I enclose details of a Tati restropsective at the National Film Theatre (London) in August (sent to the SFC list).

 
PRESS RELEASE                                           5.6.03

MONSIEUR HULOT'S HOLIDAY 
(Les Vacances de M. Hulot) (FR 1953 )
Directed by Jacques Tati /  86 mins  / b&w / cert tbc / English subtitles
Starring Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Michèle Rolla

Release date:   8th August 2003 
Opening venues:         NFT, Barbican, others tbc

"He is a 'lunaire', Hulot.  Someone with his head on the moon."
Jacques Tati, interview with Denis Hart, Daily Telegraph, 2nd August 1968 

Trailing delicious disorder behind him Hulot returns to British screens this summer as the bfi presents Monsieur Hulot's Holiday.  The lead title in a quartet of comic gems from Jacques Tati, Monsieur Hulot will be on general release in London and the UK with new prints of Jour de Fête, Mon Oncle and Playtime are also being made available.  All four will screen during the Jacques Tati retrospective at the National Film Theatre in August.

Tati's warm-hearted caricature of the middle-class vacationing is a scrapbook of seaside snapshots and anecdotes.  With the informal charm of a home movie, this is observational comedy at its laid back finest.  The deceptively casual cascade of gags revives the visual beauty of the silent era.  Dialogue is minimal but Tati's sound jokes are superb.  From the babbling station tannoy to the squeaking door of the hotel dining room, Tati gives inanimate objects a life of their own.

Monsieur Hulot, all lolloping limbs, pipe and hat, became one of cinema's best-loved characters.  Throwing himself into everything from a tennis match to a fancy dress party, Hulot is an accident personified.  Amiable and courteous, he is a gentle lunatic, unaware that his enthusiasms are forging a chain of disaster.  A major influence on comedians from Terry Jones to Dom Joly, and particularly Rowan Atkinson's Mr Bean, Tati's legacy remains still strong today.  

Seeing the finished film's idiosyncratic structure, Tati's financial backers had serious doubts about its commercial appeal.  A rapturous public preview proved them wrong, and in the summer of 1953, a French general strike kept Parisians in the city during August while the film played to capacity crowds.  

A cinematic sea breeze, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday will revive on even the stickiest summer day.    

For further information please contact Cate McKay-Haynes 
on 020 7815 1343 or [log in to unmask]  

A superb selection of stills is available on www.image.net 
 
Notes to editors

The NFT will screen a retrospective of Jacques Tati films, including shorts and TV appearances, from1st August 2003. 

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, a hit in France, was also a triumph in the UK and America. It won the International Critics Award at Cannes, the Louis Delluc Prize, the Algerian Critics Prize and a special honour from the French Federation of Cine-Clubs.

New Jacques Tati prints also available from the bfi: 

Jour de Fête (FR 1949) 
Dir Jacques Tati / 80 mins / colour / cert tbc
Cast Jacques Tati, Guy Decomble, Paul Frankeur, Santa Relli

Mon oncle (FR 1958)
Dir Jacques Tati / 114 mins / colour / cert tbc
Cast Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie

Playtime (FR 1967) 
Dir Jacques Tati / 126 mins / colour / cert tbc
Cast Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Jacqueline Lecomte


The British Film Institute offers the opportunity to experience, enjoy and discover more about the world of film and television. 

Visit the bfi website for further information
www.bfi.org.uk/hulot








Phil Powrie
Professor of French Cultural Studies
Director of the Centre for Research into Film & Media
School of Modern Languages
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
Tel: 0191 222 7492
Fax: 0191 222 5442
Email: [log in to unmask]
Centre Homepage: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/crif/home.htm