| Jour de fête | |
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| Directed by | Jacques Tati |
| Produced by | André Paulvé Fred Orain |
| Written by | Henri Marquet René Wheeler Jacques Tati |
| Starring | Guy Decomble Jacques Tati Paul Frankeur Santa Relli |
| Release date(s) | May 4, 1949 (France) |
| Running time | 70 min 79 min (Germany) |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| IMDb profile | |
Jour de fête (aka Festival Day, The Big Day) (1949) is a comedy from the French director Jacques Tati. Jour de fête tells the story of an inept and easily-distracted French postal carrier who frequently interrupts his duties to converse with the local inhabitants, as well as inspect the traveling fair that has come to town. Influenced by too much wine and a newsreel on the rapidity of the American postal service, he goes to hilarious lengths to speed his mail deliveries aboard his bicycle. In Jour de fête, several characteristics of Tati's work appear for the first time in a full-length film. The film is largely a visual comedy, with dialogue often reduced to the level of background noise. In spite of this, sound remains a key element of the film, as Tati makes imaginative use of voices and other background sounds to provide humorous effects. The movie was originally filmed in Thomson-color, a process that became extinct before prints of the film could be shown. As the film could not be processed, Tati was forced to release the black and white version (which features occasional short bursts of colour, hand-coloured by Tati directly onto the frames) that was filmed as a precaution, in case the color process was not perfect. In 1995, the color copy was restored and published by Tati's daughter Sophie Tatischeff and cinematographer François Ede. The film was shot largely in the town of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre and the surrounding region, and many of the locals played the roles of extras.
Cast
- Jacques Tati as François (the postman)
- Guy Decomble as Roger
- Paul Frankeur as Marcel
- Santa Relli as Roger's wife
- Maine Vallée as Jeannette
- Delcassan as The tattler
- Roger Rafal as The hair-dresser
- Robert Balpo
External links
- Jour de fête at the Internet Movie Database
- DVDBeaver comparison between black&white and colour DVD versions of the film
| Jacques Tati |
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Gai dimanche (1935) • L'École des facteurs (1947) • Jour de fête (1949) • Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953) • Mon Oncle (1958) • Play Time (1967) • Trafic (1971) • Parade (1974) |
