The secret of Jacques Tati
26th May 2010
Dear Mr Ebert
Please let me first introduce myself. My name is Richard McDonald the middle grandson of the celebrated French filmmaker Jacques Tatischeff.
Having read with concerned interest your current blog documenting your experiences at this years Cannes Film Festival I hereby obliging write to you on behalf of my grandfathers only direct living family with information that you should be made aware of concerning the often ignored yet historically significant chapter of his life.
As you aware, having seen the trade screening at the Cinema Arcades in Cannes, this year will see the international release of an adaptation of my grandfather's original l'Illusionniste script by Sylvain Chomet and Pathe Pictures/ Sony Picture Classic. Before participating further in any active promotion of Chomet's adaptation of Tati's l'Illusionniste we would appreciate that you first consider how his interpretation greatly undermines both the artistry of my grandfather's original script whilst shamefully ignoring the deeply troubled personal story that lies at its heart.
I hope that you will be able to appreciate the significance of this information and compassionately understand the hurt that the misrepresentation of history by those involved in this production has already caused.
"Really I assure you, in all my films I did absolutely everything I wanted to do. If you don't like that, them, I am the only one to blame"
-- Jacques Tati: Cahiers du Cinema, 1980
It is well documented that my grandfather, Jacques Tati, wrote the script of l'Illusionniste as a sentimental semi-autobiographical reflection on how he was feeling about himself and in particular what he saw as his personal failings during the 1950's. It is also documented that the script was written as a personal letter to his teenage daughter. What is less well known however is the depth of his deceitful torment and how in the script he wrestles with the notion of publicly acknowledging his eldest daughter, my mother, who he had under duress from his elder sister heartlessly abandoned during the Second World War. At the time performing at the Lido de Paris with his long term lover, my grandmother Herta Schiel, Tati's deplorable conduct towards his first child was met with utter disgust by the majority of his then stage colleagues. Thrown out of the Lido by Leon Volterra, it was from this act, having been shunned by the Paris cabaret circuit for his caddish betrayal of one of their own and not as is often wrongly told to avoid Nazi recruiters, that Tati took refugee in the village of Sainte-Sévère in 1943, where he would later shoot Jour de Fete. The stage performers of Paris were a close knit community and in the same way that they had previously provided for Piaf they would also collectively help shelter Tati's abandoned infant daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne whom as Piaf was born in Paris at the Hôpital Tenon located in the 20th arrondissement.
At its heart the original script for l'Illusionniste focuses on a conjurer who upon finding that his act has became unfashionable is resorted to travel to ever further distant venues to earn a living. It is at one of these locations, originally intended to be a small town in Czechoslovakia that he befriends a young teenage girl who appears to be without family. Enthralled by the illusionist tricks which she believes to be real magic a father/daughter relationship evolves between the movies two protagonists. As the parental relationship builds the conjurer's engagement in the village comes to an end and the unlikely pair head to the big city, originally set to be Prague. For the first time in her life the young girl is exposed to the enchantment of a big city. Afraid to lose the young girl's affections to the charms of the city the illusionist unwilling to disappoint her with the truth about his life does everything he can to maintain the notion that his magic is real. However the lure of the city is powerful and the young girl attracts the attention of a handsome young man who exposes the conjurer's magic as fraudulent, nothing more than cheap tricks, illusions created to entertain an audience. Unable to hold onto her affections once his charade has been exposed the script concludes with the conjurer disappearing off into the sunset free of his deceit having as he always known he would lost the affections of the young girl to youth and the vibrancy of the city once she was able to see beyond his theatrics.
How the original script for l'Illusionniste reflects my grandfather's personal troubled dilemmas at its time of writing can be explained by taking account of the following facts.
1 It is well documented that Tati, my grandfather, wrote l'Illusionniste an emotive semi-autobiographical account of how during the 1950's he felt about himself and in particular what he saw as his professional and personal failings at the time.
2 It has been acknowledged that the script for l'Illusionniste was written as a personal letter to Tati's teenage daughter. Sophie his second child was not a teenager at the time of its writing, only his eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne whom he had adversely neglected as an infant was. In 1955 Helga was thirteen years of age, Sophie had just turned nine. Consecutive versions of l'Illusionniste script exist dated from 1955 through to 1959.
3 Tati played with idea's for l'Illusionniste throughout the mid to late 1950's the writing of which coincided with a letter written to him by his eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne. As a refugee Helga Marie-Jeanne had become trapped in Marrakech during the Moroccan 1955 uprising for independence against its French protectorate. Having been at the centre of the Christmas Eve bombing of the main Marrakech market in which she witnessed the massacre of a number of her boarding school friends, Helga Marie-Jeanne was actively encouraged by the French Consulate to flee Morocco for her own safety. Holding only a French passport she wrote to her father in hope that he would show compassion towards her plight and help her escape the hostilities that had built up in Morocco by offering her safe passage back to her home city of Paris. He was never forthcoming with help. However the request for help from his own daughter could only have weighed heavily on Tati the man, the artist, who had during the same period written the most sensitive observations of childhood innocence and parenthood with Academy Award winning Mon Oncle.
In Mon Oncle Tati would take the opportunity to swipe fun at the notion of arranged marriages which his elder sister Nataile had manipulated him into after the rejection of his own daughter in real life. Natalie had an overbearing influence over Tati and his abandonment of his eldest daughter was greatly influenced by her depraved intervention. Tati's script for l'Illusionniste parallels many of the dilemmas he was facing in his real life at the time, acceptance that he wasn't getting any younger, the failing popularity of live cabaret, befriending and taking on his parental duties towards a teenage girl he knew little about, bringing that teenager to a big city and the dilemma of ultimately losing the child's affection once the veil of his stage persona was exposed.
4 Tati, in keeping with his preference of not working with professional actors, had singled out Sylvette David who had modelled for Picasso for the role as the teenage girl due to her resemblance to Bridget Bardot. In her letter from Morocco Helga Marie-Jeanne had innocently joked that the locals of Marrakech had nicknamed her the brunette Bardot of the Sahara. David did not sit for Picasso until 1954 so it can only be concluded that Tati did not know of her until after this date.
5 Tati had set l'Illusionniste in the Czech capital city of Prague. The mother of his eldest child Herta Schiel was of duel nationality and escaped the German annexation of Vienna using Czech papers. She remained a Czech citizen throughout the war. Tati always referred to Herta as being Czech.
6 The original l'Illusionniste script focuses on how from a distance the teenage girl believes with utter wonderment the enchanting life the conjurer inhabits. After making a sentimental bond through his stage persona with the girl he does not have the heart to reveal to the teenager that his magic and what she sees as his very life are little more than a fabricated illusion. Throughout his career Tati was often quoted as saying that his Hulot was just a character he had created and he himself was a very different person to what was seen on screen. His eldest daughter's perception of him as a child was mainly formed from what she had seen of him in character on screen. l'Illusionniste script deals directly with the dilemma he was facing on how would his daughter respond once she realised the gentile man on the silver screen was not the same man he was after the dim theatre lights had been switched back on.
7 The original script for l'Illusionniste concludes with the magician walking off into the sunset wiser for the experience and free of his deceit. Tati had hoped that by openly apologising to his eldest daughter he would in some way be free of his real life deception that increasingly contradicted his growing public persona. The very title, l'Illusionniste illustrates how Tati was aware at how his public persona was a veil that contradicted the real man. Conjurers by their very craft are deceitful.
8 Tati had never intended to play the role of the illusionist himself instead he had intended to cast Pierre Etaix in the leading role but Etaix fell out with Tati over moral issues concerning the script. A bitter feud surfaced and the two men never again spoke. Tati copyrighted l'Illusionniste script at the beginning of the 1960's as he was concerned that both Etaix and Jean-Claude Carrière would try and steal it. All of Tati's old music hall colleagues knew of his eldest daughter he had fathered in Paris during the Second World War and the majority felt his actions to one of their own betrayed them all. It is highly likely Etaix or Carrière would have known about Tati's eldest child.
9 My Grandmother Herta Schiel never lost contact with her Parisian music hall colleagues and throughout her life would travel nearly every year back to Paris. It was through these connections that she learnt that Tati had written a script for the daughter he had shamefully betrayed. No name was ever given to the script but knowing of only two other un-produced scripts by Tati, The Occupation of Berlin (which has currently conveniently gone missing) and Confusion it can be concluded that l'Illusionniste with the parallels it draws is indeed that script. The l'Illusionniste was written around the same period as The Occupation of Berlin when Tati must have been reflecting upon his war years. Performers of the Lido de Paris, Bal Tabarin and A.B.C. who had known Tati both as a friend and colleague since he himself was a teenager still remarkably live in Paris and to this day are in regular contact with his eldest daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne. Nothing that Tati did in his movies was by accident but exist as a result of meticulous planning to precisely convey his very personal vision.
On hearing that Sylvain Chomet had started production on l'Illusionniste in what for centuries has been my father's family home county of Northumberland on the Scottish border I confidentially approached him with the difficult true story that lay at the heart of my grandfather's script. Gratefully acknowledging l'Illusionniste true meaning that he had apparently always known was written by Tati as a "personal letter to his daughter" Chomet invited me to his Edinburgh studio to read the script he had adapted and to see the progress he was making.
After a long conversation Chomet revealed he had obtained the script for l'Illusionniste from my Aunt Sophie Tatischeff following nothing more than a single telephone conversation he had with her whilst seeking permission to use a segment of Jour de Fete in his Belleville Rendez-Vous animated movie. Sophie died regrettably young in October 2001 a full two years before Belleville was released in late 2003 and it is questionable that she would have released what she had protected for so long to an unknown director she would never in person meet and who at the time had nothing to his name but a well received short animation. It was impossible for Sophie to give Chomet the script for l'Illusionniste after she had seen Belleville Rendez-Vous as he has often been quoted as saying.
Chomet justifies using an animated caricature of Tati by saying that Sophie never wanted anyone to play her father however she would have been well aware that her father never intended playing the part of the Illusionist himself, he had no conjuring skills and wanted solely to concentrate his efforts on writing and directing this most personal movie. As stated above the role was originally written for Pierre Etaix.
After Chomet became aware of the troubled story that lay beneath l'Illusionniste he informed the current caretakers of my grandfather's estate, Jerome Deschamps and Mikall Micheff at Les Films de Mon Oncle, who without consent published the most deplorable inaccurate account of my family in the biography Jacques Tati by Jean-Philippe Guerand. This intolerable disfiguring of our lives provoked us as a family and all that remains of the Tatischeff line with no choice but to finally put on record our true heritage to which everybody who is currently promoting themselves through my grandfathers celebrity have no legitimate claim whatsoever.
The partners at Les Films de Mon Oncle certainly never had a hand in the creation of my grandfathers oeuvre nor are they in anyway related to him. When Tati became bankrupt the Deschamps family chose to do nothing but glee at his downfall. It is quite deplorable that today they should be allowed to parasitically exploit both his abilities and failings whilst disturbingly distorting history. Deschamps came into ownership of four of Tati's movies after he purchased them from a terminally ill Sophie Tatischeff in the last year of her life to pay her debts (she'd lost a fortune with her recording studio, Son our Son) as she did not want to die with the shame of bankruptcy like her father. Deschamps absolutely did not inherit the Tatischeff estate as a rightful heir as he would like the world to think. Working closely with highly respected Princeton academic David Bellos who is credited with writing the most discerning biographical account of my grandfather's life we have been able to publicly document for the first time the true events that were Tati's War years..
What we ask is that you please try and understand the most unjust personal anguish that my family has faced for so long with nothing but the utmost reserved dignity and why the promoting of my grandfathers most personal script on the issue without acknowledging his troubled intentions for its creation, never mind how it has been spitefully reinterpreted, will only add further insult to everyone personally involved. Not recognising the source for l'Illusionniste shows not only disrespect for Tati the artist but also subverts the man's only redeeming response towards his daughter he inconsiderately abandoned.
To the outside world my grandfather, Jacques Tati was the great mime, the celebrated cinematic artist who held the most special gift of being able to entertain and make people laugh through his unique humane way of portraying the often crazy world in which we all live. However as he always maintained his celluloid characters were not him but creations born from his real life observations. Like many artists he was also troubled for this was also the same man who in complete contradiction to his professional screen persona had heartlessly abandoned both his eldest child, Helga Marie-Jeanne and her mother, Herta Schiel in the most shameful of circumstances. Tati courted and performed on stage at the Lido de Paris with Herta for the two years previous to the birth of their child. Inseparable Tati would enthusiastically discuss with Herta his ambitious plans to create his own movies and as early as 1941 he already had L'Ecole des Facteurs/Jour de Fete envisaged.
In Herta existed a vibrant brave young woman who at just seventeen years of age had the foresight alongside her sister Molly to flee the impending annexation of Vienna whilst courageously providing shielding and eventual safe passage to Morocco for their most admired childhood Jewish friend, Heinz Lustig. A young woman barely out of childhood herself who having arrived in Pairs with little more than a visa allowing her only to perform on the stage went on to courageously at great personal risk learn Morse Code and translate intercepted German messages from the front line into French for the Resistance movement before they were sent to De Gaulle in London. A woman whose only mistake was to fall in love then be betrayed by the gangling clown who would go on to charm the world with laughter in the way he ridiculed and questioned it.
In a single year, 1943 Herta's gallantry would be severely challenged as she found herself isolated in a foreign occupied city holding a needy new born child having lost both the man she loved and heartbreakingly her sister to tuberculosis. The mother of Tati's first child was a valiant woman who was not afraid to stand up for the freedom of Europe and today rightfully deserves not to be forgotten.
Tati's eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne always maintaining a Parisian soul would spend most of her life to adulthood in between Paris, Marrakech and Vienna. Having grown without knowing the love of a father in adulthood she could not bare the thought of bringing the shame she had suffered as a child for his betrayal to her half-brother, Pierre and sister, Sophie. It is for this reason alone that at the height of her father's celebrity she remained dignifiedly silently even under pressure to create scandal. Helga Marie-Jeanne had suffered enough as a child for her father's betrayal, in adulthood she determinedly decided to make her own way in the world. In honour of Helga Marie-Jeanne's dignified humility and her mother's wartime intelligence work Croix de Guerre awarded Parisian Resistance leader Dr Jacques Weil would stand in the place of her father when she married in England in the summer of 1965. Today as a much loved retired grandmother living in the northeast of England the least she deserves is respectful acknowledgement. Had she not remained resolutely silent it is highly unlikely that her father, Jacques Tatischeff would have been able to complete his cinematic oeuvre that still enthralls today.
My grandfather's artistry did not come without a price and the one who suffered the most for his compulsive behaviour was inexcusably his eldest daughter. Had it not been for the love of her brave astute mother, the goodwill of others and Helga Marie-Jeanne's own self discipline her fate would have been far bleaker.
My family's story is unfortunately not the romantic fiction of Truffaut's Last Metro or Curtiz's Casablanca. It is however a true account of how during that most horrendous period in modern history people's moral character was challenged when faced with adversity. Had Tati not survived his military service defending the French borders on the Western Front he might well have died a war hero. Instead the subsequent war years would see him conjure up the most indefensible family tragedy, a betrayal that runs in complete opposition to the legendary tale of how his own grandmother had rescued her son from Russia. The suffering of a child is inexcusable in any society. The sabotaging of Tati's original l'Illusionniste script without recognizing his troubled intentions so that it resembles little more than a grotesque eclectic nostalgic homage to its author is the most disrespectful act that shows nothing but a total lack of compassion towards both the artist and the child it was meant to address.
Before his death Tati called for his body to be thrown out with the garbage as through his own eyes his life had been a failure. He bemoaned to friends his misgivings and how through his own errors of judgment he would never experience the joy of being a grandparent. We have opened this painful chapter of our lives not out of any vengeance but so that we can now be allowed to lay to rest a previous generation's mistakes, there is no spite only sorrow for what is ultimately a family tragedy. To fully appreciate an artist's work you first must acknowledge the person and the life they had lived.
If the integrity of my grandfather's work means anything to you then please take into account the wishes of his only three grandchildren who united stand loyally by their adored mother, the daughter he had heartlessly abandoned as a child and later addressed l'Illusionniste to. Together we ask that you please show moral compassion and chose in the future not to participate in the misrepresentation of our family history to suit the parasitic benefit of others. That Sylvain Chomet, Pathe Pictures, Sony Picture Classics and Les Films de Mon Oncle dare to rub my grandfather's remorse on our doorstep without respectfully acknowledging the facts is intolerable. The truth deserves a voice so that at the very least we do not forget the sacrifices made by others for our liberty.
"On le pleure mort,il aurait fallu l'aider vivant"
--Paris Match 19th November 1982 Obituary of Jacques Tati.
Yours sincerely
Richard Tatischeff Schiel McDonald
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Fascinating. While I can certainly respect the sentiments expressed in this letter, it has unfortunately produced in me a desire to now see the film for myself. And a desire to hear Chomet's side of the story as well.
I feel for your family's anguish and fortitude under challenging circumstances. Your tale, your grandmother's tale is well worth circulating. However, there seems to be a disconnect between the reality of the family history and the purpose of cinema, to tell a story. Rarely can one be loyal to both.
I personally would love to see your grandmother's story on the big screen, in a separate tale.
I never watched any of Tati's film. Reading this letter, I can see how heartbreaking it is for Richard and his family to see a stranger using l'Illusionniste script as a way to make his work get more attention. He should be ashamed.
Incredible story. Genuinely eye-opening. I always liked Tati's playful contempt as a hint towards better things. But now I know that it was born out self-loathing for a terrible and irrevocable moral failing. I don't think I can watch the films the same way. But it's the truth and it deserves precedence because of it.
I, of course, have not seen "l'Illusionniste" yet, but intend to when it arrives in the US. As an animator and cinéaste, I admire the works Sylvain Chomet and Jaques Tati. Tati's films have become a constant source of inspiration, and to see Chomet's interpretation of a Tati film is an irresistible premise.
With that said, having read Mr. McDonald's letter, I can see how Chomet's interpretation of "l'Illusionniste" may seem like a slap to the face for his family after all they have been through. Yet there is an aspect which I feel is missing because of his own emotional to "l'Illusionniste".
What Mr.McDonald fails to mention is that to millions of fans, myself included, Tati exists primarily as Monsieur Hulot. Rather than the troubled filmmaker, we see him as the character he played. Chomet never had any connections to Tati the man. He, like all of us, only knew what we saw on the big screen.
I don't think Chomet's intention was to create "l'Illusionniste" as Tati would. Instead I think he created it to serve more as an homage to Tati's unique brand of cinema. Although "l'Illusionniste" may originally have been a message to his estranged daughter, the time for such a message to serve it's original purpose has passed. Now, like it can only serve to convey someone else's message. Tati himself cannot make amends for his actions, therefore no one can. What Chomet can do with "l'Illusionniste" is continue, in spirit, the cinema of Jaques Tati.
Although Chomet's changes to "l'Illusionniste" may skew the original intent, the true story of the script should be told. But the film is Chomet's now. It is the spirit of Tati's films and not his life, serving as the inspiration. By carrying Tati's cinematic spirit, Chomet has the opportunity to spread joy, every comedian's goal. If given the same opportunity, I'd do the same.
Well, that certainly seems heartfelt, if a little misguided. I'd like to know what you think, Rog'....
I'm not sure why this was published in full rather than as part of an article with some attempt at fact-checking (or declaring that such checking is impossible). In a sense I'm glad to have read it, because I love Tati and Hulot and have always wondered what his dark side was. This shows he was an artist like many, many others. Yet in the end, the writer - perhaps understandably - sees the Illusionist script as a sort of family artifact and not a work of art. I don't see the crime that the writer sees. But I regret if Tati the man did the things alleged. I think Mr. Hulot would shake his finger at Mr. Tati, and maybe even give him a kick in the pants.
Some might say, having read the excellent exposé by Richard Tatischeff Schiel McDonald, Grandson of the esteemed French filmaker Jacques Tati, peeling back the layers of this truly fascinating and turbulent episode in his Grandfather's life and what it meant in a wider context with both respect to his eldest daughter Helga and her future family, would suggest there is an even greater, and intinsically darker tale to be told.
So could it just be that Tati's finest story; 'The Truth', has not yet been revealed and demands a wider audience? Only time it seems, along with the gradual break-down of disingenuity, mistruths and outright lies perpetuated by the Deschamps family, will really begin to tell.
“Slap in the face”, I’m guessing it is far more than that considering Chomet has chosen to dedicate his take on the Illusionist to Tati’s other daughter and his own children under the perverse heading, “A fathers love to his daughter”. Is it not rather sick to take a man’s apology to a orphaned daughter and use it as a gift to your own child especially when it seems clear that Chomet knew exactly why Tati had wrote the script and the fact that the person it was intended for was living just a few short miles from where he was making it?
The truth behind the real life of Tati might well trouble some die hard fans who would wish both he and Hulot were the same however it is fact that they were separate but this does not take away his wonderful contribution to cinema. All art is influenced by reality and Tati’s movies almost perfectly convey this. That they might hide a darker depth than most of us knew about for me at least makes them even more interesting.
Pathe Pictures own promotional synopsis of The Illusionist
http://www.pathefilms.ch/libraries.files/20100073_en_1_The_Illusionist_Englisch.pdf
that bizarrely acknowledges how personal the script was to Jacques Tati but does not mention his eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel but instead dedicates it to Tati’s other daughter Sophie Tatischeff who Chomet it would appear had never personally spoke to or met as it is claimed Chomet’s producer Didier Brunner was the one who spoke to her. Without issue it appears Chomet did not obtain The Illusionist script from Sophie Tatischeff as it clearly states that he first read it in 2003. Having now read Tati’s grandsons astonishing heartfelt letter the whole of Pathe’s synopsis seems littered with contradictions and half truths. Chomet, if he knew of the existence of Helga, can certainly be accused of adding maliciously another level of deceit to the life of Jacques Tati’s; a dishonour that the great director tried to amend in his writing of The Illusionist. Crazy how Chomet’s take on The Illusionnist is being presented as a homage to Tati yet pays nothing but disregard to why we now know it was wrote apart from the telling that it is a, “letter from a father to his daughter” that tackled issues that were, “far to close” to the author, Tati who is on record as saying, “The Illusionist was far too serious a subject for his persona and he chose to make Play Time instead”.
THE ILLUSIONIST is a love letter from a father to his daughter. For Sophie Tatischeff, the daughter of Jacques Tati, comedy genius and French cinema legend, this touching correspondence could not be left undelivered. Catalogued in the CNC (Centre National de la Cinématographie) archives under the impersonal moniker ‘Film Tati Nº 4’, this un-produced script has waited half a century for hands to flick through its pages and realize its potential.
She doesn’t know yet that she loves him like she would a father – he knows already that he loves her as he would a daughter.
But as Alice comes of age, she finds love and moves on. The Illusionist no longer has to pretend and, untangled from his own web of deceit, resumes his life as a much wiser man.
Chomet: THE ILLUSIONIST was written by Tati between 1956 and 1959. “The story was all about the irrevocable passing of time and I understood completely why he had never made it. It was far too close to himself, it dealt in things he knew all too well, and he preferred to hide behind the Monsieur Hulot mask. You could tell from the start it was not just another Hulot misadventure, all the heart-on-sleeve observations made that crystal clear. Had he made the movie - and I’m certain he had every camera angle already worked out - it would have taken his career in a totally different direction. He is actually on record saying THE ILLUSIONIST was far too serious a subject for his persona and he chose to make Play Time instead”.
“There was a moment in that movie where the triplets are watching television in bed”, explains Chomet. “I thought it would be funny to have the cartoon characters view a live-action clip close in feeling to its Tour de France cycling story. Jacques Tati’s wonderful Jour de fête/Holiday sprang to mind because it featured him as a postman on a bicycle. So Didier Brunner (the producer) contacted the Tati estate, run by his sole surviving daughter Sophie Tatischeff, for permission to use an extract. Her authorisation was based on pictures and a set of design developments for The Triplets of Belleville. She clearly liked what she saw because she mentioned an un-filmed script by her father and hinted that my animation style might suit it.”
Chomet read THE ILLUSIONIST script for the first time on his train journey to the Cannes Film Festival in 2003 for the world premiere of The Triplets of Belleville.
Well bugger-me biege:
"If the success or failure of all cinema were to be held to account against a historical, social or psychological analysis of the underlying state of mind of the script writer then it would cease to exist as a functioning art form."
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100608/LETTERS/100609982/-1/letters
And yet if underlying state of mind of the script writer is in fact central to the storyline, is it not more than a shade disingenuous and hypocritical to suggest anything other?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/10/sylvain-chomet-belleville-rendezvous-illusionist
It would seem there are certain descrepencies as to how Chomet obtained this script:
"It had been slipped to him by Tati's daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, touched by his little nods to her father's Jour de Fête and Monsieur Hulot in Belleville. "I think Tati wrote the script for her. I think he felt guilty that he spent too long away from his daughter when he was working. Little girls turn into a woman in such a short period," Chomet says. "Tati had this feeling that he had missed something essential. It's an extremely emotional story, so personal that I think he was afraid to make it himself. Really, she gave me a precious gift and sadly Sophie Tatischeff died from lung cancer – like her father – before I could thank her for letting me have the script." "
Is not more likely that it is infact as Mr Mcdonald states, a heart-rending apology to his eldest daughter, given the circumstances he portrays above.
So it begs the question - just how did Sylain Chomet really come by it? What is he hiding? Why does his story not quite add up? Why is he now so reluctant to publicly acknowlege the real identity of the girl in the story, instead choosing to hide behind some glib, wooly 'love letter to a city'? And finally, just how was it that something of this importance, so important and compelling as to actually be turned into a film, this script that was apparently so casually just 'slipped' to him, and yet by the time he could be bothered to acknowledge it, the person in question (Tati's youngest daughter) had died?
Difficult to believe that anyone could take what was clearly a deeply personal acknowledgement of Tati's own failings as a father towards his eldest daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne, and not only re-interpret it as and when it suited but to then dedicate it to his youngest daughter Sophie! Surely this is just rubbing salt into what must already be a very raw wound for Tati's eldest daughter and the surviving family members. I believe that Sylvain Chomet has done a great disservice not only to the family of Tati but to the man himself, strange if he truly admires and respects Tati's genius as has been claimed.
So the precise reason Chomet has wilfully chosen to misinterpret and pervert the true nature of Tati's original, thus diluting and undermining its validity is unclear. But in doing so, preposterously in this observers opinion, by attempting to re-write the personal details of a private life, weaving in similes that flimsily echo the personal journey that he (Chomet) has shared with his own daughter throughout the creative process merely serves to provide a smokescreen, a cheap conjurer's trick, neatly drawing attention away from what lies at the central core of the l'Illusionniste; a far deeper, intrinsically more compelling story that Chomet has stubbornly, and for whatever reason, completely failed to grasp.
And now, all these years on, it seems somehow perverse and downright degradeing that a young woman, abandoned in youth and now again in her dotage is cast further aside, but not just by her father (as if this is not bad enough), but by the slanted agenda's of induviduals and estates who seek to embroider the separate strands of their own lives into the Jaques Tati myth at the expense of those biologically tied.
Wow, that family has got a lot of pent-up conflict!
To the Tati relations I'd say... don't worry about it! A 2D animated feature by a French director that's an homage to Jaques Tati is going to be such a niche film that it will go unnoticed here in America except by hard-core animation fans. Most of America has no clue about Tati or Chomet and no matter how good or bad this film is it's not going to push the needle of the public's estimation of either by any significant amount.
Does any of this change the fact that "The Illusionist" is a wonderful movie? And how many of the people criticising Chomet have actually seen it?
"To fully appreciate an artist's work you first must acknowledge the person and the life they had lived."
Is it really necessary? I doubt it. The life of a public personality is a private matter.
In Sylain Chomet's excellent movie, we never really know if the main character is Tatischeff himself, or Monsieur Hulot. This is because he is part of our collective memory.
In other words, Tati's figure is public and belongs to the public who is perfectly entitled to interpret its life as it wishes, and even to reinvent it.
Your account of Jacques Tatischeff's private life is most interesting. However your version of the facts does not discredit Chomet's take on this emblematic figure.
Clem you contradicted yourself,
"The life of a public personality is a private matter."
"Tati's figure is public and belongs to the public who is perfectly entitled to interpret its life as it wishes, and even to reinvent it."
It tends to be accepted that an artist of esteem cannot be removed from his creations. Is it Greene's or Reed's Third Man, Tolkien's or Jacksons Ring? Tati never belonged to anyone but Tati himself. A great part of Tati's appeal is that he was the most singular film maker working like a painter fighting throughout his life for the independence of his art.
How good or bad Chomet's take on Tati's script is a matter of personal choice but having seen it in Belgium earlier this month I was thoroughly disappointed by the execution of what is a very melancholy story. Yes it is delightful in places but as the audience I was left never quite understanding the bond between the magician and the girl. Having now been enlightened as to why Tati had written the script it seems very foolhardy of Chomet to try and omit the most touching private story that a father had written for his daughter he was never to rightfully love.
I am not here to defend Tati the man, but it does not seem to me at all obvious that he wrote The Illusionist for his estranged daughter, Helga.
This long, rambling letter, filled with circumstantial detail, does not exclude the possibility that the script might refer to his younger daughter, Sophie, or to his feelings of inadequacy as a father in general.
Indeed, it does seem strange that Tati would refuse to lift a finger to help Helga out of Morocco, but at the same time dedicate a script to her.
Moreover, the script portrays a man who lavishes too much attention on a young girl, not too little, thereby leaving her cocooned from the realities of the world. Without knowing Tati's family history in detail, it is difficult to see how this so obviously relates to a daughter to whom he apparently offered no material support.
Finally, Chomet's excellent film wisely chooses to focus on the legacy of Tati's on-screen persona, and his attempts to continue the music hall tradition in an era that had moved on.
The Illusionist stands a respectful testament to Tati the artist, and it is to be commended for not getting embroiled in the details of a 60 year old family dispute, which I doubt will ever be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
SideshowM, What a load of twaddle!
Surely knowledge of Tati's family history is in the hands of his actual family? The long, rambling letter you refer to, having being written by Tati's grandson is not lacking in detail and the facts as stated are hardly circumstantial. It is in fact a moving and honest account of this family's personal story as passed down from parent/grandparent to child. Personally I think it makes perfect sense that after abandoning Helga to her fate in Morocco, Tati expressed his remorse and shame in the only medium available to him at the time. As for this movie referring to his younger daughter Sophie, she was not a teenager at the time the script was written, Helga was. Tati was by all accounts, according to his contemporaries at the Lido very much in love with Helga's mother Herta and the estrangement from both mother and child was orchestrated by his overpowering and domineering sister. The original script was an expression of the guilt and frustration that Tati presumably lived with for the rest of his life. Surely the reason for lavishing attention and cocooning a young girl from the harsh realities of life in his script can be seen as an alternative to the reality of abandonment and neglect that the man must have been living with on a daily basis.
Returning to this topic, the more I read about the controversy surrounding The Illusionist, the majority of articles refer back to this website, and to Richard McDonald's letter, unquestioningly asserting its claims as fact.
In other words, this letter appears to have become the SINGLE source of information for the criticism of Chomet and his film.
Again, I am not here to defend Tati the man (though I would happily defend The Illusionist as a superb piece of filmmaking), and it is quite possible that all of McDonald's claims are entirely true.
However, this 3,500 word letter, in my opinion, fails to substantiate them here.
My questions - and these are genuine pleas for information - are as follows:
1) McDonald states that: "It has been acknowledged that the script for l'Illusionniste was written as a personal letter to Tati's teenage daughter".
What is the source for this claim, and is it specific to a *teenage* daughter?
2) McDonald states that: "Tati had hoped that by openly apologising to his eldest daughter he would in some way be free of his real life deception that increasingly contradicted his growing public persona".
What is the source for this claim, or is it merely opinion asserted as fact?
3) Finally - and this is a general query - has Tati otherwise written, spoken, or otherwise referred to his daughter Helga in any way?
Chomet’s adaptation is a testimony to his abilities to grave rob and granny mug.
So Pesso you would prefer that Tati, the lovable uncle Hulot, was without emotion for his eldest daughter? What’s your agenda for trying to quash an incredible story of survival and regret? If you actually read the letter in full it says that the information comes direct from the mouth of Tati via his former colleagues he had worked with in the music halls of Paris who personally knew both Tati and the mother of his first child since childhood. Former colleagues of Tati from the music hall era that The Illusionist is set. The detailed above letter states no name was given to the script which fits in with the information that it was archived under the title of "TATI Film no4". Chomet for his part has been nothing but inconsistent with his speculative account of the script origins going so far as to out rightly lie about the Tatischeff family history falsely stating the dates of birth for Tati daughters to fit his timeframe of event and most spitefully that Helga his eldest daughter was a result of some sordid affair which is very far from being the case . Why would he do such a thing without reason if something wasn't a miss? Why has Chomet lied about how he had obtained the script. Originally claiming that it was, having wowed her with his talents, personally handed to him by Sophie Tatischeff yet he now confesses that he had never even spoke to her let alone met her before first reading it in 2003 two years after she had died. Pesso perhaps you have some solid contradictor evidence rather than pushing pure speculation from people out to make a profit from other peoples misfortune. If you have solid fact produce it.
Excuse Pesso my post was intended to question SideshowM.
So SideshowM you would prefer that Tati, the lovable uncle Hulot, was without emotion for his eldest daughter? What’s your agenda for trying to quash an incredible story of survival and regret? If you actually read the letter in full it says that the information comes direct from the mouth of Tati via his former colleagues he had worked with in the music halls of Paris who personally knew both Tati and the mother of his first child since childhood. Former colleagues of Tati from the music hall era that The Illusionist is set. The detailed above letter states no name was given to the script which fits in with the information that it was archived under the title of "TATI Film no4". Chomet for his part has been nothing but inconsistent with his speculative account of the script origins going so far as to out rightly lie about the Tatischeff family history falsely stating the dates of birth for Tati daughters to fit his timeframe of event and most spitefully that Helga his eldest daughter was a result of some sordid affair which is very far from being the case . Why would he do such a thing without reason if something wasn't a miss? Why has Chomet lied about how he had obtained the script. Originally claiming that it was, having wowed her with his talents, personally handed to him by Sophie Tatischeff yet he now confesses that he had never even spoke to her let alone met her before first reading it in 2003 two years after she had died. SideshowM perhaps you have some solid contradictor evidence rather than pushing pure speculation from people out to make a profit from other peoples misfortune. If you have solid fact produce it.
Dublin's Independent newspaper thinks Chomet is being disingenuous with his "delusions of grandeur".
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/film-cinema/illusions-of-grandeur-2306371.html
Mr McDonald also failed to mention that Herta Schiel,not only had a czech passport, but was actually born in Prague. This might have had something to do with the loaction of the original script?
This is a fascinating story, though I don't agree that the making of the film covers up or hides the story of Tati's personal life. It isn't a Jacques Tati film, and therefore doesn't speak on his behalf (unless we want to read the figure of the shattered ventriloquist as an underhand symbol of what Chomet is doing for Tati) or provide a definitive account of what happened. Rather, it alludes to emotions, regrets and events without retelling them as history. Maybe a live action film would have conveyed an authoritative version of events, but animation gives it the air of partial remembrance or dreamlike wistfulness. Whatever Tati wanted the the script of The Illusionist to say about himself, he clearly didn't want to say directly. It uses allegory and suggestion in place of outright confession, and that's what Chomet's film preserves.
Now that the film is released, it's in the hands and minds of audiences. They can interpret it as they wish, and supplement that interpretation with Richard McDonald's moving appeal if they choose, or intrepret the film as the deceitful cover-up of a guilty secret. If one wants to read it as a confessional, we can still do that. The film does not close down that interpretation. That's how cultural texts work. It's frustrating, but none of us are getting this information directly, and the truth of Tati's intentions will never be completely settled.
Yes, but Dan - does it not lead you to wonder if it would not have been a far greater publicity coup, and all the better for the film's takings (which have been poor), had the Tati Estate sought to gain the weight of a ready-made, creditable, and emotionally frought backstory in the form of a reconiliation with Tati's estranged family. And not, as they have done, to shamefully sweep them still futher under the carpet. And lets face it - this is a backstory that bares all the hallmarks of all the things that all successful film's are made of. None of which are in evidence in Chomet's cheap* hand-me-down apology to his own daughter.
*Quite an expensive vanity project as it turns out.
If any eminent critic feels inclined to interview the director ask him this question: " how were you able to animate a more accurate image of Helga's husband as he was in the 50's than that of Tati himself? You could also ask him about the state of exitentialism in Newcastle! This is truely fasinating to myself and although flattering is reasonably distasteful.
Coming late to this debate after seeing the film last night. Richard McDonald has every right to express his opinion about the film and Sylvain Chomet personally. He doesn't have any right however to exercise artistic veto over Chomet's interpretation on the grounds that it doesn't accord with his version of the truth. Chomet's interpretation isn't dishonest - purely because he didn't make the kind of pretensions for it that McDonald implies.
Having seen the film, I think the animation is wonderful. The problem is actually the script. It lacks the central compelling storyline that all animated films need.
;-)
Thanks again for a wonderfully thorough post, Mr. Ebert. Gave it a mention here: http://snaporaz.posterous.com/tag/tatijacques
In what you write, I hear to some degree my own life's story. My life would also have been much bleaker without the resolve of my mother, despite my father's failings. I understand my own life better, through what you have written, and I understand your feelings.
As an author and screenwriter, who has often worked with other screenwriters on difficult projects derived from complex family histories, I have several times found myself within conflicts such as this. And before anything else, the sub-text to McDonald's very long, and emotion-soaked letter, is one of family and generational conflict. At its very base level, what McDonald appears to object to is that Chomet does not acknowledge that Tati wrote this sketch as an apologia to the daughter he abandoned. This is repeated over and over in the letter - but, you will pardon my cynicism, I sense something deeper in the DNA of this conflict. It is more than likely that Chomet and his producers would have been more than happy to acknowledge the daughter, the mother, the grandkids and the people who lived under the stairs for that matter; that they did not leads me to conclude that "acknowledgement" was not all that was being sought. Did Chomet and his producers get the rights to this film from Aunt Sophie? Yes, they did. Did they do it legally? Knowing how chronically paranoid the legal offices of these films companies work, and the demands of the companies offering E&O insurance, yes, they did. Did they pay enough? Probably not - but that's business and it was up to Sophie, whatever her situation, to decide what was or was not enough. Did McDonald and his part of the family get a taste? No. When he writes, "acknowledge," once again, pardon my cynicism, but what I hear is, "pay me." Why? Because there can be no moral victory, after all these years, in bringing to light a family story that McDonald's own grandmother and mother chose not to. I can imagine them both smacking him on the back of the head, hissing, Shut up!" And, as noted by many others, this new film does not have the goal of re-writing history - a family history at that - it is an homage and from the clips I've seen, an homage done with love and respect for the artist - if not the man. McDonald can be a little more Catholic in this - hate the sin, love the sinner.
Facing Kate
Regardless of the veracity of claims on various sides of this argument, they would all be mooted if the film's intellectual contents were half as good as its visual excellence. There is simply no psychological grounding for the relationship between man and girl on screen, and that suggests, to me anyway, that Chomet was frightened by the original material and chose a much blander approach.
Please indulge an excerpt from my review in the January 20 issue of Vancouver's Georgia Straight:
"Tati’s version reportedly rested on the girl’s belief that the father figure’s magic was real, with this shattered only by the arrival of a handsome young rival who exposes the old-timer’s tricks, thereby diverting her ambiguous affections. I mention this because what Chomet has come up with, in a thin plot spread much too far at 80 minutes, is exceedingly dull. Here, the blank-eyed teenager simply drains the magician of his money and moves on. In this almost wordless feature, there are also some failed attempts to duplicate Tati’s slapstick humour, as well as a bizarrely homophobic rendering of ’50s rock’n’-roll."
In short, if the movie was a lot better, it would still get at some truths it appears to be obscuring with its storytelling mediocrity. I'll say again, however, that it is gorgeous to look at. And I'd still like to know what Roger thinks about all this.
Life and history are full of stories about people wronged by family members. Mr. McDonald's letter is not compelling, but a long, repetitious, disjointed third-hand rendition of one family's lore. Family dynamics are always complicated and fraught with emotion. Facts within this context are interpreted through the emotionally charged viewpoint of the letter writer. I have found that the longer the letter, the more it appears to be a personal venting of frustration and the less it is an objective disclosure of the "facts". I believe it would behoove Mr. McDonald to quit whining and do something about it, or learn to live with it. If theft of an intellectual/artistic property has occurred, then it is a matter for the impartial arena of a court of law. The artistic value of the movie “The Illusionist” will be judged on its own merits. The viewing public cares little what the back story of the movie is, unless it is extremely sordid or prurient. In which case, the result would probably be increased ticket sales.
Jabob offer’s a highly cynical and one-dimensional take on the controversy that engulfs The Illusionist, a view that is quite puzzling in light of his admission to be, not just an author, but a screenwriter too. Then surely one in his esteemed position would be aware of the potential for multiple strands of narrative and many tangible motives – and certainly many more than The Illusionist itself manages to deliver. But instead Jacob offers, sketchily at best - just one; Money.
By working on the old – but not necessarily true, and most definitely prosiac adage that money is the root of all evil, Jacob leaves little to the imagination in his clumsy synopsis that greed is the major player in the McDonald drama. So firstly – if something as transparent and ugly as avarice were at the heart of this controversy – do you think it likely that the celebrated Movie Columnist Roger Ebert would be so naive as to pay any credence that would engender McDonald’s plight, lending it the oxygen of publicity by publishing it here, on this, his very own forum. I think this scenario to be highly unlikely, and one that would only serve to undermine his own validity in the fickle movie industry.
Secondly – one angle that Jacob has failed to consider. One for which, with a little research he could easily have done, is that, financially speaking – the McDonald Clan are reasonably well connected to a European banking dynasty. This then gives rise to possibility that if ‘money’, and a huge carving of the highly lucrative Jacques Tati Apple Pie - a pie for which many others seem happy to gorge and grow fat upon its plentiful helpings, isn’t the objective – then what is?
Is it really so implausible that Richard McDonald is simply striving to set the record straight on behalf of his mother, a woman abandoned in infancy and now slighted in her winter years.
Consider then, Sylvain Chomet’s hard-line stance throughout the publicity rounds and interviews regarding The Illusionist – a story packaged and branded as ‘an apology from a father to a daughter’ - continues to discredit the notion and very real possibility that The Illusionist was in fact the author’s heartfelt apology to his eldest daughter Helga whom he abandoned in infancy never to see again, and not, as Chomet would have us believe, Tati’s youngest daughter Sophie.
For my part, I find it acceptable for Chomet to purport the supposition that the script is an apology to the younger daughter (Sophie), whom, according to some (including Chomet), Tati had neglected during her formative years. However, this possibility, when held against the plight of his elder daughter (Helga), whom Tati abandoned in infancy somehow fails to hold any volume of water by sheer weight of comparison.
It must be noted, as Richard McDonald has taken care to explain that not only was Sophie not neglected during her formative years, she was actively encouraged by her father to work closely with him during many of his works. This information is freely available online or elsewhere and speaks far less of parental neglect, and more of a close and loving paternal bond between a father and a much doted daughter.
I accept too that everybody has the right to be wrong, including Chomet, but to be so wilfully obtuse in the face of such unremitting evidence to the contrary, and yet still persist in pedalling a fatally flawed supposition whilst simultaneously and persistently railroading an obvious truth and a far more tangible possibility regarding the true intent of the script, seems somehow perverse in the extreme.
So the question is this; why has Chomet (a clearly intelligent individual) persistently and angrily continued to eschew the very notion that Tati’s intended apology could be for anybody other than Sophie? How inconvenient would it have been for Tati’s remaining family to be involved in some small capacity, no matter how nominal, and not as they have been, relegated to an inconsequential footnote at the dog-end of the Jacques Tati myth. Would it not have been a poignant and symbolic gesture in respectful acknowledgment of Helga, if, for example, she had been allowed the simple honour of treading the red carpet on The Illusionist’s opening nite in Edinburgh? This, we remember, being a film not only based on an un-produced script by her father, but one whereby the very real possibility exists that the script was wrote for her in the form of a highly emotive apology for her abandonment as a small child.
It is Chomet’s failure to address Helga’s plight , churlishly dismissing it out of hand during many of his interviews that has opened him to criticism and ridicule. Both this, and the far more sinister allegation that Chomet, in conjunction with Deschamp’s and the Tati Estate are complicit inasmuch that they both have something to protect and to hide. Chomet’s myriad of conflicting accounts as to how he came by the script (all freely accessible on the internet if you know where to look) is revealing in itself and leads one to wonder why it is, in Helga’s case at least, they are seemingly and pathetically intent on running away from an old lady like mugger’s in the nite.
By way of conclusion, I for one applaud McDonald’s ‘David & Goliath’ stance throughout this entire episode, hailing him as an inspiration for anyone wishing to upset the establishment’s apple-cart of belligerent half-truths and bare-faced lies. It is refreshing therefore that someone is prepared to take a stance, and whilst McDonald may not have won the war - Sylvain Chomet , I would suggest, certainly knows he’s been in a fight.
So you see Jacob - if you dig a little deeper, you might find yourself closer to the truth. This is, after all, what all good screenwriters are supposed to do?
"To fully appreciate an artist's work you first must acknowledge the person and the life they had lived."
The above quote is one of the most idiotic, wrongheaded, and wholly full of crap things I have ever read. In order to appreciate an artisit's work, you only need to know whether their work speaks to you, and if so, in what way.
As for the claims here, I believe the author of this letter (Tati's grandon) believes they are the truth, but a few things don't entirely gel with them-
1) Most, if not, all of his claims as to how Tati meant this script to be taken is from former colleagues and friends of his, but the human mind is a very imprecise thing, and they could be remembering wrong.
2) Yes, what Tati did was a terrible thing, but if he didn't try to reach out to his eldest daughter in any other way, doesn't it make more sense that it'd be for the daughter he tried to be there for, but in his estimation, did fail?
3) How does Chomet's take on this script in any way become 'spiteful' or 'wrong'? This stopped being a Tati film from the time of his death, and if it were to get made, then whomever made would tale that foundation and craft their own version of it. That's not a 'slap in the face' to any of Tati's remaining relatives, nor is it disrespectful, as the grandson here claims. It became someone else's vision, so why should be Tati's (alleged) one? I fail to see how Chomet's version is wrong, when it's his take (yes, Chomet's obtaining of the script is wonky, to say the least, but since the film has been made, that is neither here nor there).
Please, consider what I have said, and how the logic of this letter doesn't quite work; which isn't to say there is no validity here, but it's a personal matter, that doesn't reflect upon the finished product at all.
Poor Sylvain Chomet, seemingly now the passive victim after “falling out with just about everyone”, having failed to seduce Edinburgh with his fake “gushing love letter to Edinburgh”, he now “describes his time in Scotland as one of the most horrible experiences of his life”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/7833426/Edinburgh-Film-Festival-The-Illusionist-review.html
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2070902?UserKey=#ixzz19dHurQo9
Who on earth is Sylvain Chomet or anybody else for that matter to deny, presumably out of greed and self promotion, a mistreated daughter the right to her father’s apology for his neglect? It would appear that as far as Chomet is concerned there is no tolerance for Helga in the life of Jacques Tati; her existence is just an inconvenience to him, whilst he rides piggy back on her father’s creative endeavours. This is a family, shrouded in mystique that Chomet has had zero connection with; he never knew or had ever spoken to Jacques Tati or any of his three children Helga, Pierre or Sophie and yet he feels compelled to re-write their family history to suit his own distorted vision. As if that wasn’t enough, he then adds insult to injury by making obviously inflammatory statements, “So Didier Brunner (the producer) contacted the Tati estate, run by his sole surviving daughter Sophie Tatischeff”, a statement which is quite clearly untrue.
The Illusionist, as far as Tati’s surviving family are concerned should have been Jacques Tati’s heartfelt apology of regret to his eldest daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne, whilst celebrating the passing of the vaudeville era he had shared with Herta, the mother of his eldest child. Instead we have Chomet’s bleak adaptation with his addition of suicidal clowns, an alcoholic ventriloquist and children beating up pensioners, the whole subtly laced with hints of pedophilia: hardly the innocent charms of a Tati movie in which Monsieur Hulot would appear.
For those sniping at Mr. McDonald for making public the historical events that inspired his grandfather to write The Illusionist, I personally very much doubt that their attitudes would remain the same if a complete stranger turned up on their doorstep with their grandfathers despondent “Love letter to his daughter” intent on using the said material for personal gain or kudos with absolutely no consideration of the true facts of the matter or a shred of empathy for the still living, intended recipient of such a letter…i.e. Mr. McDonald’s mother.
The considered manner in which Mr. McDonald has handled this affair in my opinion, speaks volumes in the face of such willful deceit and denial. The only thing consistent about Sylvain Chomet is that he is inconsistent with the truth.
Having read Bob Last "In Defence of The Illusionist" http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20100608%2FLETTERS%2F100609982
I find this shallow, disingenuous, snide, defensive, and ultimately pathetic response to Richard McDonald's plea for artistic integrity nearly intolerable. Mr. Last tosses away McDonald's sensitive and wholly defensible request that Tati's... own intentions be honored with this condescending and indignant phrase: "however the truth or otherwise of these assertions and insights is not rightly a matter for the film to concern itself with."
Who is Bob Last to say what a film should "rightly" concern itself with? And note the insinuating "or otherwise"; if Last has knowledge that contradicts McDonald's information about Tati's remorse or his abandonment of his wife and daughter, he should share it--and if he doesn't he should restrain himself from editorializing.
Having been moved by Richard McDonald's impassioned and elegant letter, I hoped for some reciprocal empathy from another reader. At the very least, I expected Mr. Last to demonstrate reasonableness and to engage with McDonald's information. His blustery pugnacity and high-handedness, the familiar "we have the money and power to do what we want" defense was a shocking retreat from any notion of reasonableness or responsibility.
Of course, Mr. Last's letter is not merely grossly self-absorbed and infuriating. There are ridiculous moments as well, as when he writes "Although Sylvain Chomet's artistry has been enriched by the cinematic legacy of Jacques Tati in no sense does this film set out biographical claims, indeed its setting in Edinburgh, Scotland and the Western Isles clearly transposes it even further away from a world that would be familiar to Jacques Tati."
But the animated figure in the film is Hulot! The script is by Tati. Just because Chomet avoids or perhaps is ignorant of the biographical substrate of the work, or professes an Arts gratia philosophy, the character of the work remains deeply and intriguingly auto-biographical--and that would be the case regardless of whether Chomet had "transposed" the setting to Mars. Does Last really expect adults to be convinced by this Wizard of Oz disguise?
After reading Last's repellant letter, my pleasure in anticipating seeing "The Illusionist" has been destroyed. I am in no way moved to forgive Chomet for appropriating Tati's work simply because his producer stupidly denies it has significant autobiographical elements. Frustratingly enough, I am deeply attracted to how Tati might have envisioned this work as an exploration of his guilt and remorse and of the kind of compartmentalization that people who commit unconscionable acts must perform upon their psyches. Tati's confession and apology might have made a thrilling work of art, of the sort Mr. Last tells us he has no understanding. That Mr. Last insists he has the right to reduce it to a mere entertainment for the consumption of an audience in no way should mitigate our desire for something better.
I cannot help but think that every parent betrays their children in one way or another. I cannot think of an artist's biography that does not, in some way, unearth the fact that the artist is/was (to use an old fashioned term) a sinner. Though this particular story is heartbreaking, and it stands in such contrast to the on-screen persona of Hulot, I am, nonetheless, not surprised. It is a tragedy, and I will look at Tati somewhat differently, but I will still love (maybe even more so) his films. That any of us can produce beauty in the midst of a wicked world, even wickedness for which are responsible, is a kind of miracle.
Well, I'll never see his films in the same light again. However, all of us, including Richard, need to remember that the world is full of scoundrels. In fact, I happended to sight one just this morning when I was combing my hair. The world is full of hurt.
I can see from the letter that Tati's daughter found love and is surrounded by love today. That is what a life of suffering should come to. And the the account of Tati's extreme remorse speak of redemption.
It is good that world now knows the truth. But Richard and his family are well advised to try to put it behind them.
It would seem that you have very much missed the point RebAl, a point that is clearly explained in Jan's & Christine's excellent posts which I recomend you read, and more importantly, 'understand'.
"Why I Can’t Write about THE ILLUSIONIST" by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
"Even after acknowledging that Chomet does have a poetic flair for composing in long shot that’s somewhat Tatiesque, I remain skeptical about the sentimental watering-down of his art that Chomet is clearly involved with",
http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=24181
Further luminous material that through correspondence reveals McDonald motives are not finical for “telling what is a very sad story” but is his belief that “Chomet’s adaptation of l’Illusionniste does a great discredit to the artist that was Tati.”
I saw this movie last Sunday afternoon at Evanston Century 12/CineArts 6 Theatre in Evanston, Illinois. There were about thirty people in the auditorium. At the end of the movie, even after the credits rolled and the auditorium lights came on, no one got up to leave. There was a 40ish year-old man/woman couple sitting behind me. She was sobbing and his arm was around her as he tried to console her. The rest of us were so touched by the movie we sat silently in quiet reflection. This is one movie I will not soon forget.
Jacques Tati was a genius. Though of course, we only have one side of the story, it would appear that he had significant character flaws. The same can be said of many other artists (e.g. Picasso), but the work stands on it's own, and I won't look at it any differently.
Sylvain Chomet is also a real artist, not some get rich quick exploiter of other people's talents, or their unhappy personal histories. His previous film, Belleville Rendezvous is in my opinion, the best animated feature film of the last 20 years or so. Though still my favourite animated feature of the last year, The Illusionist is not Chomet's best work, but it is his film, not Tati's, though a wonderful hommage to Tati's work, and a lovingly crafted love letter from one film maker to another.
While I feel sorry for the misery suffered by Tati's daughter, and her family, and the deep bitterness shown by the letter, I don't understand why this should have prevented Sylvain Chomet from adapting Tati's script to make this film, or obligated him to preface it with an explanation of the genesis of that original script. As I said before the work stands on its own.
Nicolas de Crécy openly disputes how much of Belleville Rendezvous was Chomets work, going as far as to accuse him of plagiarism.
http://triplettesdecrecy.blogspot.com/
As for his work on The Illusionist : "Sylvain Chomet himself animated only one small scene on this film, just to find out it was very difficult and he decided to leave it to the animators. Hope that helps the outside world" :o) Victor Ens Lead Animator, The Illusionist.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/illusionist-producer-threatens-animator-who-worked-on-film.html
Good Lord. I am sorry that Mr. McDonald has suffered so, but no one watching The Illusionist could possibly think they are watching a biopic or documentary. Mr. McDonald would perhaps be better served--and happier--by ignoring the film altogether.
Kudos to Roger Ebert, however, for publishing his disjointed and speculative letter whilst giving the film the four-star review it deserves.
Perhaps the interpretation is this: Tati wishes he *could* be, or to his mind, he is viewed by the girl as being like Mr. Hulot. Maybe the girl can only see the character on the screen, and cannot yet reconcile the man she has heard about from others. Although I do think he is saying he would have lost the girl anyway. Sooner or later he would disappoint her personally, as he did.
The young man is then not a lover per se, but the girl's struggle to decide to leave Tati behind forever in the wake of his actions. It would seem as a courtship as she struggles with it and entertains the idea of living a life without him.
Would she not be reluctant to leave at first? Trying desperately to believe a relationship, however tenuous, is still possible? But once she unmasks the lie (her hopes for who he really was) and she sees the truth clearly (the man who would refuse to aide her even in a moment of great crisis), how could it not be a temptation to just walk away and be happy with any world that did not include him? Thus being taken away by the charm of it.
Tati, as the Hulot figure, then walks away, maybe not a wiser man, but as a man who knew this was inevitable and trying to make the best of an impossible situation.
Even Pathe seem to be conceding to the reason as to why Jacques Tati wrote The Illusionist even if Chomet and Last shamefully can’t quite manage it.
"The film is based on an unproduced script that the French mime, director and actor Jacques Tati had written in 1956 as a personal letter to his estranged eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel in collaboration with long term writing partner Henri Marquet between Mon Oncle and Playtime. The main character is an animated version of Tati animated by Laurent Kircher. The plot revolves around a struggling illusionist who visits an isolated community and meets a young lady who is convinced that he is a real magician. The film is set in Scotland in the late 1950s. "...It's not a romance, it's more the relationship between a dad and a daughter...."
http://www.pathe.co.uk/filmdetail.aspx?section=ic&view=s&filmId=2
Tempted to ask, "who cares?", I'll settle for praising the film, which I liked very much, but found it, as one critic did, unexpectedly melancholy. Without knowing what is in the original screenplay, it's impossible to fault Chomet for omissions or distortions. Best thing would be to publish the unadapted screenplay and let us judge for ourselves.
Obviously Tati in writing it and Chomet opportunely enough to make a movie from the material.
This is a response to Mr. Ken Eisner's comments.
I noted a very distasteful element in your comment:
"In this almost wordless feature, there are also some failed attempts to duplicate Tati’s slapstick humour, as well as a bizarrely homophobic rendering of ’50s rock’n’-roll."
What is truly bizarre is that you saw this representation of 50s rock and roll, which was portrayed by a somewhat campy affair of dandies, and immediately thought "homosexuals."
At no point in this film is there a moment which can be cited as proof that the fictional 50s rock band featured are meant to be homosexuals. Your assumption of such is unfounded in logic and reason and can only be founded in your own personal prejudices which compel you to believe that any male who demonstrates characteristics or mannerisms that do not suit your definition of masculine is therefore a homosexual.
I failed to see anything Phobic whatsoever about the portrayal of these characters during the scenes in which they are seen, and a utter lack of actual phobic reactions from the characters around them. They are portrayed ambiguously, and anything you have decided to read between those ambiguous lines was placed there by your own hand.
I do not share whichever notion it is of yours that lead you to this conclusion, and thus when I saw the band portrayed in this film I did not myself instantaneously decide that these peripheral characters were meant to be homosexuals.
I instead came to the conclusion that they were meant to embody the sort of care free and childish lifestyle that constituted the 1950s public perception (of the youth) of what it must be like to actually be a rock star. It also illustrated, at least in my opinion, the great contrast between the artists of the big band and cabaret era, and their mannerisms, and the completely different mentality and scene that surrounded what was then still considered by many as "the devils music."
So Ken, in the future, be careful how you critique a film... The judgement you pass may reflect more of your own personal thought processes than it does the actual intent of the material being reviewed.
Just saw the film last night and found it strong, but a pale comparison to Triplets of Belleville... my three female colleagues left the theater emotionally affected but was frustrated at not being able to clarify the film's themes (I found it murky but still distinguishable).
The problem raised by this article's revelation isn't of the film's artistic or storytelling integrity (they still hold up the same way upon this reflection), it's the fact that the movie ISN'T JUST selling itself as art... IT'S CLEARLY BEING SOLD AS AN ANIMATED AUTOBIOGRAPHY; from the magician bearing Tati's real name, to the final explicit revelation that the image of the Illusionist's daughter is his real-life daughter Sophie, to the advertising and press kit. So while the plot elements might have been dramatised, the character associations were meant to be true to life.
If you were to ask the general audience member who went to see this movie and ask them what makes the movie special, they would say it was because it was a personal story based on Jacques Tati's life; It's arguably as important to the movie's selling point as Sylvain Chomet and his animation is. So on this front I find this article's account to be very problematic.
Chomet acknowledges that Tati wrote The Illusionist for his daughter with it being presented as “A Love Letter from a father to his daughter”and that the "script for THE ILLUSIONIST was originally written by French comedy genius and cinema legend Jacques Tati as a love letter from a father to his daughter, but never produced".
What is in dispute is to which daughter(perhaps even both) Tati had wrote it. Tati’s abandoned teenage daughter who had spent most of her early life humbly in orphanage or the daughter he had lived, alongside her brother with all the privileged trappings of success and fame?
At the end of Chomet’s movie the Illusionist pulls a photo out of his wallet of a young girl, not Alice the main female character in the movie, that is inscribed “Sophie Tatischeff” whom Chomet has dedicated his movie to, even though in his own words he had, “never meet or spoke to her”. So if the photo that the illusionist pulls from his wallet is Sophie it can be safely said that Alice does not represent the life of Sophie Tatischeff. So who is Alice? Whose like bears resemblance to the impoverished early life of Tati’s eldest daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne. Considering how every one of Tati’s movies almost entirely relies on the joyful analysis of human behaviour are we really to believe that he would be so ignorant and insensitive to the connection of his own life in his Illusionist story?
"She doesn‟t know yet that she loves The Illusionist like she would a father; he already knows that he loves her as he would a daughter".
Faced with the fraught biographical back story of Tati's guilt towards his first child Chomet's ill-conceived stance to impetuously deny Tati’s intentions slanderously verges on the ludicrous greatly undermining the artistic value of the authors' original work and subsequently Chomets adaptation of the text.
I just saw the movie and it was incredibly gorgeous and moving. It was so amazing to look at and with virtually no dialogue, it played out perfectly. I can understand the family's torment and can only say that in order to make this situation tolerable, they should look at the movie as just that: a movie. it obviously is not meant to be a memoir, but a fictionalized story of a man whose time has come and gone and a child who is just beginning her life. the note he leaves; "Magicians do not exist." just about killed me. he has virtually ceased to exist for her. and of course, she goes on with her life. it's so beautiful and moving. i have read the letter from the grandson and truly feel for his pain, and am sorry for it. but the film itself is not his grandfather and whatever of his grandfather is in it, is obviously a sense of guilt and remorse. (does anyone see how exactly the drawing/animated figure of the magican matches the real life person exactly?).
I happened to see "The Illusionist" in Los Angeles last week and came upon the link to Mr. McDonald's heartfelt letter within Roger's review. I liked the film very much and did take note of Mr. Tati's youngest daughter Sophie, receiving a dedication at the end of the film. I'm very sorry for what Herta and Helga Marie-Jeanne went through. It is disgusting to see director Chomet's rearranging of the facts, especially in interviews. I thank Mr. McDonald for bravely setting forth the truth about his family. Perhaps he will consider writing a book? I certainly hope so.
Knowing nothing of the family controversy, and also not really being a strong advocate of Tati's work, I must say that nevertheless I found this film moving to the extent that it touched my heart deeply. However, having said that, it is clear that despite any denials by the film-maker and/or family the May-December eroticism is not simply a father-daughter one. This adds to the poignancy in my opinion. "Trust the art not the artist" D.H. Lawrence had written. If for example it was simply a father-daughter relationship, there would have been no need for the protagonist to hide when he saw the young former cleaning woman with her lover-to-be. The Prospero-like release of the rabbit and the ensuing darkness add a tragic turn and tone to to the film, which is rendered in old-fashioned hand-drawn animation, influenced I am certain less by very early Disney than by Lotte Reininger, and it makes mockery of any claims computer animation may make to greatness. It is a lovely sad film, and it is unfortunate indeed that the bitterness of the underlying reality which occasioned the script detracts from an objective assesmment.
OK, so this is old news already, I've only just seen Illusionist this past weekend (Oscar night, in fact).
McDonald's letter is heartfelt and I understand completely his sense of betrayal. And it seems hollow to follow it by saying "but Illusionist is a great film!" but I still feel the need to say it.
For both Tati and Chomet, it appears that we need to apply Toscanini's old remark about the Nazi-sympathizer, Richard Strauss:
"For the artist, I take my hat off: for the man, I put it back on."
There may be a symmetry operating here, between Tati's betrayal of his daughter and Chomet's betrayal of the Tati estate. But to be perfectly honest, if we erased all the art created by men and women of questionable character our galleries, stages (not to mention cinemas) would be nearly empty.
My god. Get the fuck over it. He didn't want to marry your mother so he left her for another woman. Boo - hoo. Sounds like your mother did fine without him. Divorce is allowable. Why are you crying about this like a little bitch? You need to grow up a little bit and stop pretending to be a victim. If your mother has an issue, let her say so, but who the fuck are you to make such a big deal about this? This is why French People Suck.
Whether its Miyazaki or Tati, Chomet opportunely plagiarises whenever he can. The above letter does nothing but informatively defend Tati’s artistic vision and his families’ inherent rights that Chomet has miserably tried to exploit and misrepresent for his own advantage. It’s hardly winging but a noble defence of their position. For cry baby antics read any interview with Chomet when pressed on the subject of the origins and or how he came into possession of The Illusionist script.
However well it has been received critically his stupidity has cost his investors a fortune at the box office.
In the words of the Budweiser frog: "Leave it, Louie." It's chewing you up, Richard. You can't control someone else's take on a work of fiction.