Cours du soir (1967) - film review

Jacques Tati gives a lesson in the art of comedy to a class of would-be actors.  Having explained the importance of observation (which he illustrates with reference to tennis players and jockeys), he shows his eager students the correct way to trip up a flight of stairs.

Whilst not the most significant of Jacques Tati’s contributions to cinema, Cours du soir offers some insight into the master’s very individual comic technique.  Tati’s mimes, of different species of smoker and angler, provide the most entertaining part of the film, although you do get the impression that here is a gifted magician who is perhaps revealing too much of his art.  It is appropriate that Tati should make this film towards the end of his career (ironically on the set of Playtime, the film which would ruin him).  It offers a suitably witty post-script to a distinguished (albeit cruelly frustrated) film-making career.

© James Travers 2002

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