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Author Topic: Tati's PLAYTIME restored
Ron Keillor
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 166
From: Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Registered: Jul 2003


 - posted 10-08-2003 04:35 PM      Profile for Ron Keillor   Email Ron Keillor   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
DVD's seen on a home TV set will never be the equal of a 70mm. theatre presentation, but not every 70mm. film makes it to all areas, and even more rarely as a revival. The new restoration of Jacques Tati's PLAYTIME as a 2-disc (DVD-9) set is particularly welcome since the Criterion edition went out-of-print almost immediately on its issue last year. Some shots that had been cut have been slightly lengthened following Tati's working notes, one reel needed repair and the sound track touched-up. And it now runs 119 minutes!
Repeat viewing was even funnier than the first; there is so much detail that gets missed.
As usual from France, no subtitles, The sound track is multilingual, stereo. Disc 2, the Bonuses are all in French. There's a trailer, a 20 min. biography of Tati, 6 minutes of production shots - the building of "Tativille", a 20 min. analysis by Stéphane Gaudet, an extract on the restoration from the book, "Playtime", by François Ede, coverage of the tribute to Tati at Cannes in 2002 and more, about 90 minutes worth.
Released by Warners in France, recommended to anyone with a multi-zone player. (I got my copy from alapage.com)

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001


 - posted 10-08-2003 04:58 PM      Profile for Richard Fowler   Email Richard Fowler   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Too bad we will never see the original first run version since Tati personally cut the running time from all available prints.....but he was habitual in reworking all of his films......but the visual activity of each sequence is something to see as he worked the widescreen frame to the max.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99


 - posted 10-08-2003 08:13 PM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
_Great_ film! And, sadly, not available in 35mm in the US (at least it wasn't recently...KPF had a starting-to-fade Eastman print as of a couple of years ago, though).

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001


 - posted 10-09-2003 10:11 AM      Profile for Richard Fowler   Email Richard Fowler   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Last time I saw a good 35mm print was in the late 1970's....but then again there used to br rep houses to support this stuff.

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Per Hauberg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 883
From: Malling, Denmark
Registered: Jul 2000


 - posted 10-10-2003 07:04 PM      Profile for Per Hauberg   Author's Homepage   Email Per Hauberg   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Too bad we will never see the original first run version
Richard: The Cannes presentation (celebration) 2002 was the original full-length version - 155 minutes 70mm DTS. The print went from Cannes to Paris, where it has been running since, and as far as I know, still runs continously in various theatres. The succes has been so great, that yet another 70mm print has been made, which is circulating all over the world (--for how long ??).
I almost had the deal in house to run it last winter, but my single-theatre deal was dropped by the french distributor, when somebody (a Swedish distributor, i think) wanted to buy the rights for all Scandinavia. I do not think, anybody has heard or seen anything to it in Scandinavia yet - Absolutely not in Denmark. The 70 dts has been made in two versions, the dolby way wih three front channels, and one in the Todd-AO way with all five front channels and one surround, the latter to be run with some extra dts gear, i believe.
PLAY TIME only works in 70mm with stereo sound - and then, maybe on dvd - not here yet. I saw it a couple of times in 70mm in the early 70ties, but have only been running it in 35 and 16mm myself. The one 70mm print in Denmark was junked before I got my projectors... Stupid distributor ! - Same distributor made no difference, when the film was booked in 35mm - still the same poster and same add blocks were delivered to cinemas, saying "Great fun on the giant screen" blabla

p

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Ron Keillor
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 166
From: Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Registered: Jul 2003


 - posted 10-10-2003 07:40 PM      Profile for Ron Keillor   Email Ron Keillor   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Per: did you mean 1:55? not 2hrs 35 min. which 155 min. would be. The "restored" version of the DVD is 119 min. (= 1hr.59 min.) The DVD sound format is shown only as "Stereo" - no options on it. The tativille.com website doesn't help - elegant site but Quicktime slow.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001


 - posted 10-10-2003 07:46 PM      Profile for Richard Fowler   Email Richard Fowler   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Ron,
the original length was 155 minutes 70mm as Per noted. It was later shorten and shown via 35mm after Tati failed to get an American film distributor for the first run rights. This film bankrupted his production company. The shorten run time was 115 -120 minutes depending on the market.

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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000


 - posted 06-22-2004 06:24 PM      Profile for Jeffry L. Johnson   Author's Homepage   Email Jeffry L. Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Playtime in 70mm at Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio

2004 July 29, 30, 31 at 7:00 PM.

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999


 - posted 06-22-2004 06:51 PM      Profile for Mark Lensenmayer   Email Mark Lensenmayer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
You beat me to it, Jeffry!

This should be an excellent presentation. The Wexner has Kinoton 16/35/70 projectors (16 on one side, 35/70 on the other) and an expert operator who really cares about film and presentation. I'll probably be there Thursday evening.

I'm hoping that they will be able to book in some of the other 70mm films that are still available.

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Thomas Hauerslev
Master Film Handler

Posts: 451
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Registered: Aug 2000


 - posted 06-23-2004 02:17 AM      Profile for Thomas Hauerslev   Author's Homepage   Email Thomas Hauerslev   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
About the restoration

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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000


 - posted 06-23-2004 08:15 AM      Profile for Jeffry L. Johnson   Author's Homepage   Email Jeffry L. Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The Cleveland Cinematheque plans a bus excursion to the Thursday show. I plan to attend either Friday or Saturday.

Cleveland Cinematheque 2004 July/August

quote:
CinemaTrek. Cleveland is a terrific movie town and you can see a lot of great films here. But one of the city's deficiencies is that there is no projection booth with two working 70mm machines. The CWRU Film Society used to have this capability, but doesn't now, as far as I know. A number of theatres have one 70mm machine hooked up to a platter, so 70mm films ‚ a wider film gauge (twice the width of standard 35mm film) used mostly for large-scale epics like Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey ‚ can be shown here. What can't be shown are special or archival 70mm prints that must be projected reel-to-reel on two machines, with a changeover every 20 minutes. Unique or rare prints are not allowed to be cut and spliced, which is what has to happen if they are projected from a platter.

Now, to be frank, there aren't a lot of 70mm prints that would require this special treatment. But in May I traveled to the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland, to see one of them: an original 70mm print of Sergei Bondarchuk's seven-hour, Oscar-winning 1960s epic War and Peace. Another is the new Janus/Criterion print of Jacques Tati's 1967 French comedy Playtime, which has been struck from a newly restored French negative and is about 20 minutes longer than the 108-minute version released in America. To show this print of Playtime, you need not only two 70mm machines but a 70mm DTS reader for the digital sound. (This is a different from a 35mm DTS reader, which many theatres have.)

So no one in Cleveland can project this new 70mm print of Playtime. But someone in Columbus can, and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, July 29, 30, and 31, the Wexner Center for the Arts at OSU is going to do just that.

This screening is worth a trip to Columbus; Playtime is one of my all-time favorite films. Playtime was the third of four movies in which Tati played his bumbling alter-ego Monsieur Hulot. Hulot, a gawky, genial, pipe-smoking klutz in hat, overcoat, umbrella, and too-short pants, is constantly, hilariously in conflict with the trappings, gadgets, and "conveniences" of modern life. Tati also directed his Hulot films, and they contain lots of long shots and very little dialogue. One perceptive critic called them "comedies of motion." Playtime is Tati's grandest vision -- a spoof of soulless modernist architecture for which Tati constructed mammoth sets of concrete and glass that completely obliterated traditional Paris and its quaint, beautiful buildings (the Eiffel Tower is seen only in glass reflections). Then he turned Hulot and a bevy of American tourists loose in these structures and observed them like ants in an ant farm. The result is a wry and spectacular goof on contemporary urban life, with some of the best gags ever committed to celluloid.

If you'd like to see this movie in Columbus with me, you can. On Thursday, July 29, the Cinematheque is taking its first-ever "CinemaTrek." We've chartered a luxury coach that will leave the Cleveland Institute of Art at 3:45 pm sharp for the 7:00 pm show of Playtime at the Wexner Center. We will return to the CIA around midnight. The cost for the round-trip, including film admission, is only $20 per person. If you'd like a box supper to eat on the bus, add $9 more and we will order one for you. Send checks to the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH, 44106. Be sure to include your phone number or e-mail address so that we can confirm your reservation. We need to receive all money by Monday, July 19. Seating is limited, so act now. And if we don't get enough reservations by that time, the trip will be cancelled.

It would be great to have a Cleveland delegation go to Columbus for this film. It would demonstrate that, even though we don't have the equipment to show the 70mm Playtime, we have an enthusiastic and sophisticated audience that can't be beat. Besides, it will be fun. Playtime indeed.



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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999


 - posted 07-29-2004 09:09 PM      Profile for Mark Lensenmayer   Email Mark Lensenmayer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I just came from seeing the 70mm restoration of Playtime. What a strange film.

I've always believed that 70mm is even better on a small screen than a large one. That is because of the incredible sharpness of the original 70mm image. Things are crystal clear. You can read the small print on the wine bottles. The screen in the weird auditorium of the Wexner Center (never let an avant-garde architect design your theater!) is small, and the 70mm image of Playtime is almost surrealistically clear. (Except for one very small section that looks like it came from a non-original source)

This is a very strange film. Some French, some English...actually, the dialog is almost unnecessary.

Parts are very slow, with the comedy unfolding very slowly. Parts are almost too fast, with too much going on. I wouldn't rate it as one of my favorite films, but I'm glad I saw it.

Not a bad house for a Thursday night...about 2/3 full in a 250 seat room. Pretty good for a strange French movie.

DTS sound was clear, but I'm not sure all of the screen channels were working. I didn't hear much left channel. It's more of a visual film, anyway.

Highly recommended for any 70mm fan. They don't make them like this any more...don't miss it if it is in your area.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999


 - posted 07-30-2004 10:28 PM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The current DTS track that is traveling with PLAYTIME is descrete 6-track...with a twist....it is L,LC,C,RC,R and Subwoofer! No surrounds (which may never have been there, I don't know the film) but subwoofer? Note, LC and RC are recorded on the Ls and Rs channels. The Subwoofer is recorded on the Surround channel. You must have a DTS-6DSV or XD-10 to play the discs (6-track ones, at least). I think they called LC and RC IL and IR for "intermediate-Left" and "intermediate-Right".

Steve

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