Playtime (DVD)
2-Disc The Criterion Collection Special Edition
APPROX. 124 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1967 - MPA RATING: NR
DVD Specifications
| Release date: | Sep 5, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Studio: | Criterion/Voyager |
| Year: | 1967 |
| Video: |
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic - Enhanced for Widescreen TVs. |
| Audio: |
French: Dolby Digital 2.0 English: Dolby Digital 2.0 |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Subtitles: | English |
Special Features
- Presented on two discs
- 124-Minute Restored Version
- All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Video introduction by writer, director, and performer Terry Jones
- Selected scene commentary by film historian Philip Kemp
- Au-delà de "Playtime," a short documentary featuring archival behind-the-scenes footage from the set
- Tati Story, a short biographical film about Tati
- “Jacques Tati in Monsieur Hulot's Work,” a 1976 BBC Omnibus program featuring Tati
- Rare audio interview with Tati from the U.S. debut of Playtime at the 1972 San Francisco International Film Festival
- Video interview with script supervisor Sylvette Baudrot
- Cours du soir, a 1967 short film written by and starring Tati
- Alternate international soundtrack
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A new essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Synopsis
A variety of tourists, including the unflappable Monsieur Hulot, descend upon a very modernized Paris and spend an eventful 24 hours there.Jacques Tati, the choreographer of the charming, comical ballet that is PLAYTIME, casts the endearingly clumsy Monsieur Hulot as the principal character wandering through modernist Paris. Amid the babble of English, French and German tourists, Hulot tries to reconcile the old-fashioned ways with the confusion of the encroaching age of technology.
Jacques Tati's gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in the age of technology reached their creative apex with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a bafflingly modernist Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion.
Cast & Crew
Criterion/Voyager
presents
Valerie CamilleFrance DelahalleBarbara DennekErika DentzlerYvette DucreuxRita MaidenNicole RayFrance RumillyJacques Tati
"Playtime"
Written byArt BuchwaldWritten byJacques LagrangeWritten byJacques Tatiproduced byBernard Maurice
directed byJacques Tati
Production Year: 1967
"Playtime"
Written byArt BuchwaldWritten byJacques LagrangeWritten byJacques Tatiproduced byBernard Maurice
directed byJacques Tati
Production Year: 1967
