{"id":34145,"date":"2014-05-20T09:09:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T16:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=34145"},"modified":"2020-10-08T14:23:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T21:23:03","slug":"jonathan-rosenbaum-on-jour-de-fete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/jonathan-rosenbaum-on-jour-de-fete\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Rosenbaum on Jour de fete"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Jour de fete<\/em> amounts to a kind of stylistic manifesto as well. Most of Tati’s work derives from observation rather than pure invention, inflected by the aesthetic and poetic properties of music, painting, and dance (which is where the invention comes in); everyday details are the basic unit of this enterprise rather than incidents designed to advance a plot. This is why Tati’s films are generally better appreciated by ordinary viewers than by critics and specialists, who tend to be more rigid about what films should be, storywise and otherwise. (Twenty years ago, my film class students were far more responsive to Playtime<\/em> than were critics like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, who declared themselves bored and alienated.). Tati’s observation is tempered and structured by aesthetic-poetic imagination and by the perception that all of us, as critic Dave Hickey suggests, are living continuously inside a complex work of art that we call the world and that perhaps only another work of art can teach us to appreciate what’s right in front of us.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Essential Cinema<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I like his description of Tati’s aesthetic, but I’m a little thrown off by his declaration that ordinary viewers appreciate Tati better than critics (he wrote this in 1998, which is admittedly over 15 years ago, but I don’t think things have changed THAT much). I don’t know very many ordinary viewers who would even watch a Tati film, much less appreciate it more than film experts – in fact, I actually think most ordinary viewers I know are actually MORE rigid about what a film should be than most film-type people I know who are more open to more different experiences. Maybe my samples are biased? Or maybe things HAVE changed over the past 15 years?<\/p>\n

What do you think about this distinction?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Jour de fete amounts to a kind of stylistic manifesto as well. Most of Tati’s work derives from observation rather than pure invention, inflected by the aesthetic and poetic properties of music, painting, and dance (which is where the invention comes in); everyday details are the basic unit of this enterprise rather than incidents designed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[3316],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14185,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/my-2010-in-film-playtime\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":0},"title":"My 2010 in Film: Playtime","author":"Jandy","date":"December 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"[My list of favorite films released in 2010 will be going up on Row Three in mid-January, so I want to do something a bit different here. This series will include any films I saw for the first time this year and loved, regardless of release date. It may also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Playtime-banner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34471,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/american-movie-critics-carl-sandburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":1},"title":"American Movie Critics: Carl Sandburg","author":"Jandy","date":"August 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs. Carl Sandburg is best known as a poet, of course, and his particular evocation of Chicago and social realism. He also spent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Carl-Sandburg-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":207,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/the-films-that-need-critics\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":2},"title":"The Films that Need Critics","author":"Jandy","date":"February 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I mentioned this several months ago, following...I think , but here is another reminder from the Guardian. The films that get the most coverage by critics are the big Hollywood blockbusters, which would get coverage ANYWAY because of the studio publicity machines. I mean, nobody really needs critics to tell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34172,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/american-movie-critics-the-introduction-phillip-lopate\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":3},"title":"American Movie Critics: The Introduction (Phillip Lopate)","author":"Jandy","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading David Bordwell's series of posts on criticism in the 1940s made me want to dive back into reading criticism, so I've pulled my copy of American Movie Critics back out (I'd previously made it into the middle of the Ferguson section) and started over, because I don't remember any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/American-Movie-Critics-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/the-role-of-criticism\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":4},"title":"The role of criticism","author":"Jandy","date":"August 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"So far this year, eleven films have opened in theatres without screen for critics first. That's up from just two films by this time last year. These are films which the studios decided would do better without the critics lambasting them on opening weekend. The studios were right about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":848,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/times-richard-corliss-on-critics-awards\/","url_meta":{"origin":34145,"position":5},"title":"Time’s Richard Corliss on Critic’s Awards","author":"Jandy","date":"December 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The major film critic awards have been trickling out over the past few weeks, most of them honoring the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men and other semi-indie, art-house end of the year releases, prompting Time's Richard Corliss to wonder \"Do Film Critics Know Anything?\". Basically, he likes all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}