Jacques Tati- Where to Find Visual Comedy 

Apologies to those of you for whom the video isn't working right. I'm not sure what's going on. I've been emailing the folks at RU-vid (who still haven't gotten back to me) to see if we can resolve what's going on. It's not a copyright issue, but a playback one, so whatever's messed up is from RU-vid's end. If this persists, I'll just re-upload, but I would rather not resort to that since I'll lose all the current views and comments. Again, my apologies. If you're still interested, you can find the video here on Vimeo - vimeo.com/194717322

Dang they really got a crazy amount of mileage out of that doorknob joke

The glass door and knob gag is the greatest thing ever

I love how at 2:16 they even make the music a bit louder, as if the door is real. This is hilarious.

That one where the rope launches the guy killed me.

I grew up watching Mr Bean, and have only found Tati's films much later. Influences on Rowan Atkinson's character can be found in almost every M. Hulot scene. Makes me appreciate both of these comedians even more.

This type of visual humor is so great! a lot of the examples shown made me laugh, I kinda wish I saw this clever type of comedy used in modern cinema

This compliments that video by every frame a painting really well rather than just iterating on it. Which seems to becoming rare for a video essay about film.

I laughed harder at the scenes in this video than I have in a comedy movie in a long time.

The art direction and production design for Mon Oncle is crazy. All the cars, the surrounding area and even the clothes of the office scenes are so stylized. It looks amazing.

The cocaine gag was also a pun too. "I blew it"

The glass door shattering in Playtime is terrifically funny in your excerpt. What makes it sublime in the movie is that its destruction is the climax of many earlier problematic encounters with the door. As in all great films, with Playtime we realize we are watching the art of a supreme master, who can make a simple prop like a glass door fill us with explosive laughter.

7:12 This has to be the greatest gag in movie history. No matter how many times I watch it, either on this video or on DVD, it never fails to make me smile. Hulot's reaction is priceless.

"Most comedy movies these days are just people standing around and ad-libbing at each other." THANK YOU!! As someone who's a huge lover of comedy and anything that can get a laugh out of me, it killed me to see every comedy movie after The 40 Year Old Virgin just be a worse version of it (especially since that movies SUCKED to begin with!), and until recently, it felt like I was the only one who felt that way. I'm so glad I'm not.

Whenever here in the USA they talk about great comedians or film actors I wonder if they have missed all the great european films. So many are better and funnier than modern american films. Tati is so funny I have his entire collection and none of Adam Sandler to name one.

I always think of original Looney Toons cartoons when working with comedy... set-up an expectation, then subvert the expectation. even if you know how the setup/subversion will end, it's still good. first thing that comes to mind is the tunnel painted on a wall. you know the hunted (bugs, road runner) will be able to go through the tunnel but the hunter (fudd, daffy, coyote) will run into the wall; and it's still funny

This is one of my favorite channel, definitely under appreciated. You should make a video on how RU-vid and other online videos are changing what we think as film.

There's a lengthy sequence in Monsieur Hulot's Holiday where the holidaymakers are waiting on a platform for their train. They end up being shuffled around different platforms and the whole scene has me in stitches every time. There's something oddly familiar about indecipherable announcements in railway stations, wondering if you're on the right platform and being told to go to another platform with seconds to spare that seems universal and exploited to perfection by Tati.

oh my god that door handle scene had me laughing the whole time

I decided just a few moments ago to search RU-vid for Jacques Tati, and happily came upon this. This brilliant Frenchman's work was introduced to me a few years ago by a dear friend of mine who passed away only recently. Thank you for posting this feature.

Tati took ordinary situations and made them exceptional. SNL takes exceptional situations and makes them ordinary.

FANTASTIC video! I'd been wondering about his films since I saw the Criterion Collection's Complete Jacques Tati set. I laughed all throughout your video, so now I'm absolutely checking his films out. Also I just watched all the videos on your channel. Great work. I look forward to whatever you put out next!

Video essays on Takahata and Tati? You have earned a sub, sir.

Fantastic! I am literally laughing helplessly with tears running from my eyes. Many thanks for this brilliant essay and so many Tati gags one after another!

One of my favourite essays in a long time. Well done!

Just found your videos and I am loving them! Keep it up! You're very eloquent. They're a joy to watch.

This is your best essay. I've come back to it monthly for a year and a half.

the build-up and pay-off of that party scene in Toni erdmann is one of the funniest things I've seen in film

One of the most well presented videos. Great job!!

Thank you, that was brilliant. Can't wait to see what you share next

This channel brings so much content. I love it. Great work

this is the absolute best! Have mainlined all of your vids in one go, you deserve so many more views

Loved this, thank you for making it!

This is great content! Really enjoyed your comparisons in this video.

Thank you...this is a fantastic post!!!

What a wonderful examination of Tati's work!!! Bravo!!!

This is soooo good.. may god bless you.. thank you soo much... Tools like these never let me think twice of not opting for film school coz there is soooooo much out there... Great video essays come with great observations.. :D kudos

Thank you for this! I was not aware of the work of Jacques Tati, but now I want to watch all his films.

I really enjoyed this video, I never read or saw much about Tati, but love his films. Your presentation was informative and fun. Lot of good laughs and wonder.

I've watched this video so many times...I love all your videos honestly. I re-watch this, Takahata, and Brad Bird all the time.

Bravo. Ta vidéo est juste superbe. Du choix des séquences à la narration parfaitement montés, l'analyse fonctionne et nous captive. Bel hommage, un grand merci.

Excellent! Thank You to the ones who made it! I´m a big Tati fan from the first moment on i saw "Trafic".

8:26 dang this one was my favourite, didn't see it coming at all

My introduction to this type of comedy was the 3 stooges on TV land on saturday mornings. I went back and watched some episodes for free on vimeo or something, and once I got past the shock to the system involved with watching something from that era and re-entered the universe of physical/visual gags such as the ones in playtime, I found myself belly laughing at some of the bits! Your point about “most modern comedy being 2 people standing improvving at eachother” really hits home, even with some of my favorite comedy from today! Great point, great video, great channel!

you analyze these so beautifully

Key and Peele are great at visual comedy or observation comedy like you said, their sketch show on comedy central was by far the funniest thing I've seen in the 2010s and maybe ever. Because it's a mix of what makes a great video sketch: 1) acting: because K&P come from stage improv, so their comedy is very visual and on point 2) writing: they write a lot and only select a few, they're not on a weekly deadline like SNL, they get the people and the time to work on their craft and even throw away what's not good. So the structures are on point, clear set up, punchline going crescendo. Impeccable writing. Based on surprising the audience, You'll never guess what's the final punchline or gag is. 3) Cinematography: their sketches looks like films, but more importantly they go by the rule of “show don't tell”, which means that they don't explain jokes, you figure it out by yourself instantly, because of what's shown to you. That's very difficult to do because you have to start from a very unfunny base which is real day to day things, and make comedy out of that. Whereas most of pop comedy nowadays just make fun of already laughable situation, I find key and Peel is more grounded in reality in an absurd way, they find comedy where I wasn't even searching. Watch key and peele it's cool, why did I do a comment essay (Ps: great video, I don't agree with you because as you can see I love nowadays comedy. I may have a nerd view on it, I mostly watch things like Tomska, Bo Burnham, Key and Peele, Dan Harmon. They're widely popular, but it's still like something else, weird, alternative comedy. And they really care about everything they do, they're the kind of writers who make the comedy they want to see. Long story short, again, they cool. I oversold them you might not like it now, sorry)

love Jacques Tati! Thank you for making this!

appreciate what you're doing here. keep it up

This is a very well made video, you did such a great job! I actually laughed, alot!

Great essay, Loved it!

Thank you very much! Lovely video!

thanks so much for this video

Absolutely fantastic! 👏🏻

Thanks for another great essay :3

Thanks for this video!

I'm a big fan of him, thanks for this video!

Andrew...cannot thank you enough for this look at one of the true geniuses of comedy.... we saw 'Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" in about 1959 and that did it.... "Mon Oncle" is a masterpiece.... I truly feel sorry for folks who do not have the chance to relax, turn off the brain for a while and soak up this nectar which is a lot like reading the old Sunday newspaper color funnies. It tweaks one's mind differently, and perhaps increases brain power I suspect.

Great analysis and beautifully put together... Subscribed!

What a great selection of clips! I laighed so much. I'm a film and photography student and I can't wait to discover Jaques Tati! Thanks :)

thank God I found this channel, I love every frame a painting. I don't know if it is my humor but I laughed a lot in this video

Great content! I went from watching Cowboy Bebop to looking up Saul Bass to stumbling on your channel. I need to get back into watching film. Top of the year to ya!

Great essay!

The tow-rope canal gag isn't complete without the lorry driver's reaction to Mr Hulot's sudden disappearance! Tati's films are a joy - especially these days with large format hd tv's. There is so much going on!

That broken glass door scene made me literally burst out laughing wow!

I adore your videos so much

I appreciate you using my music in the background. :)

SOOOO glad I found your channel..

thank you ! great stuff!

Really enjoyed this video, I clicked to quickly check it out and stayed to the end. Nice.

I was taken with the camera placement and choreography of every scene/painting, artistic angle, background foreground, workmen, people in camera, off camera, lights inside and out, buildings far away and close, coats going on and off simultaneously, groups tired seeking rest and those on there way out for a great time. The list endless, hats and ribbons, food trays and innuendo. Enough, but not! Mesmerising. 👋

Excellent analysis. Thank you for allowing my inner film studies major come out to play :-)

this was very well done and inspired me to check out the director. nice work!

Really interesting! Thanks for sharing!

thank you so much.

I actually haven't had that many genuine laughs like this in long time from watching something funny in a movie, I'll check it out

thank you! I had a great time laughing

Thank you for show me this, really i like a lot of filmmaking, but i really don't know to much, and you my friend, you are teaching me

Awesome!!

Brilliant ✨

Great analysis. Love the channel

Fantastic. Nothing better than a good physical gag

I think you're absolutely right! I'm not acting, writing essays or filming a comedy, but this surely is valuable lesson - just need to pick the essence up when needed!

Subbed in the first 30 seconds, this was awesome!

Cool channel. I like that you show how the movies should be made or just how they used to be made. It started off with silent movies where the dialog was used only when necessary, now all you hear is talk, no visuals, just special effects to fill in the large content gap....

This video ain't playing for me. Am I alone in this?

visual comedy well explained! thanks! awesome work!

Brilliant!

This was very "Every Frame A Painting" and that's the best compliment I can give it. :-)

Really good video.

thank you for your review,well done, Jacques Tati and playtime are some of my favorites

Great video, Tati is criminally underappreciated.

I think I haven't laughed so hard with a serious RU-vid video ever. Thank u...

PLAYTIME is one of my alltime favorite films - the restaurant segment alone raises this film equal to or higher than classic US comedies such as BRINGING UP BABY, DUCK SOUP, IT'S A GIFT, LOVE AND DEATH, etc.).

Great work Andrew,

Now THIS is a lecture that belongs in ANY basic Film/Film Studies class! My GOD, that's informative. I wish Film classes would make use of RU-vid videos like this in their courses - especially considering the fact that they're free. Showing this and then building a full lecture around it, would be SO much more informative than just throwing up a few PowerPoint slides with certain vocabulary terms and historical names/dates on them, and then putting on a movie and/or assigning students to watch one. But then, maybe the guy who taught the one Film Studies course I took was an exception, rather than the rule. And maybe it was only because it was an introductory course. I don't know. But I feel I managed to learn so much more about the subject/medium by perusing RU-vid than I ever could have hoped to in that class. In half of the timeframe too, no less.

He is genius!!!! He knows all about comedy, perfomances, frame, rhythm ,observation, style etc ....

Thank you , you are so so so good ! I've learned a lot from you :D It's all about how to make people feel emotions

Great video ^^ Have to admit it's been a long time since I laughed so much xD

Wow! Thanks for the education!

Oh man, that doorman just holding the doorknob gag got me good, haha