NEWFANGLED IN THE FIFTIES

A classic film with lilting music--not to have been missed

Set decor of the then super-modern Villa Arpel-- full of improbable and sometimes
 avant-garde gadgets--from the 1958 Jacques Tati film, Mon Oncle.
© Jean-Christophe Benoist. Photo reproduced through GNU Free Documentation License.

After playing the cheerful and tinny theme song from the world-famous French film, Mon Oncle (My Uncle), a radio announcer yesterday told an amusing anecdote about President Charles de Gaulle greeting the film's director, Jacques Tati, in a reception line at the Elysée. Standing next to de Gaulle was his majordome, who as the filmmaker approached, discreetly said to the president, "Mon Oncle." 


De Gaulle warmly shook Tati's hand and said, "Je suis très content de votre neveu!" 
(I'm very pleased with your nephew!)


The comedy, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1959, parodies the emergence of contemporary design, labor-saving appliances and the nouveau riche at the beginning of the Trentes Glorieuses.

Vocabulary
un neveu:  a nephew
une nièce:  a niece
un majordome:  a butler
le palais de l'Elysée:  the residence of the French Republic's president
Les Trente Glorieuses:  literally, The Thirty Glorious; the period of strong economic growth between 1945 and 1975 in the majority of western developped nations

©2011 P.B. Lecron