Gai dimanche

You can't become an auteur without starting somewhere, and Jacques Tati started, like many a screen comic, in the short subjects. He first appeared on the silver screen in 1932, and by 1934, he was co-writing

In this one: Tati and Rhum de Medrano (he was, like many an aspirational French performer, usually known only by his first name) are a couple of bums who rent a bizarre open motor coach one Sunday, with a scheme to make money by motoring out to the country and offering unwary tourists rides to "the castle" with lunch included.

Although the gags in here will come as no surprise to any fan of comedy, what will surprise many -- if they have not seen Tati's work -- is their pacing. French farce is as fast-paced as any other, and to watch classic gags done at Tati's slow, off-handed, mildly fuddled pace, is .... well, I want to say a revelation, but Tati's work never struck me as particularly comic, but more as nostalgic for an era when people put up with his self-absorbed character as they went along their self-absorbed lives.

"Gai dimanche" is the third short in which Tati plays, he's still acting like in music halls, moving speedly and even talking clearly in less large shots than his long movies. As Tati and Rhum try to make money on touring tourists in parisian suburb in a damaged bus, they improvise everything as the catastrophic lunch. At that time, Tati observed a lot around his native house in Le Pecq and in "Gai dimanche", he shot in places he knew very well. There are some gags that will later be used in his masterpieces. I wish we could see more of this Tati's music hall era; like the sequence on youtube in which he compares a british cop and a french cop. That doesn't mean I do not appreciate his movies, they are fabulous, but there is a huge part of Tati's genius we totally ignore.