Jacques Tati’s last film is not strictly a movie at all, but a televised circus show, made for Swedish TV in 1974. It’s a beautiful and inventive, colourful record of a bi-gone era.
Tati rounded up many of his old circus, mime school and music hall friends for the show / film, which he made to beat off the insolvency problems caused when his previous features, Traffic & Playtime, failed to set public imagination alight and bankrupted him. Other performers are very colourful glam rock era 1970’s circus acrobats, jugglers, and musicians. The affectionate culture clash and generation gap study is as fascinating as the stage entertainments themselves.
There are some great moments here, particularly as Tati sets the camera loose behind the scenes, filming the audience as much as he films the show itself.
Tati acts as ring-master and performs some excellent mime routines, notably the football goal-keeper getting bored between bouts of action, and the boxer, preparing for the fight between rounds. An interval sequence where he shows a visiting traffic cop the way traffic cops behave round the World is very funny, but overall Tati looks too old and frail amidst the younger generation performers. His attempt to mime to a jazz song later in the parade looks very weak. He wisely avoids trying to re-create his most memorable film characters, Francois and Hulot.
Where his genius shines through is the way the cameral moves here, with some audience members clearly being planted for gags to be performed as the show goes on. A young lady in the audience can’t see over the motorbike crash helmet worn by a man in front of her. She politely asks him to remove it. He obliges and his massive bushy Afro swells out to obstruct her view even further.
The early acts are great. A traditional magician finds his tricks being stolen off him by a non-chalant stagehand, and later by a member of the audience who better him at his own game. A group of hockey players prove to be great acrobats. Music is played on glasses and a deflating balloon is made to sing.
There are songs and dance scenes, Tati get the audience clicking their fingers in unison. A young girl looks sad because she can’t manage it.
Some scenes go on too long, such as the orchestra fight sequence and the acrobats repeat the same routine over and over in different costumes. Other images stand out well, such as the constant painting, and set creation, art for art’s sake, and the genuine affection that exists among the performers for all that they do. Tati never tries to over-shadow the other performers. His modesty is startling. It’s his filming techniques and little camera asides, as well as the behind the scenes footage that remind us of his true genius.
The closing scenes seem rather poignant. Two children wander round the abandoned circus, playing with props and paints left lying about. They are in awe of all around them. Their parents watch them for several minutes. As the family leave, the lights fade and the camera pulls out of the theatre giving a sense of a magical World closing down forever.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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