Here’s a really, really fascinating interview with Sylvain Chomet, the director of much beloved The Triplets of Belleville… if you speak French. If not, just enjoy the bits of footage we get for his next project entitled The Illusionist, written by oscar nominee, Jacques Tati. It looks frickin’ awesome; as we would expect.
Jacques Tati directed Play Time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTlLR0jd-NI
Oh God I can’t wait. I don’t speak French but the clips look amazing. Belleville Rendezvous (Triplets of Belleville) was one of my favourites of the decade.
Ha, it’s even worse than needing to know French – there’s a German voiceover translating what Chomet is saying. The footage looks gorgeous, though. I can’t wait to see it! And a Tati script? I didn’t know that; that makes it even more exciting.
Tati’s dead. How did he write this?
You know an american wrote this when fucking Jacques Tati is billed as “oscar nominee”
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The Illusionist (a glaring omission on my part when we did our ‘most anticipated 2010 films!) is an animated telling of an un-produced Jacques Tati screenplay. Chomet has been working on this for at least 3 years at this point.
I’ve talked to at least one person who caught this in Berlin, and the word is that it is fantastic (and dark and prickly). This cannot come out too soon!
The original Tati script seems to hold a great deal of potential as it has been reported that he had written it as a letter of apology to his eldest estranged daughter and was wrote semi-autobiographical to reflect his life at the time. Tati wrote “The Illusionist” at about the same time in the mid 1950’s that he filmed his superb depiction of childhood innocence in his Oscar winning “Mon Oncle”, a Tati script about parental guilt towards a neglected child if handled correctly could well prove fascinating. The big question could well be is Chomet capable of handling such an emotionally deep story as his hero intended? Tati was the most independent of film makers and it safe to presume that he is spinning in his grave at the thought of his script receiving the Chomets treatment.
Reviews I’ve seen so far say that it looks great but the story is very dark and doesn’t make any real sense.
Oh and it doesn’t look like Chomet is being open about the true source of the script or why Tati wrote it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/jacques-tati-lost-film-family-illusionniste
Dang, I’m psyched for this one. Seeing as how I love both The Triplets of Belleville and Tati a great deal, this seems almost too good to be true.