Jacques Tati Comedy Film Studies

Jacques Tati is the most excellent comedy master in France since Max Linder. He has not only created a comedy archetype—Monsieur Hulot, but also established a whole-new genre of comedy—"Silent Comedy in the Sound Age". This thesis takes Tati's five films as examples to analyze Jacques Tati and his comedy, the subject, character ,narrative strategy and style etc, by the vehicle of concluding, exemplifying, and comparing, and under the background of film theory and film history. This thesis discusses the above from three aspects: the historical coordinate of Tati's comedy; the content and form of his comedy world; construction of his comedy. Part one tries to orient Tati through film history, mainly starting from the aspect of the author and works. The author-looking part mainly is a coordination of his whole life and all his works. The work-looking part places him into two different comedy traditions: one is the French comedy tradition, the other is the American Silent comedy tradition. Amid the French tradition, it chooses René Clair, Max Linder to compare; while amid the American tradition, it presents Chaplin and Keaton to compare. Part two enters into Tati's film world, mainly reviewing the subject, archetype character, and narrative strategy of his films. City architecture, traffic problems and the opposition between cultural civilization and human nature which repeatedly appear in his works are his persistent attention. Trough the paradox of amusement and work, loose structure, and the absence of the hero Hulot, Tati has created an effect of strangerlization. Part three examines his use of the elements of sounds and his comedy style. Tati's concept of sound totally counters tradition. He erases the narrative function of dialogue, strengthens the noises from the mechanical society, and creates various comedy effects through the matching and combination of sound and picture. For comedy style, he establishes his own comedy world by insisting on the true law of the natural world. Meanwhile he takes the strategy as "comic democracy", by demanding to abolish the absolute star status in film, while leaving the stunts to the figurants.