Playtime (1967) with Louise Sandhaus

Jacques Tati’s Playtime, aka PlayTime, leaves an impression, and it definitely impressed designer, educator, and writer Louise Sandhaus who has a lot to say about this movie that’s kind of about nothing, with the city and scenery as the star, and people merely moving through, around, and within the environment. Be mesmerized by its set pieces, odd circumstances, physical humor, and bombastic party scene that has Marx Brothers antics with Saturday Night Live stumbles and silliness. Watching Playtime, if you get the impression that it influenced Wes Anderson, or shaped the Apple TV show Severance, you’re spot on. Louise is the founder and co-director of The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a pioneering crowd-sourced platform that preserves graphic design history and is extremely inclusive. As faculty at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), she teaches The History of Motion Graphics with modules on Designer as Filmmaker and Type in Film, as well as Early Abstract Animation.