Playtime

Historical Markers of the Modern Soundtrack

Developed for RMIT Media Arts

Profile: JACQUES TATI

French director whose body of films pose a comical, whimsical and critical view of the petty lifestyles, fixations and traditions which defined the French middle-class of the times. Modern postwar inventions and gadgets are the main instruments which Tati uses to display the comic and pathetic effects they generate when fastidiously employed by people. Filmography as director: JOUR DE FETE (1947); M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY (1953); MON ONCLE (1958); PLAYTIME (1967) and TRAFFIC (1970)

Many postwar cultures rebuilt their cities after the war zones raged between the Axis and the Allies and reduced much of 'Old Europe' to rubble. The architectural concept of the 'new city' or the 'city of the future' consequently took on a more pragmatic and urgent function as cities literally had to be re-built. Different European cultures approached the resultant problems of design, theory, practice, purpose and usage from different perspectives. In Tati's view, the French seemed absurdly attracted to the new-fangled gadgetry designed to make postwar affluence into a strange puppet-like existence. As such, notions of architecture, interior design, urban planning, transport, industrial design, consumerism and the growing leisure industries are all incorporated into the look, feel and sound of his films.

In this light, Tati's social critique is consistently explored throughout his five films, despite the long elapses of time between the production of each film. It is his last three films - MON ONCLE, PLAYTIME and TRAFFIC - which push this view to uncompromising limits. Most importantly, it is the manipulation of sound effects and their positioning and layering on the soundtrack that conveys the man-machine interface as the audio-visual core of Tati's cinematic statement. This is mainly conveyed between the relationships between:

1. space; 2. a body in that space; and
3. the sound that body makes when in that space.

In the material and dynamic issues involved in framing, camera movement, focal plains, set design and spatial organization, Tati highlights how sound is involved at every possible level. In other words, Tati rigorously allows the sound track to co-inhabit the visual plane. For example:

1. if a character enters a space - we hear them walk on the material surface of that space;
2. if a character touches any object in that space - we hear them not only touch that object, but also hear the 'character' of that object;
3. we then see how the human character reacts to the sonic 'character' of the object; and
4. if the character can see into any other space or hear any other space - we are given a dynamic audio-visual interaction between the character's dislocated experience between two spaces (eg. hearing one space while hearing another, and vice versa).

Close analysis: PLAYTIME

1. Music over credits

Primitive rhythms frenetically played with jazz intonation. This musical theme recurs when chaos enters into a scene when all social ordering breaks down. This opening theme - set against a brilliant sky - idealizes the natural state of rhythms which throughout the film are intercepted, reorganized and effectively 'tamed' by a variety of social design discourses.

2. People entering the airport terminal

Throughout this elaborate choreographed scene, characters are typified as comical stereotypes through the sound of their movement through the main corridor. The sterile airport environment is on the one hand designed to silence people in order for smooth traffic flow, but on the other hand ends up amplifying their presence. Historically, church design exploits reverberation to exaggerate the sound of one's presence so that one feels forced to remain silent. The airport scene shows people totally unaware of how their sound collapses the pristine silence of the sterile environment. Note also how each character is conveyed by their footwear and the way that walk, and how M. Hulot marks his entrance by dropping his umbrella causing everyone else to momentarily be silent.

3. Man asks building guard for cigarette light

The first of many gags where glass is made present by the acoustic breakdown that occurs between the spaces either side of the glass. Glass walls and doors are often architecturally employed to bring the city into an indoor space while preventing the 'sound of the city' from entering the interior. In this sense, a central audio-visual conundrum is highlighted, wherein the city as-designed is a visual presence (the forms and shapes of buildings) while the city as-lived is an acoustic presence (traffic, chatter, etc.).

4. Guard uses intercom system

A compacted scene which undermines every design feature of the intercom: the guard can't read and talk simultaneously; he does not the right code first off; the speaker is nearly incomprehensible; etc. Note also how the machine nonetheless is given character not by its visual design but on the aural sounds of its attempt to communicate and signify (the various electronic beeps, etc.).

5. The man arrives to see M. Hulot

A gag based on Hulot thinking the man is near, while the guard and the audience can see how far away he is. Another example of how the acoustic effect of a designed space often contradicts the visual formalism of that space.

6. M. Hulot waits in room

Hulot innocently explores the new space not just by looking, but by causing it to 'sound' - the seats, the floor, etc. When the new man enters, he marks his own presence in the space not by touching anything in it, but by making himself as a self-contained efficient unit. His precision is exaggerated by the clipped synchronous sound effects he makes with every physical gesture.

7. Hulot chase man throughout building

A series of visual gags unfold, culminating in the separation between the two characters. Hulot looks through to what he thinks is the man in the opposite glass-paneled building only to reveal to us that he was looking at the man's reflection. The man was actually in the same building. Visuals throughout the film often lie; sound gives us (or would give us if we could hear it) the truth of a spatial situation.

8. The invention pavilion

Note the sight and sound gags for the various inventions: as images and sound become confusing simulations, the patrons of the pavilion become confused as to what is real and what is not; what is a model and what is an actual object; who is a customer and who is an attendant. Note again how the character of various inventions is typed by their sound and the ways in which users sonically interface with them. Muzak is also used throughout this space to symbolize the floating utopian-utilitarian feel of the designed consumer space.

9. The silent door

A perverse play on silencing a human energy manifestation: the angered door slam. People bang doors to mark their exit acoustically so as to rupture the silence of a space - yet here is an invention which circumvents that very usage. Note the ad line: "Slam your door in golden silence". Note how the demonstrator tries to show the door's silence while being frustrated by another customer making noise at a desk. Eventually, the designer of the door himself is angered by not being able to bang the door noisily.

10. The aeroplane ticket desk attendant

As the camera shows the reverse side of his bench, we see his balletic movements on the wheeled chair syncing with his rhythmic tapping and vocal interjections.

11. The apartment block with windows facing the street

A complex series of interlocking gags are deployed here by removing us from the acoustic space of the rooms while privileging our point-of-view, allowing us to see what is in the rooms. In this sense, the glass wall is actually an invisible wall: the inhabitants are unaware of it revealing them to the outside, while we outside can 'see through' the wall. A series of synchronous gags then develop between the two adjoining rooms as we are led to read that there is an invisible wall between the two rooms - when in fact there is an actual wall. Note the effect of the outside traffic - a sporadic surging of noise whose rhythms are incidental to and indifferent toward the action we witness. This generates a strangely disorienting comic effect, where the sound does not synchronously pin-point the comic moments.

12. Bystanders watch the workman placing the plate glass

Even the characters within the film play audio-visual gags, as the two guys mimic musical accompaniment to the workers holding the invisible glass, rendering their movements as weird dancing.

13. The new restaurant

This space moves through a series of atmospheric/ambient movements based on how both sounds and people fill the space:

a . the sound of the workman clearly indicates the state of the restaurant: sawing, banging, etc. - the sounds of work being done;
b . the silence with tinkling plates indicates the waiters preparing for the customers;
c . the rowdy American enters and 'acoustically imperializes' the space by brashly talking and ordering in his accent;
d . crowd chatter builds as more people enter, raising the overall acoustic level of people's presence;
e . the hired cha-cha-cha-muzak band start things off lightly;
f . a variety of sound gags develop based on how people make sounds as they move across the various floor surfaces and through the various doors;
g . as more trolleys and dishes enter the scene, a symphony of cutlery and culinary tools builds up;
h . the jazz band starts whooping-up the audience with their more primal music (as in the film's title sequence);
i . as more and more people get on the floor and dance, the louder their vocalizations become (also in proportion to their alcoholic intake);
j . after the smash of the glass door by Hulot, the street is physically allowed to enter - when glass is in place, sight but not sound enters the internal space; when the glass is smashed, everything can enter;
k . Hulot destroys a major design feature of the band area - the strict horizontal/vertical layering of wood slats; he does this with a loud crash just like his initial umbrella drop at the airport; after this point -
l . a final cacophony of people, voices, movements, doors, objects, music, and accidents builds to a crescendo of the space being totally inhabited by people despite the designed features of the space and how they intend to control people flow, behaviour and usage - in other words: a grand celebration of people existing and working within a space;
m . the jazz band leaves - everyone returns to order, obeying the logic silence;
n . the female tourist plays solo instrumental piano and soothes everyone, returning them to their original somnambulistic state;
o . a social fervour then rebuilds and gains momentum as a French woman gets everyone to sing a 3/4 patriotic-sounding ballad.

13. The sound of neon

This irritating buzz-tone is used to signify the harshness of communication (via signage) - from the swirling arrow of the restaurant to the sickly green glow of the chemist. Note how each sign functions per its intended purpose - but note how also there is a subsidiary interruptive effect of any communication - ie. the chemist sign interfering with the delicatessen's glass cabinet display of food; the drunk who misreads the spiral swirl of the arrow; etc..

14. The carnivalesque muzak of the tourists leaving Paris

This final musical theme ironically comments on the dinky choreographed movements of the tourists, the traffic flow, and the whole urban crowd control design principles which attempt to order and constrain social dynamics. In effect this music functions as simile: the people move like marionettes on a rotating fairground display. This imagery at the film's ending can be considered as a direct opposite to all that is connoted by the film's opening title sequence:

Opening / Ending
no people / mass of people
sky & nature / city & man
air & floating / earth & gravity-bound
still clouds / patterns of traffic movement
silent / noisy
primal drumming / overtly-coded waltz.

Text © Philip Brophy.