Sony Pictures Classics has obtained the North American rights to release the new film from writer/director Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) according to Risky Business. The Illusionist is based on an unproduced script from 1956 by Jacques Tati and Henri Marquet. It is about an aging stage magician who is finding it harder and harder to stay in the limelight as his audiences flock to newer entertainment in the form of rock and roll. He’s forced into smaller and less glamorous venues until he meets a young female fan who believes he can truly perform magic. Their relationship forms the crux of the story.
Sony Pictures Classics plans to have the film in theaters at the end of the year. I love Chomet’s previous film, so I’ve been extremely excited about anything he followed that with, and working with an unproduced Jacque Tati script is the icing on the cake. I’m really looking forward to seeing this one.
Before you get carried away first look at the reason why Jacques Tati originally wrote and never made the script of The Illusionist and the real life reason why the relationship between the movies two protagonists forms the crux of the story. Spitefully Chomet has chosen to conveniently drop the true meaning that lay behind the comic masters original writing that was intended as a solemn apology to his eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne who he had abandoned during the Second World War.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/jacques-tati-lost-film-family-illusionniste
As much as some of this background drama might be upsetting for certain members of Tati’s family, it doesn’t impact my excitement about the film one bit. It’s not like the film is a true story that’s whitewashing anything, the issues here are completely external to the film. The only issue is a lack of explicit acknowledgment that the story may have been a sort of apology by Tati, and I don’t really think it’s Chomet’s place to insert that or attempt to speak for the late Tati.
I did, however, hear that Chomet dedicated the film to the other daughter who gave him the script (Sophia), and if that’s indeed true, it seems obtusely insensitive given the script’s [alleged?] history. He should just refrain from commenting on the whole issue of Tati’s family and present the film as is and let those who care sort out the external history.
“the issues here are completely external to the film”
Not really, they are the very reason Tati wrote the script in the 1st place.
I understand that, but I have a very difficult time imagining that it will impact my viewing of the film. Is it completely faithful to the original script? Perhaps not. Does it credit Helga Marie-Jeanne as its inspiration? Seemingly not. Do I care? Honestly no, and I hope that’s not callous. It’s unfortunate that she had such issues with her real father, but I don’t think it’s Sylvain Chomet’s place to make a film that delivers Tati’s apology. For that matter, I don’t see how a film or the script itself could ever stand to make up for abandoning a child anyhow.
*shrug* In my mind the very act of someone other than Jacques Tati making this film absolves any responsibility of the film to comment on Tati’s relationship to his eldest daughter. It’s no longer his film. Perhaps that’s tough to swallow, but it’s the truth. She’ll always have that script though, no filmed adaptation will stop those written words from having whatever meaning she finds in them.
“I don’t see how a film or the script itself could ever stand to make up for abandoning a child anyhow”.
Probably the very reason why Tati chose never to make it as it is a rather futile gesture to the suffering of the child concerned. That said what the hell is Chomet doing picking up a dead man’s apology to his daughter and twisting it into some sort of homage which he then dedicates to Tati’s other daughter? Is that not intentionally rubbing salt in the wounds? I’ve now seen it at a private screening and it’s quite mixed up touching on emotional depth but never explaining why we should care about the relationship of on screen Tati and the girl. A very confused little movie complicated by the real life story of it origins.
I unequivocally agree that Chomet should not have dedicated the film to the other daughter. It certainly demonstrates a disregard or insensitivity to the script’s history. I’m reluctant, however, to say that adapting the script in the first place is in inherent bad taste, but doing so would surely require some care and tact with the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, seemingly more than Chomet has.