Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism, by Malcolm Turvey

Abstract

Rather early on in The Imaginary Signifier (1982), Christian Metz takes a full paragraph to detail the type of love for cinema that a “theoretician of the cinema” should have (15). It is a complicated affair; the thinker negotiates a safe distance between herself and her cinephilia, which she must forget about, rediscover, and ultimately keep in check—as if the work of theory were not already quite the handful in and of itself. Now, I cannot say whether Turvey is a theoretician/born-again cinephile in the Metzian sense, but, while reading his latest book, Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism, I certainly felt his love for cinema, and in particular for that of French filmmaker extraordinaire Jacques Tati; a clear, sincere, and undoubtedly personal, love. This makes Turvey’s already famously limpid, precise, and accessible thinking and writing even more enjoyable than usual. I would in fact argue that his patent investment in the book’s subject is clearly a crucial cog in the functioning of the whole study, ensuring that every reader feels involved and present at all times, as she goes through the work’s vast and deep analytical and conceptual apparatus.