The term thalassocracy (from Greek language θάλασσα (thalassa), meaning sea, and κρατεῖν (kratein), meaning "to rule", giving θαλασσοκρατία (thalassokratia), "rule of the sea") refers to a state with primarily maritime realms—an empire at sea, such as Athens or the Phoenician network of merchant cities. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories (for example: Tyre, Sidon, or Carthage). It is necessary to distinguish this traditional sense of thalassocracy from an "empire", where the state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors.

The term can also simply refer to naval supremacy, in either military or commercial senses of the word "supremacy". Indeed, the word thalassocracy itself was first used by the Greeks to describe the government of the Minoan civilization, whose power depended on its navy. Herodotus also spoke of the need to counter the Phoenician thalassocracy by developing a Greek "empire of the sea".

Examples[link]

The Phoenician trade routes in the Mediterranean.

There are many ancient examples besides those mentioned above, such as the Delian League. Aside from this, which was an empire based primarily on naval power and control of waterways and not on any land possessions, the Middle Ages saw its fair share of thalassocracies, often land-based empires which controlled the sea. Among the most famous is the Republic of Venice, conventionally divided in the fifteenth century into the Dogado of Venice and the Lagoon, the Stato di Terraferma of Venetian holdings in northern Italy, and the Stato da Màr of the Venetian outlands bound by the sea:

"This was a scattered empire, reminiscent, though on a very different scale, of the Portuguese and later the Dutch empires in the Indian Ocean, a trading-post empire forming a long capitalist antenna; an empire 'on the Phoenician model', to use a more ancient parallel"^[1]

In 7th to 15th century Maritime Southeast Asia, the Srivijaya and later Majapahit empire that controlled the sea lane in Southeast Asia, and exploited spice trade of spice islands as well as maritime trade route between India and China, can be considered thalassocracies.

Nearly contemporaneous, the Republic of Ragusa can be seen as a "thalassocracy", a protégé of Venice.

The Dark Ages (c.500–c.1000) saw many of the coastal cities of the Mezzogiorno develop into minor thalassocracies whose chief powers lay in their ports and their ability to sail navies to defend friendly coasts and ravage enemy ones. These include the variously Greek, Lombard, Angevin, and Saracen duchies of Gaeta, Sicily, Naples, Pisa, Salerno, Amalfi, Bari, and Sorrento. Later, northern Italy developed its own trade empires based on Pisa and especially the powerful Republic of Genoa, that rivaled with Venice (these three, along with Amalfi, were to be called the Repubbliche marinare, i.e. Sea Republics).

It was with the modern age, the Age of Exploration, that some of the most remarkable thalassocracies emerged. Anchored in their European territories, several nations establish colonial empires held together by naval supremacy. First among them was the Portuguese Empire, followed soon by the Spanish Empire, which was challenged by the Dutch Empire, itself replaced on the high seas by the British Empire, whose landed possessions were immense and held together by the greatest navy of its time. With naval arms races (especially between Germany and Britain) and the end of colonialism and the granting of independence to these colonies, European thalassocracies, which had controlled the world's oceans for centuries, ceased to be.

List of other examples[link]

• Ainu Confederation^{[citation needed]}
• Aleut Confederation^{[citation needed]}
• Aragonese Empire
• Balinese Kingdom
• British Empire
• Brunei Sultanate
• Bugis Confederation
• Butuan Rajahnate
• Carib Confederation^{[citation needed]}
• Carthage
• Chola Empire
• Denmark-Norway (as separate Viking kingdoms and later as a unified empire)
• Dorian Confederation
• Kingdom of Dublin
• Frisia
• Tribes of Galway
• Haida Nation
• Hanseatic League
• Japanese Empire
• Kingdom of Luzon (Now part of the Philippines)
• Kalmar Union
• Kingdom of the Isles (Now part of Scotland)
• Latin Empire
• Lusignan Empire (West central France, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of Cyprus)
• Majapahit Empire
• Kingdom of Majorca
• Sultanate of Malacca and its successor, Sultanate of Johor
• Mataram Kingdom and its successor, Kediri
• Mataram Sultanate
• Micronesian Empire
• Minoan Civilization
• Kingdom of Navarre (controlled Normandy in the mid-14th century and Greek lands in the late 14th century and had outposts in Newfoundland in the late 15th and early 16th centuries)
• Norman Empire (although based in Western Europe, it spread during the Crusades to the central and eastern Mediterranean) and its successor, the Angevin Empire
• Oman-Zanzibar
• Pergamon
• Phocaea
• Ryūkyū Kingdom
• Sailendra
• Sea Peoples Confederation
• Srivijaya
• Sulu Sultanate
• Sultanate of Maguindanao
• Swedish Empire
• Taíno Confederation
• Tlingit Confederation
• Tu'i Tonga Empire

See also[link]

• Colonialism
• Imperialism
• List of countries spanning more than one continent
• List of historical countries and empires spanning more than one continent

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• The Fragility of Thalassocracy, Pericles to Heinlein.

Jacques Tati (born Jacques Tatischeff; born 9 October 1907 in Le Pecq, Yvelines, France – died 5 November 1982) was a French filmmaker. Throughout his long career he worked as a comic actor, writer, and director. In a poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly of the Greatest Movie Directors Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time. With only six feature-length films to his credit as director, he directed fewer films than any other director on this list of 50.^[1]

Family origins[link]

Robert Campin's painting from the collection of Tati's great grandfather, Count Dmitry Tatishchev

Jacques Tati was born French with Russian, Dutch and Italian ancestry. His father, George Emmanuel Tatischeff, born in 1875 in Paris (d. 1957), was the son of Count Dmitriy Tatischeff (Дмитрий Татищев), General of the Imperial Russian Army and military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. The Tatischeffs (also spelled Tatishchev) were a Russian noble family of patrilineal Rurikid descent. Whilst stationed in Paris Count Dmitri Tatischeff married a French woman, Rose Anahalie Alinquant.

Under suspicious circumstances Count Dmitri Tatischeff died from injuries sustained in a horse riding accident shortly after the birth of George Emmanuel. As a child George Emmanuel experienced turbulent times, such as being forcibly removed from France and taken to Russia to live. In 1883 his mother brought him back to France where they settled on the estate of Le Pecq, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the outskirts of Paris.^[2] In 1903, Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff married the Dutch-Italian Marcelle Claire van Hoof (d. 1968). Together they had two children, Natalie (b. 1905) and Jacques. Claire's Dutch father, a friend of van Gogh whose clients included Toulouse Lautrec,^[3] was the owner of a prestigious picture framing company near the Place Vendôme in Paris, and he brought Georges-Emmanuel into the family business. Subsequently, Georges-Emmanuel became the director of the company Cadres Van Hoof, and the Tatischeff family enjoyed a relatively high standard of living.^[4]

Childhood and youth[link]

Jacques Tatischeff appears to have been an indifferent student, yet excelled in the sports of tennis and horseback riding. He left school in 1923 at the age of 16 to take up an apprenticeship in the family business, where he was trained as a picture framer by his grandfather. Between 1927 and 1928 he completed his military national service at Saint-Germain-en-Laye with the Cavalry's 16th Regiment of Dragoons.^[5] Upon graduating the military he took on an internship in London where he was first introduced to the sport of Rugby. Returning to Paris he joined the semi-professional rugby team, Racing Club de France, whose captain was Alfred Sauvy and whose supporters included Tristan Bernard. It was at the Racing Club de France that Jacques Tatischeff first discovered his comic talents, entertaining his teammates during intervals with hilarious impersonations of their sporting endeavours. He also first met Jacques Broido, and they would became lifelong friends.^[6]

Between 1931 and 1932 the global economic crisis reached France^[7] at the same time he left both the Racing Club de France and, to his family’s disapproval, his apprenticeship at Cadres Van Hoof. Giving up a relatively comfortable middle class lifestyle for one of a struggling performing artist during this difficult economic time, he developed a collection of highly physical mimes that would become his Impressions Sportives (Sporting Impressions). Each year from 1931 to 1934 he would participate in an amateur show organised by Alfred Sauvy.^[8]

Entertainment debut[link]

Although he had likely played music hall engagements before, his act was first mentioned in 1935, when he performed at the gala for the newspaper Le Journal to celebrate the French victory in the competition to set the transatlantic crossing record from Normandy. Among the honourable spectators was the influential writer Colette. Tati’s act also caught the attention of Max Trebor, who offered him an engagement at the Theatre-Michel, where he quickly became the star act. After his success there, Tati tried to make it in London, playing a short season at the Finsbury Park Empire in March 1936. Upon his return to Paris in the same year, he was immediately hired as top billing at the A.B.C alongside the singer Marie Dubas, where he would work uninterrupted until the outbreak of the Second World War.^[9] It was for Tati’s performances of his now finally-tuned Impressions Sportives at the A.B.C that the previously impressed Colette wrote,

“From now on no celebration, no artistic or acrobatic spectacle can do without this amazing performer, who has invented something quite his own…His act is partly ballet and partly sport, partly satire and partly charade. He has devised a way of being both the player, the ball and the tennis racquet, of being simultaneously the football and the goalkeeper, the boxer and the opponent, the bicycle and the cyclist. Without any props, he conjures up his accessories and his partners. He has suggestive powers of all great artists. How gratifying it was to see the audience’s warm reaction! Tati’s success says a lot about the sophistication of the allegedly “uncouth” public, about its taste for novelty and its appreciation of style. Jacques Tati, the horse and rider conjured, will show all of Paris the living image of that legendary creature, the centaur."

During the 1930s he also performed at the Scala in Berlin between 1937 and 1938, and began to experiment with film acting in the following shorts:

• 1932 : Oscar, champion de tennis directed by Jack Forrester written by and starring Jacques Tati (film lost);
• 1934 : On demande une brute directed by Charles Barrois, with Jacques Tati as (Roger), Enrico Sprocani as le clown Rhum (Enrico);
• 1935 : Gai dimanche directed by Jacques Berr, wrote and starring Jacques Tati and Enrico Sprocani; and
• 1936 : Soigne ton gauche directed by René Clément, starring Jacques Tati (Roger), Jacques Broido (sparring partner), Max Martel (the postman).

World War II[link]

In September 1939 Tati was conscripted back into his 16th Regiment of Dragoons which was then incorporated into the 3rd Division Legere de Cavalerie (DLC). He saw action in the Battle of the Meuse, in May 1940, when the German Army marched through the Ardennes into northern France. The 3rd DLC retreated from Meuse to Mussidan in the Dordogne where the division was demobilised after the Armistice was declared on the 22nd of June, 1940.

Returning to Paris, Tati resumed his civilian profession as a cabaret performer, finding employment at Léon Volterra’s Lido de Paris, where he performed his Sporting Impressions from 1940-42.

At the Lido de Paris he met and fell in love with the young Austrian/Czech dancer Herta Schiel, who had fled Vienna with her sister Molly at the time of the Anschluss. In the summer of 1942 Herta gave birth to their daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel. Due to pressure from his sister Nathalie, Tati refused to recognise the child and was forced by Volterra to depart from the Lido at the end of the 1942 season.^[10] In 1943, after a short engagement at the A.B.C, where Edith Piaf was headlining, Tati left Paris under a cloud, with his friend Henri Marquet, and they settled in the Village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre. While residing there they completed the script for L'École des facteurs (The School for Postmen) that would later provide material for his first feature, Jour de fête.

Herta Schiel would remain in Paris throughout the war, where she would make acquaintance with the physician Jacques Weil when he was called upon to treat her sister Molly for the then-incurable tuberculosis (TB). Through Weil, second in command of the Juggler network of the SOE F Section networks, both sisters were recruited into the French Resistance.^[11]

In 1944, Tati returned to Paris and, after a brief courtship, married Micheline Winter.

Considered as a possible substitute for Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis, he played the ghost in Sylvie and the Ghost (Sylvie et le fantôme) (Claude Autant-Lara appeared as Sylvie) and also appeared as The Devil in the same film. Here he met Fred Orain, studio director of St. Maurice and the Victorine in Nice.

Jacques Tati, Director[link]

In early 1946 Jacques Tati and Fred Orain founded the production company Cady-Films, which would produce Tati’s first three films.

With the exception of his first and last films, Tati played the gauche and socially inept lead character, Monsieur Hulot. With his trademark raincoat, umbrella and pipe, Hulot is among the most memorable comic characters in cinema. Several themes recur in Tati's work, most notably in Mon Oncle, Play Time and Trafic. They include Western society's obsession with material goods, particularly American-style consumerism, the pressure-cooker environment of modern society, the superficiality of relationships among France's various social classes, and the cold and often impractical nature of space-age technology and design.

On October 23, 1946 Tati fathered his second child, Sophie Catherine Tatischeff.

[edit] L'École des facteurs (The School for Postmen)

Rene Clement was first approached to direct L'École des facteurs, but as he was preoccupied directing La Bataille du rail, directing duties fell to Tati, who would also star in this short comedy of rural life. Encouragingly, L'École des facteurs was enthusiastically well received upon release, winning the “Max Linder Prize” for film comedy in 1947.

[edit] Jour de fête (The Big Day)

Tati's first major feature, Jour de fête (The Big Day), tells the story of an inept rural village postman who interrupts his duties to inspect the traveling fair that has come to town. Influenced by too much wine and a documentary on the rapidity of the American postal service, he goes to hilarious lengths to speed his mail deliveries aboard his bicycle. Tati filmed it in 1947 in the village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre where he had found refuge during the war. Due to the reluctance of French distributors, Jour de fête was first successfully released in London in March 1949 before obtaining a French release on the 4th of July 1949, where it became a great public success, receiving the 1950 Le Grand prix du cinéma français. The film was intended to be the first French feature film shot in colour; Tati simultaneously shot the film in black and white as an insurance policy. The newly developed Thomson colour system proved impractical, as it could not deliver colour prints. Jour de fête was therefore released only in black and white. Unlike his later films, it has many scenes with dialogue, and offers a droll, affectionate view of life in rural France. The colour version was restored by his younger daughter, film editor and director Sophie Tatischeff, and released in 1995. The film won a prize at the Venice Film Festival.

1949 was also the year of the birth of Tati's son, Pierre-François Tatischeff, alias Pierre Tati. Both Pierre and Sophie would go on to work in the French film industry in various capacities, beginning in the early 1970s. Notably, they both worked on Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, Un flic, (1972).

[edit] Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday)

Tati's second film, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday), was released in 1953. Les Vacances introduced the character of Mr. Hulot and follows his adventures in France during the mandatory August vacation at a beach resort, lampooning several hidebound elements of French political and social classes. It was shot almost entirely in the tiny west-coast seaside village of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in the Loire Atlantique region. The hotel in which Mr. Hulot stays (l'Hotel de la Plage) is still there,^[12] and a statue memorialising the director has been erected on the beach.^[13] Tati had fallen in love with the coast while staying in nearby Port Charlotte with his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lemoine, before the war, and resolved to return one day to make a film there.^[14] The film was widely praised by critics, and earned Tati an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, which was shared with Henri Marquet. Production of the movie would also see the reintroduction of Jacques Lagrange into Tati's life, beginning a lifelong working partnership with the painter, who would become his set designer. Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot remains one of the best-loved French films of that period. The film's comic influence has extended well beyond France and can be found as recently as 2007 in the Rowan Atkinson comic vehicle Mr Bean's Holiday.^[15]

André Bazin, founder of the influential journal Cahiers du cinema, wrote in his 1957 essay, “Fifteen Years of French Cinema”, that...

“Tati could easily have made lots of money with sequels featuring his comic character of the little rural mailman. He chose instead to wait for four years, and, after much reflection, he revised his formula completely. The result this time was an extraordinary masterpiece about which one can say, I think, that it is the most radical innovation in comic cinema since the Marx Brothers: I am referring, of course, to Les Vacances de M. Hulot".^[16]

Various problems would delay the release of Tati’s follow-up to his international hit. In 1955 he suffered a serious car accident that physically impaired his left hand. Then a dispute with Fred Orain ensued and Tati broke away from Cady Films to create his own production company, Spectra Films, in 1956.

[edit] Mon Oncle (My Uncle)

Tati's next film, 1958's Mon Oncle (My Uncle), was his first film to be released in colour. The plot centers on Mr. Hulot's comedic, quixotic and childlike struggle with postwar France's obsession with modernity and American-style consumerism, entwined with the relationship he has with his nine year old nephew Gérard. Mon Oncle quickly became an international success, and won that year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at Cannes, as well as the New York Film Critics Award. In Place de la Pelouse stands a bronze statue of Tati as Monsieur Hulot talking to a boy, in a pose echoing the movie’s poster designed by Pierre Etaix.^[17]

On receiving his Oscar, Tati was offered any treat that the Academy could bestow on him. To their surprise, Tati simply requested the opportunity to visit Stan Laurel, Mack Sennett and Buster Keaton at their nursing homes. Keaton reportedly said that Tati’s work with sound had carried on the true tradition of silent cinema.^[18]

As guest Artistic Director at AFI FEST 2010, David Lynch selected Tati’s Mon Oncle alongside Hour of the Wolf (Dir Ingmar Bergman), Lolita (Dir Stanley Kubrick), Rear Window (Dir Alfred Hitchcock) and Sunset Boulevard (Dir Billy Wilder) to be screened in his sidebar program, explaining that...

“I picked these particular films because they are the ones that have inspired me most. I think each is a masterpiece.”^[19]

Of Tati, Lynch would add in a conversation with Jonathan Rosenbaum, “You know, I feel like in a way he’s a kindred soul.” “That guy is so creative, it’s unbelievable. I think he’s one of the all-time greats.”^[20]

[edit] Play Time

Considered by many his masterpiece, Play Time (1967), shot in 70mm, was to be the most ambitious yet risky and expensive work of Tati's career; it would end up bankrupting him. It took nine years to make, and he had to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture. For Play Time, Tati fabricated a set (dubbed "Tativille") on the outskirts of Paris that emulated an entire modern Paris.

In the film, Hulot and a group of American tourists lose themselves in the futuristic glass and steel of the Parisian suburbs, where only human nature and a few views of the city of Paris, itself, still emerge to breathe life into the city. Play Time had even less of a plot than his earlier films, and Tati endeavored to make his characters, including Hulot, almost incidental to his portrayal of a modernist and robotic Paris. Play Time was originally 155 minutes in length, but Tati soon released an edited version of 126 minutes, and this is the version that became a general theatre release in 1967. Later versions appeared in 35mm format. In 1979, a copy of the film was revised again to 108 minutes, and this re-edited version was released on VHS video in 1984. Though Play Time was a critical success (François Truffaut praised it as "a film that comes from another planet, where they make films differently"), it was a massive and expensive commercial failure, eventually resulting in Tati's bankruptcy. Tati was forced to sell the family house of Saint-Germain shortly after the death of his mother, Claire Van Hoof, and move back into Paris. Spectra Films was then placed into administration, concluding in the liquidation of the company in 1974, with an auction of all movie rights held by the company for little more than 120,000 francs.

Steven Spielberg has said he was paying a "very slight homage" to Play Time in his 2004 film The Terminal,^[21] adding, “I thought of two directors when I made Terminal. I thought this was a tribute to Frank Capra and his honest sentiment, and it was a tribute to Jacques Tati and the way he allowed his scenes to go on and on and on. The character he played in Mr. Hulot’s Holiday and Mon Oncle was all about resourcefulness and using what’s around him to make us laugh”.^[22]

While on the set of Play Time, Tati made a short film about his comedic and cinematic technique, Cours du soir (Evening Classes, 1967), in which Tati gives a lesson in the art of comedy to a class of would-be actors.

In 1969, with reduced ambition, Jacques Tati created a new production company, CEPEC, to oversee his opportunities in movie and TV production.

[edit] Trafic (Traffic)

The Dutch-funded Trafic (Traffic), although originally designed to be a TV movie, received a theater release in 1971 and placed Monsieur Hulot back at the centre of the action. It was the last Hulot film, and followed the vein of earlier works that lampooned modern society. In the film, Hulot is a bumbling automobile inventor traveling to an exhibition in a gadget-filled recreational vehicle. Despite its modest budget, Trafic was still very much a Tati film, carefully staged and choreographed in its scenes and effects.

[edit] Parade and final years

Tati's last completed film, Parade, a film produced for Swedish television in 1973, is more or less a filmed circus performance featuring Tati's mime acts and other performers.

In 1977, he received an honorary César from the French Film Institute for his lifetime contribution to cinema.

In 1978, Tati began filming a short documentary on a French (Corsican) soccer team playing the UEFA Cup final, 'Forza Bastia', which he did not complete. His younger daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, later edited the remaining footage, which was released in 2002 after her own death from lung cancer in 2001.

Weakened by serious health problems, Tati died on 4 November 1982, of a pulmonary embolism, leaving a final scenario called Confusion that he had completed with Jacques Lagrange.

In Paris Match, Philippe Labro reported the death of Jacques Tati under the heading, “Adieu Monsieur Hulot. On le pleure mort, il aurait fallu l'aider vivant !” (“Goodbye Monsieur Hulot. In death we cry, in life we did not help!”)^[23]

Lost scripts[link]

[edit] Confusion

Before his death Tati had plans for at least one more film. Confusion, a planned collaboration with pop duo Sparks, was a story about a futuristic city (Paris) where activity is centred around television, communication, advertising, and modern society's infatuation with visual imagery.

In the original script an aging Mr. Hulot was slated to be accidentally killed on-air. Ron Mael and Russell Mael would have played two American TV studio employees brought to a rural French TV company to help them out with some American technical expertise and input into how TV is really done. While the script still exists, Confusion was never filmed. What would have been its title track, “Confusion,” appears on Sparks' 1976 Big Beat album with the internal sleeve of its 2006 re-mastered CD featuring a letter announcing the pending collaboration, as well as a photo of the Mael brothers in conversation with Tati.^[24]

[edit] The Illusionist

The Illusionist (2010) is an animated film based on an unproduced, semi-autobiographical script that Tati wrote in 1956.^[25] Directed by Sylvain Chomet, known for The Triplets of Belleville, the main character is an animated caricature of Tati himself.

Controversy has dogged The Illusionist.^[11][26][27] The Guardian reports,

In 2000, the screenplay was handed over to Chomet by Tati's daughter, Sophie, two years before her death. Now, however, the family of Tati's illegitimate and estranged eldest child, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel, who lives in the north-east of England, are calling for the French director to give her credit as the true inspiration for the film. The script of L'illusionniste, they say, was Tati's response to the shame of having abandoned his first child [Schiel] and it remains the only public recognition of her existence. They accuse Chomet of attempting to airbrush out their painful family legacy again.^[28]

Tati's former colleagues at the Lido de Paris were appalled at his caddish behaviour and shunned him. As a result he moved first to Berlin then to the village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, which later inspired his hugely successful film, Jour de Fête.^[29][30]

Chomet has a different opinion about the film's origins, although acknowledging that he "never got to meet Sophie, or even speak to her about the script."^[31][32] Chomet said, "I think Tati wrote the script for Sophie Tatischeff. I think he felt guilty that he spent too long away from his daughter when he was working."^[33]

Pathe Pictures appears to contradict Chomet's view with its own summary:

"The film is based on an unproduced script that the French mime, director and actor Jacques Tati had written in 1956 as a personal letter to his estranged eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel in collaboration with long term writing partner Henri Marquet between Mon Oncle and Play Time. The main character is an animated version of Tati animated by Laurent Kircher. The plot revolves around a struggling illusionist who visits an isolated community and meets a young lady who is convinced that he is a real magician. The film is set in Scotland in the late 1950s. "...It's not a romance, it's more the relationship between a dad and a daughter...."^[34]

Filmography[link]

Director[link]

• L'École des facteurs (1947) (short film)
• Jour de fête (1949)
• Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953)
• Mon Oncle (1958)
• Play Time (1967)
• Trafic (1971)
• Parade (1974)
• Forza Bastia (1978) (short film)

Actor[link]

• Oscar, champion de tennis (1932)
• On demande une brute (short film) (1934)
• Gai dimanche (short film) (1935)
• Soigne ton gauche (short film) (1936)
• Retour à la terre (short film) (1938)
• Sylvie et le fantôme (1946)
• Le Diable au corps (1947)
• L'École des facteurs (short film) (1947)
• Jour de fête (1949)
• Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953)
• Mon Oncle (1958)
• Cours du soir (short film) (1967)
• Play Time (1967)
• Trafic (1971)
• Obraz uz obraz (TV series) (1972)
• Parade (1974)

Writer[link]

• The Illusionist (2010)

Awards[link]

• Cannes festival 1958: Grand prix for Mon Oncle^[35]
• Academy Awards 1958: Best Foreign Language Film for Mon Oncle^[36]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jacques Tati at the Internet Movie Database
• Tati Bibliography via UC Berkeley
• Jacques Tati profile at FilmsdeFrance.com
• "Confusion" Jacques Tati's unfinished film
• Museum of Modern Art retrospective in the Village Voice
• Jacques Tati's ode to his illegitimate daughter, The Telegraph, 16 June 2010

Black Francis
Francis and the Pixies headlining at the Brixton Academy, October 2009
Background information
Birth name	Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV
Also known as	Frank Black
Born	(1965-04-06) April 6, 1965 (age 47) Boston, Massachusetts
Genres	Alternative rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1986–present
Labels	4AD, American, Cooking Vinyl, Sonic Unyon, spinART
Associated acts	Pixies, Frank Black and the Catholics, Grand Duchy, Paley & Francis
Website	www.blackfrancis.net
Notable instruments
Fender Telecaster

Black Francis (born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV^[1] on April 6, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.^[1] He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis.^[2] Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black. After releasing two albums with 4AD, he left the label and formed a new band, Frank Black and the Catholics. He reformed the Pixies in 2004 and continues to release solo records and tour as a solo artist,^[3] having re-adopted his current stage name in 2007.

His vocal style has varied from a screaming, yowling delivery as lead vocalist of the Pixies to a more measured and melodic style in his solo career.^[4] His cryptic lyrics mostly explore unconventional subjects, such as surrealism, incest and biblical violence, along with science fiction and surf culture.^[5] His use of atypical meter signatures, loud–quiet dynamics and distinct preference for live-to-two-track recording in his career as a solo artist give him a distinct style within alternative rock.^[6]

As frontman of the Pixies, his songs (such as "Where Is My Mind?" and "Debaser") received praise and citations from contemporaries, including Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Cobain once said that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was his attempt to "rip off the Pixies".^[7] However, in his solo work and records with the Catholics, he received fewer publicized popular and critical accolades.^[8]

Biography[link]

Youth and college[link]

Charles Thompson was born in Boston, Massachusetts.^[9] His father was a bar owner, and Thompson first lived in Los Angeles, California as a baby because his father wanted to "learn more about the restaurant and bar business".^[10] Thompson was introduced to music at a young age, as his parents listened to 1960s folk rock. His first guitar was his mother's, a Yamaha classical guitar bought with money from his father's bar tips, which he started to play at age "11 or 12".^[9]

Thompson's family moved around, first with his father, and then his stepfather, a religious man who "pursued real estate on both coasts"; his parents had separated twice by the time he was in first grade.^[11] When Thompson was 12, his mother and stepfather joined a church that was tied to the evangelical Assemblies of God,^[11] a move that influenced many of his songs written with the Pixies, which often refer to the Bible.^[12]

He discovered the music of Christian rock singer-songwriter Larry Norman at 13 when Norman played at a religious summer camp that Thompson attended. Norman's music influenced Thompson to the extent that he named the Pixies' first EP and a lyric in the band's song "Levitate Me" after one of Norman's catchphrases, "come on, pilgrim!" Thompson later described the music he listened to during his youth:^[10]

Just before Thompson's senior year, his family moved to Westport, Massachusetts, where he received a Teenager of the Year award—the title of a later solo album.^[13] During this time, Thompson composed several songs that appeared in his later career, including "Here Comes Your Man" from Doolittle, and "Velvety Instrumental Version".^[14]

After graduating from high school in 1983, he studied in the University of Massachusetts Amherst, majoring in anthropology.^[15] Thompson shared a room with another roommate for a semester before moving in with future Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago.^[16] The two shared an interest in rock music, and Santiago introduced Thompson to 1970s punk and the music of David Bowie; they began to jam together.^[17] It was at this time that Thompson discovered The Cars, a band he described as "very influential on me and the Pixies".^[18]

In his second year of college, Thompson embarked on a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of an exchange program. He spent six months in an apartment with a "weird, psycho roommate", who later served as a direct inspiration for the Pixies' song "Crackity Jones";^[19] many of the band's early songs refer to Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico. Thompson failed to grasp the Spanish language, and left his studies after debating whether he would go to New Zealand to view Halley's Comet (he later said it "seemed like the cool romantic thing to do at the time"),^[20] or start a rock band.^[17] He wrote a letter urging Santiago, with the words "we gotta do it, now is the time Joe",^[21] to join him in a band upon his return to Boston.^[22]

Pixies[link]

Soon after returning to Massachusetts, Thompson dropped out of college, and moved to Boston with Santiago. He spent 1985 working in a warehouse, "managing buttons on teddy bears", composing songs on his acoustic guitar, and writing lyrics on the subway train.^[22] In January 1986, Thompson formed the Pixies with Santiago. Bassist Kim Deal was recruited a week later via a classified advertisement placed in a Boston paper, which requested a bassist "into Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary." Drummer David Lovering was later hired on recommendation from Deal's husband.^[15][23]

	"Debaser" noicon is the opening track of Doolittle. This sample contains the first chorus and the bridge into the second verse. "U-Mass" noicon is the sixth track from Trompe le Monde. This sample contains the end of the first verse and the chorus.
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

In 1987, the Pixies released an 18-track demo tape, commonly referred to as The Purple Tape. Thompson's father assisted the band financially, loaning $1,000 in order to record the demo tape; Thompson later said that his father "wasn't around for a lot of my younger years, so I think he was doing his best to make up for lost time".^[24] The Purple Tape led to a recording contract with the English independent record label 4AD.^[17] For the release of the mini album Come On Pilgrim, Thompson adopted the alias "Black Francis", a name inspired by his father: "he had been saving that name in case he had another son".^[25]

In 1988, the Pixies recorded their debut album Surfer Rosa. Thompson wrote and sang on all the tracks, with the exception of the single "Gigantic", which was co-written and sung by Deal. To support the album, the band undertook a European tour, during which Thompson met Eric Drew Feldman,^[26] a later collaborator on Pixies and solo albums. Doolittle, with Thompson-penned songs such as "Debaser" and "Monkey Gone To Heaven",^[27] was released the following year to widespread critical acclaim.^[28] However, by this time, tensions between Thompson and Deal, combined with exhaustion, led the band to announce a hiatus.^[29] Thompson has an aversion to flying, and spent this time driving across America with his girlfriend, Jean Walsh (whom he had met in the band's early days),^[30] performing solo shows in order to raise funds to buy furniture for his new Los Angeles apartment.^[31]

The band reconvened in 1990, and recorded two further albums: 1990's Bossanova and 1991's Trompe le Monde; the latter was Thompson's first collaboration with Feldman. The later Pixies albums were characterized by Thompson's increasing influence on the band's output, as well as a focus on science fiction themes, including aliens and UFOs.^[32] These themes would continue to be explored throughout his early solo work. Trompe le Monde includes the song "U-Mass", which was written about the university he attended as a youth, and due to the keyboard part played by Feldman, signified a move away from the band's alternative rock sound. Although Deal had contributed on the songs "Gigantic" (from Surfer Rosa) and "Silver" (from Doolittle), from Bossanova on, Thompson wrote all the band's original material. This contributed to the increasing tension between him and Deal,^[31] and the Pixies broke up in 1992; this was not publicly announced until early 1993.^[33]

Early solo career[link]

While the Pixies' 1991 album Trompe le Monde was being recorded, Thompson had discussions with the album's producer, Gil Norton, about a possible solo record.^[34] He told Norton he was keen to record again, even though he had no new material; as a result, the two decided on a cover album. However, by the time Thompson visited a recording studio again in 1992, he had "plenty of tunes and musical scraps."^[35]

He collaborated with Feldman to record new material; they began by trimming down the number of covers to one, The Beach Boys' "Hang On to Your Ego".^[36] Feldman became the album's producer, and played keyboard and bass guitar on several songs,^[37] with Santiago featuring on lead guitar^[38] and Nick Vincent on drums. Francis recorded the album during the hiatus and breakup of the Pixies in late 1992 and early 1993. He then adopted the stage name "Frank Black" (inverting his old persona "Black Francis") and released the results as Frank Black in March 1993.^[39] Frank Black was characterized by a focus on UFOs and science fiction, although he explored other subjects, such as in "I Heard Ramona Sing", a song about the Ramones.^[40] The album was similar in style, both musically and lyrically, to the Pixies' albums Bossanova and Trompe le Monde. Feldman later said that the first record connected his solo career with Trompe le Monde, "but at the same time it is an island, like nothing else he [Black] did."^[41]

The following year, Black released his second solo record, a 22-song double album entitled Teenager of the Year.^[42] Teenager included the song "Headache" ( sample (help·info)), a moderate success on alternative rock playlists; critics described the song as "irresistible pop".^[43] The production of Teenager of the Year was markedly different from Frank Black; in the previous album, MIDI templates were used when writing songs, but in Teenager, Black showed individual parts to band members, the core of which included drummer Vincent and Lyle Workman on lead guitar. Feldman noted that Thompson's songwriting became "a lot more spontaneous" while recording the album.^[41] Thompson had begun to stray from his style with the Pixies, writing songs that covered a variety of genres and topics, and his new-found method of recording was closer to later albums than that of Frank Black and Trompe le Monde.

Both Frank Black and Teenager of the Year were critically well received and remain fan favorites, although they enjoyed little commercial success. In 1995, Thompson left his long-time labels 4AD and Elektra.^[44] He continued to write new material: In 1996, he released The Cult of Ray on Rick Rubin's American Recordings; the album marked a turn away from the elaborate production of his first solo works and was recorded primarily live with few overdubs. His band for this album featured sole Teenager holdover Lyle Workman on lead guitar, along with bassist David McCaffrey and Scott Boutier on drums.^[45][46] Though the album was neither critically nor commercially successful, its stripped-down approach would increasingly define Thompson's working methods for the next several years.

Frank Black and the Catholics[link]

Thompson dubbed his new band "Frank Black and the Catholics", and recorded their eponymous first album in 1997. Recorded live-to-two-track initially as merely a demo, he was so pleased with the results that he decided to release the sessions with no further production.^[47] The album was delayed for over a year by conflicts at American, both internal and over its production,^[48] and was ultimately released in late 1998 by SpinArt Records in the US. Since leaving American, Black has avoided long-term contracts with labels, and has maintained ownership of his album masters, licensing each album individually for release.^[49]

Frank Black and the Catholics became the first album to be posted to the eMusic service; they claim it is "the first album ever made legally available for commercial download".^[50] Critical reception to the album was mixed, with some writers noting Thompson's seemingly deliberate turn away from the "quirkiness" of the Pixies and his early solo work for a self-consciously straightforward approach,^[47][51] and the "disappointingly straightforward punk-pop" musical style present on the album.^[52]

He would continue to eschew multi-track recording for the live-to-two-track technique for all subsequent releases under the group name. Live-to-two-track recording precludes the use of overdubs to correct errors or add texture; all takes are recorded continuously, and mixing is done "on the fly". On later albums, he incorporated more musicians into the sessions to allow for more varied instrumental textures. Explaining his rationale behind the method, he commented:^[53]

Well, it's real. It's a recording of a performance, of a real performance between a group of people, an entourage, a band, as opposed to a facsimile of that, which is frequently what people do with multi-track recording ... I prefer it. It's a little more real. It's got a little more heart.

Workman left the Catholics in 1998 to pursue session and sideman work; Rich Gilbert was added to the band to replace him.^[54] Frank Black and the Catholics released Pistolero in 1999, which critics cited as a return to Thompson's earlier form,^[52] and Dog in the Sand in 2001, considered a high point in his solo career.^[55][56] Dog in the Sand added Dave Philips on pedal steel guitar and lead guitar, and Santiago and Feldman began making occasional appearances with the group live and on record.^[57] Both Pistolero and Dog in the Sand were produced by Nick Vincent.

By this time, while dismissing the possibility of a Pixies reunion, Thompson had begun to incorporate an increasing number of the band's songs into Catholics concerts, as well as including Santiago in his solo work again.^[58] Black and the Catholics continued to release records; two separate albums, Black Letter Days and Devil's Workshop, were released simultaneously in 2002.^[59] Devil's Workshop included the song "Velvety" ( sample (help·info)), a version of the Pixies' song "Velvety Instrumental Version" (written by Black as a teenager) with lyrics.^[60] The song was one of the first signs that he had acknowledged his past work with the Pixies in his solo output. A sixth album with the Catholics, Show Me Your Tears, was released in 2003. Show Me Your Tears' title and many of the songs in it were inspired by Thompson's recent divorce and entry into therapy.^[44]

Pixies reunion, Nashville and the return of Black Francis[link]

In late 2003, following long-standing rumors, an official announcement was made that the Pixies were rehearsing for a reunion tour. The band played publicly for the first time in 12 years in April 2004, and went on to tour extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe in the same year. They also recorded one of Deal's compositions, "Bam Thwok", which was released on the iTunes Music Store.^[61] Frank Black Francis, a double album bridging the gap between his two personas, was released to coincide with the Pixies reunion tour. The first disc consisted of solo demos of Pixies songs recorded the day before The Purple Tape was recorded, and the second contained studio collaborations, again of Pixies songs, with Two Pale Boys.^[62]

Also in 2004, Thompson began to collaborate with a group of Nashville session men, including Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, Reggie Young, and Anton Fig, as well as producer Jon Tiven. In July 2005, the collective released Honeycomb under the Frank Black name, to generally favorable reviews. Entertainment Weekly described the album as "spare, graceful, [and] in the pocket", while Billboard noted it as "One of [Thompson's] finest hours".^[63] A second volume of Nashville sessions, a double album entitled Fast Man Raider Man, was released in June 2006.^[64] Thompson appeared at a concert by Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman in June 2005 in Salem, Oregon.^[65] Norman and Thompson performed a duet on "Watch What You're Doing", which later appeared on Norman's album, Live at The Elsinore.^[66]

Thompson continued to tour with the Pixies through 2005 and 2006. Though the Catholics were effectively defunct, they released two separate albums of B-sides and rarities, Snake Oil and One More Road for the Hit, on iTunes, with an eye towards a future CD release. Thompson was also working on more new solo material with Feldman in the first part of 2006, some of which they performed live. In the fall of 2006, Thompson began his first solo tour since 2003, taking Feldman, Billy Block, and Duane Jarvis along as his backing band.^[67] In October 2006, Thompson announced plans for the Pixies to start rehearsing and recording a new album in January 2007, but it is believed that no recording took place because of the reluctance of another member of the Pixies to commit to the project.^[3] In December 2006, he released the compilation Christmass album; a collection of new studio tracks, hotel room sessions, and live acoustic recordings from a solo tour the previous summer.^[68]

A Frank Black "best of" compilation, Frank Black 93-03, was released in June 2007. Concurrently with that release, Thompson undertook a European tour with a new band, featuring Salem's Guards of Metropolis members Jason Carter and Charles Normal,^[69] as well as bassist Ding Archer. For this tour, Thompson eschewed his usual rhythm guitar role and performed solely as a frontman and singer. In September 2007, a new album entitled Bluefinger was released under his former stage name of Black Francis. For this album, he was inspired by the life and works of Herman Brood, a Dutch musician and artist. He also released a new "mini-album" entitled Svn Fngrs as Black Francis in March 2008.^[70]

In February 2008, Thompson was taken away by the Irish police in Dublin, Ireland after staging an impromptu "precore" acoustic solo gig at St. Stephen's Green. He was later released and performed that night in Vicar Street as planned.^[71] However, a similar event planned for London was prevented by police and had to be re-arranged for a small indoor venue.

Thompson currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and is married to Violet Clark, his second wife, with whom he has three children, along with her two children from previous relationships.^[1][72] The couple formerly lived in Eugene, Oregon, where they met.^[73] Thompson and Clark currently compose the band Grand Duchy. Their debut album, Petit Fours, was released in February 2009.^[74]

Francis performing in Stockholm, 2009

In early 2009, Art Brut released their third album, Art Brut vs. Satan, which Black produced throughout late 2008. Black has given several joint interviews with frontman Eddie Argos about the album, a move unusual for a producer. In 2009, Art Brut supported The Pixies at their Brixton Academy show.^[75] In 2010, Black worked with the group a second time on their album Brilliant! Tragic!.^[76]

Black Francis released NonStopErotik in March 2010 and contributed the song "I Heard Ramona Sing" to the soundtrack for the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World released in August 2010.

In the fall of 2010 in Nashville, Thompson recorded an album of new songs written and performed with collaborator Reid Paley, as Paley & Francis (Reid Paley & Black Francis). The debut Paley & Francis album (also titled Paley & Francis) was produced by Jon Tiven, and features Reid Paley and Black Francis on guitars and vocals, accompanied by Muscle Shoals legends Spooner Oldham on piano and David Hood on bass. The album was released in October 2011 on Sonic Unyon in North America, and on Cooking Vinyl in the UK & Europe.^[77][78]

Paley & Francis debuted live in early September 2011 with club performances in Albany NY, Buffalo NY, and Hamilton, Ontario (unannounced), and as one of the headliners of Hamilton Ontario's Supercrawl Festival. The band for these performances consisted of Reid Paley and Black Francis on guitars and vocals, Eric Eble (of the Reid Paley Trio) on bass, and Dave Varriale on drums.

Musical style[link]

Thompson's singing style was instrumental in creating the sound of Pixies.

See also: Pixies' musical style

Over the course of his career, Thompson's musical style has grown to encompass a large number of genres; however, he is considered to produce rock or alternative rock compositions.^[79] Whereas songs such as "Here Comes Your Man" (Doolittle), "Velvety" (Devil's Workshop) and "Headache" (Teenager of the Year) expose a more light rock side, others such as "Something Against You" (Surfer Rosa) and "Thalassocracy" (Teenager of the Year) hint to a more heavy rock influence in his material. A strong country music influence is also increasingly evident in his style, most notably in his Nashville albums, Honeycomb and Fast Man Raider Man.

Thompson has said that he acquired his vocal style as a teenager, when a Thai neighbor asked him to sing "Oh! Darling" by The Beatles (from their album Abbey Road) and to "Scream it like you hate that bitch!"^[80] Thompson's powerful screams were a signature of Pixies albums, along with the band's typical song structure of quietly paced verses followed by thundering chorus lines and repetitive guitar staccato.^[15]

Influences[link]

Thompson has drawn influence from a number of musical genres. As a teenager, he mostly listened to 1960s folk and religious music, including the Christian singer-songwriter Larry Norman. Later in high school and in college, he discovered punk music (Black Flag), along with bands from other genres, such as the new wave band The Cars and the obscure Angst. While in Boston in 1984, before starting the Pixies, he listened to Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade, The Spotlight Kid by Captain Beefheart, and I'm Sick of You, an Iggy Pop bootleg.^[22]

Thompson's lyrics have also featured references to the Bible, especially in his career with the Pixies; most notably in the incestuous tale of "Nimrod's Son", the stories of Uriah and Bathsheba in "Dead", Samson in "Gouge Away" and references to the Tower of Babel in songs such as "Build High" and "Old Black Dawning".^[81] He cited surrealist films Eraserhead and Un Chien Andalou (as mentioned in "Debaser") as major influences on his work with the Pixies; however, surrealism was less of an influence in his solo career.^[82] He commented on these influences (which he paid tribute to most in the Pixies' Doolittle), saying he "didn't have the patience to sit around reading Surrealist novels", but found it easier to watch 20-minute films.^[83]

Songwriting and lyrics[link]

During his stay in Puerto Rico, Thompson acquired a fairly fluent, although informal and at times incorrect, use of Spanish, which he has continued throughout his career. Several early Pixies songs, including "Isla de Encanta" and "Vamos", reference his experiences in San Juan, and the lyrics are often heavily seasoned with the island's slang. The island's influence in his work is most notable in the song "Isla De Encanta", named after the island's motto, "Isla Del Encanto". Other Pixies songs drawn from his experiences there include "Vamos" (Come On Pilgrim), "Oh My Golly!", "Where Is My Mind?" (Surfer Rosa), "Crackity Jones" (Doolittle) and the B-side "Bailey's Walk". Several of his songs contain Spanish lyrics, most notably in the Pixies' first album, Come On Pilgrim, and a Spanish translation of "Evil Hearted You" by The Yardbirds.^[84] From his later works with the Pixies onwards, his use of Spanish drifted westward, reflecting places and aspects of the state of California and its culture.^[53]

Thompson's lyrics are noted for their obscure references to off-beat topics such as outer space, UFOs, and The Three Stooges—the last of these being the subject of "Two Reelers", a song from Teenager of the Year.^[41] Lyrics with a focus on science fiction were particularly prominent on the later Pixies records, as well as his early solo albums.^[85] With the Catholics, his lyrics have tended towards historical topics; for example, the song "St. Francis Dam Disaster" (from Dog in the Sand) details the catastrophic collapse of the St. Francis Dam near Los Angeles in March 1928,^[81] and the All My Ghosts EP featured an account of the "Humboldt County Massacre" of Wiyot Indians in 1860 near Eureka, California.^[86]

Television appearances and videos[link]

See also: Pixies' television appearances and videos

Thompson has appeared on a range of television shows solo and as part of the Pixies, ranging from 120 Minutes and The Late Show in the United States,^[87] to The Word in the UK.^[88]

As part of the Pixies, he was reluctant to film music videos for singles. Elektra Records' Peter Lubin commented that "to get videos out of them was a major ... undertaking and it only got worse over time", citing the fact that Thompson refused to lip-sync;^[89] the video for "Here Comes Your Man" features Thompson and Deal opening their mouths as the vocals are being heard, mocking the practice.

In his early solo career as Frank Black, his videos were more professional; he became more willing to take part in them. "Los Angeles" is an example; the video features Thompson riding across a desert on a hovercraft. They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh, who directed the "Los Angeles" video, later commented on the change in Black's attitude to music videos:^[41]

I think the Pixies had made enough anti-videos that Charles was ready to do things that were more visually hopped up. The "Los Angeles" video that we did, the last minute and a half of the song is this open field of grey over which hovercrafts are floating. It's about as tripped up as any video I've ever been involved in, and it was also realizing a dream of Charles', getting him in a hovercraft.

Thompson has released few music videos since leaving 4AD, one being a low-budget video in Germany for Dog in the Sand's "Robert Onion". The last widely released video produced for his solo material was for "Men in Black", from Cult of Ray.^[90]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

References[link]

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (May 2012)

Bibliography[link]

• Frank, Josh; Ganz, Caryn. (2005). Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies. Virgin Books. ISBN 0-312-34007-9.
• Sisario, Ben. (2006). Doolittle. Continuum, 33⅓ series. ISBN 0-8264-1774-4.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Frank Black

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Black Francis

• BlackFrancis.net - Official site
• frankblack.net - Fan site
• Black Francis discography at MusicBrainz
• Frank Black's Allmusic entry
• 4AD - Frank Black
• Review of 2008 Live Show in Manchester
• Paley & Francis Facebook Page
• Paley & Francis YouTube