Jacques Tati

Description

The French filmmaker of Russian origins , Jacques Tati had a successful career in comedy; famed for his expressive yet not vociferous acting. This biography is the portrait of a man at once dedicated, impassioned and shy, more an artist than a businessman. Bellos collaborated with Tati's daughter, so examining hitherto inaccessible archives including film footage, videos, taped interviews and early drafts of shooting scripts. Amongst Tati's films are "Jour de Fete", "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday", "Mon Oncle", and "Playtime". Though Tati died in 1982 his comedy films are as popular now as in their heyday.

David Bellos is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at Princeton where he is also director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. He won the Prix Goncourt de la Biographie for George Perec- A Life in Words. He also won the IBM-France prize for his translated W or The Memory of Childhood, Things- A Story of the Sixties and 53 Days, all major works by George Perec. In 2005 he won the Man Booker International translator's award for his translations of several works by the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare.

"[An] outstanding filmmaker biography... Deconstructs the French comedian-auteur as if he were an intricate human clock mechanism, which in some ways he was" -- Nigel Andrews Financial Times "The best of the year's biographies...David Bellos examines with perception and style how the creator of Monsieur Hulot staked a legitimate claim in a rapidly changing medium to the mantle once worn by Chaplin and Keaton" -- John Coldstream Daily Telegraph "Elegantly written and illustrated, brilliantly illuminating about the work... this is a book of which Jacques Tati, who was extremely proud of his work but never thought much of himself, would surely approve" -- Margot Norman Literary Review "This splendidly illustrated book pays a handsome tribute to a comic creator whose craft was an art which turned a delight in human absurdity into the most accessible form of sanity" -- David Coward Times Literary Supplement