Six Favorites from the Sixties

If I had to pick one decade as my favorite for movies, I think I would have to go with the 1960s. Picking my six favorite movies from that decade? That’s a little more difficult. (It’s hard enough to limit myself to six favorites from a single year of the decade.) After much debate, I’ve decided on the following films (listed chronologically), though there are probably about two dozen other titles that could just as easily have made the cut.

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From Clinical to Carnival: Playtime (1967)

Jacques Tati’s 1967 film Playtime was his fourth feature and the third to star his most famous comic creation, Monsieur Hulot. The character made his debut in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday in 1953 and returned five years later in Mon Oncle, at the end of which — having caused a minor disaster at his brother-in-law’s plastics factory by falling asleep on the job — he was sent to the provinces to work as a sales representative. Considering his clumsiness, his knack for getting himself into trouble and the fact that he almost never speaks, it’s no surprise that Playtime finds him seeking new employment back in Paris. He may not have changed, but the city has, and its steel high-rises and sleek modern embellishments sometimes threaten to overwhelm Hulot, its other inhabitants and its visitors — mostly with boredom.