Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for PlayTime (1967) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden, France Rumilly, France Delahalle, Valérie Camille DIRECTOR: Jacques Tati CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jean Badal, Andréas Winding MUSIC: Francis Lemarque PRODUCTION: Jolly Film, Specta Films

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for PlayTime (1967). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

Franchise: PlayTime is part of the Monsieur Hulot Collection.

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

Upon its release in 1967, Playtime was the most expensive film ever made in France. Like Tati's other pictures, the dialogue has been post-synchronized and its volume turned down to direct the viewer's attention to forms of behavior and visual gags.

Hulot first appeared in M. Hulot's Holiday (1953) and then Mon Oncle (1958). With his long-stemmed pipe, raincoat and hat, and his pants often too short, Hulot moves about somewhat lost outside of his "old quarter" of Paris, bemused and confounded by urbanization and technology. Hulot also represented an artistic hindrance for Tati, who by the early sixties wanted to move beyond the character. Nevertheless, without Hulot's popularity, any commercial prospects for Playtime would have been nonexistent, and so Hulot does appear in the film. Like all characters and spaces within the frame, Hulot becomes part of the scenery; he disappears for long patches of screen time, seemingly lost in the world. Tati observed that the cost of building the set was no greater than what it would have cost to hire Elizabeth Taylor or Sophia Loren for the leading role. Budget overruns forced Tati to take out large loans and personal overdrafts to cover ever-increasing costs.

As Playtime depended greatly on visual comedy and sound effects, Tati chose to shoot it using high-resolution 70 mm film and a stereophonic soundtrack that was complex for its time.

To save money, some of the building facades and the interior of the Orly set were actually giant photographs. The Paris landmarks Barbara sees reflected in the glass door are also photographs. Tati also used life-sized cutout photographs of people to save money on extras; these are noticeable in some of the cubicles when Hulot overlooks the maze of offices, and in the deep background in some of the shots at ground level.

▸ Filming & Locations

Tati's enormous presentation would be shot in high-resolution 70mm, allowing the expansive real-world exteriors to dominate the frame. Tati's previous films were shot on actual locations; for Playtime, Tati could not afford what it would cost to take over whole segments of a real-life city or airport. No city or airport would shut itself down and submit to Tati's obsessive and exacting directorial style, wherein every detail was observed and laboured-over to meticulous effect.

Though his cameraman Jean Badal had proposed that Tati erect a building for the production and then sell it afterward, Tati had something more blindly idealistic in mind. His newly developed company Specta-Films would create massive buildings and offices, roads and streetlights, and even an airport. But rather than make these structures functional spaces that could be resold afterward, Tati intended its use for the French film industry. His studio-set, famously dubbed "Tativille" by the crew, would be built on the southeast corner of Paris, on a wasteland at Saint-Maurice.

Construction began in September 1964 and met with almost immediate delays and budgetary problems, and would not be finished until March 1965. Shooting began in April 1965 with a planned 178-day shoot, but lasted until October 1966. During the astonishingly protracted 365 days of actual shooting, minus vacations and stoppages, filming halted sometimes for weeks or months at a time for any number of reasons: bad weather, non-prime lighting conditions, or more commonly because Tati's money had run out. Tati borrowed funds from government financiers, banks, against Specta-Films' assets, and eventually his personal fortune. Soon he turned to friends and family. Public figures and admirers contributed too, but it was not enough. Tati eventually signed away the rights to his three previous pictures.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 2 wins & 1 nomination total

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Tati's financial problems did not improve after Playtimes first showings. On its original French release, Playtime was commercially unsuccessful, failing to earn back a significant portion of its production costs. The film was entered into the 6th Moscow International Film Festival, where it won a Silver Prize.

Results were the same upon the film's eventual release in the United States in 1973 (even though it had finally been converted to a 35 mm format at the insistence of US distributors and edited down to 103 minutes). Though Vincent Canby of The New York Times called Playtime "Tati's most brilliant film", it was no more a commercial success in the United States than in France. Debts incurred as a result of the film's cost overruns eventually forced Tati to file for bankruptcy.

Complaints that the film was too long resulted in Tati cutting down individual copies of the film from the original runtime of 140 minutes to under 120 minutes for general release. Tati assured the film community that the original 70 mm negative remained in his possession, but after various re-releases in the decades to come, the longest cut yet released runs 124 minutes. At the time, Tati's artistic integrity toward the project was both inspiring and debilitating. He intended Playtime to be something new, a "spectacle cinématographique" featuring an exclusive first-run showing with reservable seats, something more along the lines of live theater.

He refused to provide some cinemas unequipped with 70 mm projectors an altered 35 mm version, and audiences further confounded by the decreased presence of the beloved M. Hulot added to the lukewarm responses.

Moreover, Tati had become worn down not only by the production itself, but by the negative press surrounding its ostentatiousness. That he refused interviews or to allow journalists on his set worsened matters.