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Synopsis
A Frenchman of Russian origins, Jacques Tati, who was born in 1908, worked as a picture-framer and a music-hall mime before being drawn into the world of the French cinema and making the films that rank him with the most popular comedy actor/directors in any country. He brought to his films - Jour de Fête, Monsieur Hulot's Holidays, Mon Oncle, Playtime and others - a healthy openness to new technology in movie-making and a rigorous precision, the hallmark of many great clowns, in the execution of each scene. He made no feature films after Parade in 1974, and he died in 1982. In this, the first complete, authoritative biography of the French icon, David Bellos has had the complete collaboration of Tati's daughter, the freedom to examine hitherto inaccessible archives including film footage, videos, taped interviews and early drafts of shooting scripts. What emerges is the picture of a man at once dedicated, impassioned, and shy, more an artist than a man of business. In Bellos's dynamic, closely researched account, the man comes abundantly alive, and remains, as on screen, strangely loveable.
John Coldstream
The best of the year's biographies . . . David Bellos examines with perception and style. —The Daily Telegraph