I saw Jour de Fete in a little cinema in 1983, as part of a double bill with M. Hulot's Holiday. It was my introduction to classic Tati, and a very good one. While I enjoyed Hulot, it was Francois, the gangly postman who caused me, and my two friends, to miss several minutes of the film, because we couldn't breathe, or see, or hear anything because we were convulsed with laughter.
Jour de Fete had just been re released, and it was the black and white print with the hand-painted details that we saw, which I daresay added to the quaint, playful atmosphere of this film.
Some years later, I saw the restored Thompson-Color version...and I can understand why some reviewers thought it was computer-coloured, because it has that look about it - the tones don't enhance textures, they seem to float over the film, giving it the look of a hand-coloured lobby card; some of the Laurel and Hardy films, which have been computer-coloured, have the same look - not entirely objectionable, if you think Laurel and Hardy are funnier in colour. The duo tones of the restored Tati picture don't hurt it at all, and in fact, add a fuzzy, dreamlike quality to the entertainment.
However, I have a belief which rails against everything I've heard about this 'restored version'. Everyone seems to think that a black and white version of the film was shot simultaneously, in the event of the colour process not working. Having seen both releases, I didn't see enough difference between them to make me believe that Tati set up two cameras - one for colour, one for black and white - side by side for every shot. There are production stills in which we see two cameras side by side, but it's not uncommon for such a set up, perhaps where there may be different focal requirements for a scene, or so that shooting can continue without stopping to reload.
I'm convinced Tati was using a two-strip process, a limited colour system similar to methods that had been used since the 1920s. It would mean that two strips of black and white negative film, each receiving filtered images would be combined in the laboratory to create a colour, or limited colour end result.
So, if the system couldn't be processed, one of those strips of film would be processed in the normal way, and I'm pretty sure that's what would have happened here. So, I suppose the standby version sort of was shot simultaneously, but it would seem more straightforward to say that the film could only be processed in mono.
However, this is just a personal theory, based what I've seen, and bits I know, and if there is any proof that I'm absolutely wrong, I'll withdraw my comment.
Except the comment that, black and white, or colour, Jour de Fete is one of the great joys of the cinema. I haven't seen it for almost 10 years, and I need to see it again soon.
Jour de Fete had just been re released, and it was the black and white print with the hand-painted details that we saw, which I daresay added to the quaint, playful atmosphere of this film.
Some years later, I saw the restored Thompson-Color version...and I can understand why some reviewers thought it was computer-coloured, because it has that look about it - the tones don't enhance textures, they seem to float over the film, giving it the look of a hand-coloured lobby card; some of the Laurel and Hardy films, which have been computer-coloured, have the same look - not entirely objectionable, if you think Laurel and Hardy are funnier in colour. The duo tones of the restored Tati picture don't hurt it at all, and in fact, add a fuzzy, dreamlike quality to the entertainment.
However, I have a belief which rails against everything I've heard about this 'restored version'. Everyone seems to think that a black and white version of the film was shot simultaneously, in the event of the colour process not working. Having seen both releases, I didn't see enough difference between them to make me believe that Tati set up two cameras - one for colour, one for black and white - side by side for every shot. There are production stills in which we see two cameras side by side, but it's not uncommon for such a set up, perhaps where there may be different focal requirements for a scene, or so that shooting can continue without stopping to reload.
I'm convinced Tati was using a two-strip process, a limited colour system similar to methods that had been used since the 1920s. It would mean that two strips of black and white negative film, each receiving filtered images would be combined in the laboratory to create a colour, or limited colour end result.
So, if the system couldn't be processed, one of those strips of film would be processed in the normal way, and I'm pretty sure that's what would have happened here. So, I suppose the standby version sort of was shot simultaneously, but it would seem more straightforward to say that the film could only be processed in mono.
However, this is just a personal theory, based what I've seen, and bits I know, and if there is any proof that I'm absolutely wrong, I'll withdraw my comment.
Except the comment that, black and white, or colour, Jour de Fete is one of the great joys of the cinema. I haven't seen it for almost 10 years, and I need to see it again soon.