My Uncle

(Mon oncle)
(My Uncle, Mr. Hulot)

English Version
Recommended for ages 10 & up

featuring

Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Alain Becourt,

Young Gerard Arpel feels alienated and constricted in his parents’ house, in which ingenious modern gadgets replace human effort and precision scheduling passes for interaction. Therefore he loves to spend time with his Uncle Hulot (Jacques Tati), whose home resembles a nest at the top of a ramshackle old house in a lively, impoverished quarter of the city. Much of the humor of this delicately timed comedy comes from the relationship of these two to the Arpel house itself, which functions like a frighteningly beautiful and entirely superfluous machine. A highlight of the film is the garden party thrown by the Arpels in a last-ditch attempt to distract Uncle with a lady friend and thereby gain back their son’s attention; here minimal dialogue combines with maximum sound effects, brilliant color photography, and choreographed movements to create a futuristic fifties fantasy.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Jacques Tati
  • Jacques Lagrange
Cinematographer
  • Jean Bourgoin
Language
  • English
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 116 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View My Uncle documents  

In and out of sync (review), Reader (Chicago, Ill.), Fred Camper, 2010

Jacques Tati (program note), Institut Valencià de l'Audiovisual i de Cinematografia Ricardo Muñoz Suay, Román Gubern, 2009

Mon oncle (program note), San Francisco International Film Festival, 1972

'Mon oncle' (review), Letter from France, 1958

Tati and Tahitian converge on S.F. (article), Oakland Tribune, Theresa Loeb Cone, 1958

Mon oncle (credits)

Mon oncle (shot analysis), Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques, Marcel Rendu

Mon oncle (booklet), Centre National de la Cinématographie

News about Jacques Tati's 'My Uncle' (press release), Continental Distributing, Inc.

Jacques Tati (distributor materials), Films Distribution

Displaying 10 of 10 publicly available documents.


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