Michel Gondry details a series of animated conversations with Noam Chomsky in brilliant documentary
CinéSalon: IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? AN ANIMATED CONVERSATION WITH NOAM CHOMSKY (Michel Gondry, 2013)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, May 17, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through May 31
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org
As it turns out, Michel Gondry’s exciting documentary, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky, is animated in more ways than one. The fifty-year-old French director initially set out to go toe-to-toe with the controversial octogenarian linguist and philosopher, but he realized early on that the battle was lost. So when editing the series of interviews he had with Chomsky over the course of several months in 2010, he decided to illustrate the film with animated cartoon drawings, only occasionally showing the live-action Chomsky, often in a small box or circle within a colorfully rendered scene. After an attempt to impress Chomsky — the author of such books as Syntactic Structures; Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought; Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar; and The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory — with his own views on image and representation, Gondry becomes embarrassed. “As you can see,” he says while the handwritten words appear on the screen, “I felt a bit stupid here. Let me explain: I think I couldn’t get my point through to Noam. Misuse of words and heavy accent aggravated my attempt.” Chomsky and Gondry go on to explore such concepts as generative grammar, language acquisition, and psychic continuity as Gondry, the director of such offbeat films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, Human Nature, and Be Kind, Rewind, makes his endearing, often childlike drawings, a genius counterpoint to Chomsky’s cool and calm super-intellectualism.
Michel Gondry comes up with a unique way to depict Noam Chomsky in IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY?
Gondry does get Chomsky to open up a little about his personal life, especially his relationship with his late wife, and they wisely avoid politics. The film eventually takes a hysterical turn when Gondry realizes that he better finish it soon, since it’s been three years since he conducted the talks with Chomsky and he wants to make sure he finishes it before Chomsky dies. In the end, Gondry manages to level the playing field as the two men diagram the title question. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is an absolute treat, a fun and fascinating examination of human intelligence, the creative process, the manipulative relationship between director and viewer, and the essence of film and storytelling itself. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is screening May 17 at 4:00 and 7:30 in FIAF’s “Creative Encounters” CinéSalon series, with the later show introduced by film journalist and professor Anne-Katrin Titze. The festival continues every Tuesday in May with Claire Denis’s Jacques Rivette, the Night Watchman and Chantal Akerman’s One Day Pina Asked…