Modernity in Jacques Tati's- Mon Oncle
Anne Friedberg in Ch.2 of Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (U of California P, 1993) discusses the relationship between the city, modernism, film and architecture. Throughout this essay, I will relate her ideas of modernity particularly in the mobilized gaze ' and commodity-experience ' to Jacques Tati 's film Mon Oncle (1958).
Anne Friedberg 's ideas of modernity in the mobilized gaze ' and commodity experience ' as well as the reversal of public and private spaces can be inexorably applied to Mon Oncle (1958). Their interconnectibility, and Friedberg 's ideas on modernism can be observed during the 20 minute sequence of scenes in the garden party ' in the ultra-modern Arpel residence. Jacques Tati 's Mon Oncle (1958) narrates on two opposite extremes of the social spectrum with the main characters of the Arpel family, and Mr.Hulot. The Arpels are the epitome of nouveau-riche bourgeoisie in France and represent the future, in contrast with the other main character of the unemployed Uncle Mr.Hulot, symbolizing the past.
The garden party ' sequence at the Arpel residence commences with a visitor. It is the greengrocer arriving in his aged truck outside the front gate. The audience is exposed to an almost proportionately perfectionist shot- where we see a clean, grayscale, modern home occupying the top left of the frame, then the greengrocer 's old truck in the bottom right outside the fence. The contrasting dissonance between the two areas of the frame is symbolic of the differences between modernity and traditionality, and maintains a fascinated gaze from the viewer. As Friedberg discussed, "the tourist simultaneously embodies both a position of presence and absence, or here and elsewhere, of avowing one 's curiosity and disavowing one 's daily life", and "tourism provides an escape from boundaries it legitimates the transgression of one 's static, stable or fixed location" (1993: 59). Although the greengrocer is engaging in his
Anne Friedberg 's ideas of modernity in the mobilized gaze ' and commodity experience ' as well as the reversal of public and private spaces can be inexorably applied to Mon Oncle (1958). Their interconnectibility, and Friedberg 's ideas on modernism can be observed during the 20 minute sequence of scenes in the garden party ' in the ultra-modern Arpel residence. Jacques Tati 's Mon Oncle (1958) narrates on two opposite extremes of the social spectrum with the main characters of the Arpel family, and Mr.Hulot. The Arpels are the epitome of nouveau-riche bourgeoisie in France and represent the future, in contrast with the other main character of the unemployed Uncle Mr.Hulot, symbolizing the past.
The garden party ' sequence at the Arpel residence commences with a visitor. It is the greengrocer arriving in his aged truck outside the front gate. The audience is exposed to an almost proportionately perfectionist shot- where we see a clean, grayscale, modern home occupying the top left of the frame, then the greengrocer 's old truck in the bottom right outside the fence. The contrasting dissonance between the two areas of the frame is symbolic of the differences between modernity and traditionality, and maintains a fascinated gaze from the viewer. As Friedberg discussed, "the tourist simultaneously embodies both a position of presence and absence, or here and elsewhere, of avowing one 's curiosity and disavowing one 's daily life", and "tourism provides an escape from boundaries it legitimates the transgression of one 's static, stable or fixed location" (1993: 59). Although the greengrocer is engaging in his
Bibliography: Berman, Marshall. ‘Introduction: Modernity – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow ' in All That Is Solid Melts into Air: the Experience of Modernity. New York: Verso, 1983. Pages 15-36 Friedberg, Anne (1993) Excerpt from ‘The Passage from Arcade to Cinema. ' In Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern. Berkeley: University of California Press, pages 47-94. Mon Oncle (1958) Jacques Tati, France-Italy