“Pierre Etaix’s Rupture”
“Pierre Etaix is one of the few comic author-director-actor film-makers practicing today.” – From Variety, April 1969
I recently discovered the work of actor-filmmaker Pierre Etaix, a clown and comedian who was dubbed the “French Buster Keaton”. He had been a gag writer for Jacques Tati, and worked with the likes of Robert Bresson and Jerry Lewis. Latterly he was seen in Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s MicMacs.
During the 1960s he started to make his own films, shorts at first then moving to features (which included YoYo and Le Grand Amour). Etaix’s films however, had, until recently, been locked away and unseen for several decades because of a distribution deal which turned sour. A few years ago a petition was started to get them released, and after receiving signatures from luminaries such as Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen, Etaix’s films entered a period of restoration, and were finally made available. Inevitably, some of them made their way onto the internet.
So it is then, I am delighted to share with you; “Rupture”, a short film Etaix co-directed with Jean-Claude Carriere. It’s a beautifully crafted piece, about a man who receives a Dear John letter from his loved one, but when he tries to write his reply, he is obstructed by a series of mishaps, including a dodgy pen and an inkwell with a life of it’s own.
