by his tan overcoat, crumbled hat, and old-fashioned pipe, Hulot is a simple man often caught up in absurd and confusing situations connected to life in the “modern times” of the 20th century. In films like Mon Oncle, Tati employed this character to rethink slapstick filmmaking for the sound era. Utilizing all film elements at his disposal, he created a lyrical cinema in which the visual gag was the ultimate aim.
While the earlier M. Hulot’s Holiday is perhaps his most purely joyful work, and the later Playtime his boldest experiment, Mon Oncle (which sits right in the middle of his filmography) may be the definitive Tati film. It contains the most even balance of gags and social satire, with a style that is individual without being quite so radical as to alienate the viewer. The film follows Hulot as he stumbles about in his brother-in-law’s zany modernist house, as well as in a rubber hose factory after said brother-in-law gets him a job. Typical to Tati’s oeuvre, the film is very light on plot, instead being structured around a variety of set pieces such as these, which allow for maximum gags.
Tati’s gags are known for their gentle quality, often arising from slight human misunderstandings and a disparity between characters and their surroundings. In Mon Oncle they range from Hulot getting blamed for a dropped tomato at a marketplace after the actual culprit flees, to an entire group of partygoers attempting to move lawn furniture along narrow pathways in a chaotic dance. Big or small, the gags are masterfully choreographed and on full display in spacious wide shots. Rarely are there any medium shots, and never are there any closeups in the world of Tati. The old saying goes that “comedy lives in the wide shot,” and films like Mon Oncle seem to be concrete proof of this. With this the case, there is very minimal editing, many scenes only consisting of one or several long master takes.
The film also takes a minimalist approach to the dialogue. Tati’s work has almost none of it, and that which is there doesn’t really matter too much. His work is visual storytelling of the highest caliber, with many scenes playing out entirely silently (but no less excitingly). Mon Oncle’s first piece of dialogue doesn’t even come until past the ten minute mark, with the visuals alone drawing the viewer into its lively world. This isn’t to say that the soundtrack is irrelevant; on the contrary, sound effects play a pivotal role in Tati’s sense of humor, necessarily separating him from his silent forerunners. In Mon Oncle, Hulot’s sister is defined by the loud clacking of her heels on the ground, and his nephew often whistles at pedestrians so that they distractedly walk into streetlamps.
Mon Oncle also separates itself from the silent era through its vibrant use of color. It’s important that the factory’s rubber hoses are bright red, because only then can they look like sausage when a malfunctioning machine begins shooting them out in links. Tati was an artist in full command of his various tools, and just as he could employ something as straightforward as color for the sake of humor, he would often use lighting, props, and set design to the same ends. Sets are of particular importance in Mon Oncle, with very important roles played by Hulot’s disorganized apartment complex and the mercilessly sterile modernist house of his brother-in-law.
Though Tati’s humor was well informed by those early silent comedians, the seriousness and precision with which he filmed these comedies was unprecedented. This leads to an odd incongruity between style and theme in Tati’s work: while the distinctive style is anything but traditional, thematically there exists a great yearning for tradition. Yearning for the tradition of slapstick, yes, but also for tradition in a larger sense. Much of the gags in the Hulot films function as satire of the “modern world” in which France was being enveloped at the time. Industrialization and consumerism had taken the country by storm after World War II, and Mon Oncle presents an organic France being eaten alive by an automated one.
Hulot lives in the former world, a historic market town full of cheery, closely-interacting people. It is sometimes chaotic, as when an old woman is pranked by a young boy into thinking the chicken she plucks is still alive, but this is established as an only natural occurrence (even a beautiful one) when many humans gather together in one place. This world is presented nostalgically, with warm colors and sweet music. The latter world is that of Hulot’s brother-in-law, a chilly metropolis full of minimal architecture, humming factories, and constant car horn ambience. It is an inhumanly rigid world of mass conformity, revealed as such in an early montage which highlights the lines expected to be followed and the boxes to be kept within during morning commute. These two worlds meet at a perpetual construction site, where the constant destruction of antiquated houses (much like Hulot’s) is the only work being done.
Hulot’s bumbling about in the mechanized world then makes for a striking insight: these “modern” innovations meant to make life easier and bring communities closer together are only causing more struggle and division. Tati importantly weaves such implications into the visual gags, the added layer of satire enriching the slapstick. The slapstick—it must be remembered—is the real focus of Tati’s films, despite any grand themes they may hold. Mon Oncle may cry out for tradition in the warm humanism of pre-modernized France and in the cinematic use of slapstick itself, but more than anything it is an attempt to create an artistic cinema where the construction of the gag is the primary focus.