My uncle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title My uncle
Original title Mon oncle
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1958
length 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Jacques Tati
script Jacques Tati
Jacques Lagrange
Jean L'Hôte
production Jacques Tati
music Franck Barcellini
Alain Romans
Norbert Glanzberg
camera Jean Bourgoin
cut Suzanne Baron
occupation

My uncle (original title: Mon oncle ) is a French comedy film by Jacques Tati from 1958. Tati embodies the clumsy outsider Hulot for the second time in this satire, which caricatures the sterile and automated modern world, after Monsieur Hulot's holidays . My uncle became Tati's greatest success; the film won the special jury award at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1958 and the Oscar for best foreign language film a year later .

First performance in the Federal Republic of Germany was on June 23, 1959, in the German Democratic Republic on February 23, 1962.

action

The nine-year-old boy Gérard lives with his parents in a modern house in a new development area, which is pretty boring for him. His father is the general director of a plastics factory, his mother devotedly takes care of the automated, clinically clean household, which, however, also has some pitfalls for its residents. For example, after the dachshund walks with its wagging tail through the light barrier for the garage door , the parents are locked in the garage with their car, or one of them doesn't notice that the other is talking to him because the self-propelled vacuum cleaner is so loud.

Gerard's best friend is his uncle, Monsieur Hulot. The bachelor lives in a nested house in an old part of town. Hulot regularly picks up Gérard from school and takes him to a group of boys of the same age. They play in the street and do pranks . One goes like this: passers-by are tempted to turn their heads by a whistle at the right moment, so that they collide with a street lamp. After these outings with his uncle, Gérard is sometimes so dirty that his mother only touches him with rubber gloves when he receives him in her sterile apartment and puts him in the shower while still dressed.

Gérard's father criticizes the "bad influence" that Hulot exerts on Gérard. His wife is also worried about her brother. She wants to pair him up with her neighbor, so she organizes a party in her garden. Hulot, who is at war with technology and z. B. Throwing the car's modern cigarette lighter out of the car window like a match after lighting it promptly causes chaos and blows up the party. An attempt to get Hulot to work at Monsieur Arpel's company also fails; Due to his inattention, the machine produces a sausage-like structure instead of a rubber hose.

When they come home at night on their wedding day and find Hulot sleeping in their living room on the sofa that he has turned over especially for it, Monsieur Arpel decides to get rid of him for good. He sends Hulot to North Africa to represent the company . The next day, Gérard and his father accompany Hulot to the airport, where Gérard is supposed to say goodbye to his uncle. In the end, father and son are reconciled when the father whistles for Hulot and a passerby, distracted by the whistle, runs into a lantern in the parking lot - the lantern prank popular with children.

History of origin

Villa Arpel

After the great artistic and financial success of Monsieur Hulot's Holidays , it was five years before Jacques Tati finished his third feature film. Financial independence allowed him to produce My Uncle himself. Jacques Lagrange, who was primarily responsible for the storyboard drawings, became a new partner in writing the script . With him, Tati succeeded in developing a sophisticated visual concept in which the old world, represented by the neighborhood in which Hulot lives, and the modern world, represented by the Arpels' house, meet. My uncle has a lot more visual gags than Tati's previous films. At night, the round windows in the Arpels' house can be seen critically observing Hulot's struggle with the garden gate. As in Monsieur Hulot's Holidays , Tati uses noises for comical effects. My uncle is very dialog-heavy compared to his other films, but statements by Hulot cannot be understood. The plot of the film also has a higher priority than usual with him.

The recordings of the old town originated in the south-east of Paris nearby Saint-Maur-des-Fosses . Some residents of the community also appear in scenes in the film. The Arpels' house was built in a film studio in Nice based on plans by Lagrange. My uncle was Tati's first color film and shows a color dramaturgy developed by Tati with cameraman Jean Bourgoin; shrill colors for the modern neighborhood and earthy, warm tones for Hulot's neighborhood. As usual, most roles were in my uncle with amateur actors occupied, of which Tati hoped greater authenticity.

From the beginning, Tati aimed at international marketing for Mein Unkel . In parallel to the French version, an English version of My Uncle was created , which was ten minutes shorter. This version contained no fewer scenes than the original, only all shots were slightly shortened. The alternative version was quickly taken off the market and was forgotten until the original negatives were rediscovered and restored in 2004. The West German dubbed version is based on the short version (therefore the film can only be seen on DVD in the subtitled original), while in the GDR the French original version was dubbed.

Reviews

Lexicon of the international film : “Satire told with tongue-in-cheek irony that encounters the cold comfort of materialistic life with affectionate humor and grinning wisdom. Monsieur Hulot, the wise and unworldly hero, takes care of his little nephew in town, whose parents are Hulot's perfect antithesis: rich, modernist snobs, robots of the technological age. Tati himself plays the main character of this comedy; a dreamy personality with a silhouette that marks her inability to adapt to an existence without warmth. "

Reception of the Villa Arpel in architecture exhibitions

From the point of architectural criticism in the Moderne to architectural exhibitions dealing with the designed by the painter Jacques Lagrange Filmarchitektur Villa Arpel, so in 2004 an exhibition at the Architecture Museum of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and in 2014 an exhibition in the French Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice.

Awards (excerpt)

literature

  • Jean-Claude Carrière : Mon Oncle. Novel based on the film by Jacques Tati. Alexander, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89581-101-7 .
  • Michel Chion : The Films of Jacques Tati. Guernica Editions, Toronto 2003, ISBN 1-55071-175-X .
  • Philip Kemp: My uncle. Mon Oncle (1958). In: Steven Jay Schneider (Ed.): 1001 films. Edition Olms, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-283-00497-8 , p. 357
  • Winfried Nerdinger (ed.): The city of Monsieur Hulot. Jacques Tati's look at modern architecture. Exhibition of the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich in the Pinakothek der Moderne from February 19 to May 2, 2004. Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-9809263-1-1 .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for My Uncle . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2015 (PDF; test number: 19 929 V).
  2. ↑ Michel Chion: The Films of Jacques Tati. Guernica Editions, Toronto 2003, p. 32ff.
  3. ↑ Michel Chion: The Films of Jacques Tati. Guernica Editions, Toronto 2003, p. 82
  4. ↑ Michel Chion: The Films of Jacques Tati. Guernica Editions, Toronto 2003, p. 57
  5. ↑ Tati's Schützenfest was shot using the Thomsoncolor method, but the quality of the color images was so poor that the film was released in black and white ; only after Tati's death was a revised color version published.
  6. ↑ Michel Chion: The Films of Jacques Tati. Guernica Editions, Toronto 2003, pp. 76f
  7. ↑ Brent Maddock: The Films of Jacques Tati. The Scarecrow Press, Metuchen (NJ), London 1977, p. 75
  8. ↑ Dave Kehr : In English, Tati Confronts Modern Times , in New York Times , June 20, 2005
  9. ↑ My uncle. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ↑ Ira Mazzoni: The eyes of the Villa Arpel . Article from February 20, 2014 in the taz.de portal , accessed on June 7, 2014
  11. ^ Laura Weißmüller: Pavilions of the Architecture Biennale in Venice: France . Article from June 7, 2014 in the portal sueddeutsche.de , accessed on June 7, 2014