Notes on Play

1. 1
Cinema Cent Ans De Jeunesse – Le Jeu
Training Session 02
24-9-16
Games of Chance – 2
nd
Category
Games of true luck / hazard.
That which is unforseen. Alea – art driven by chance.
Again about Pierrot Le Fou
He talks about a moment in the bar where Pierrot comes across something by chance. 4 blokes.
Clip from M
The choosing.
The rhythm proposed by the counting.
ALEA - things that happen that are unforseen. Aleatory? Art driven by chance
Clip from Baie Des Ange - Demy
A moment in a casino.
It recalls the clip from the colour of money.
Music as part of this, in Demi’s work. A circular structure.
The filmmaker stops the fictious world and through film makes something else.
It’s very clear. The game is clear.
At the start we’re in a fictitious situation / constructed situation. Yet when the music starts everything
collapses in to something else. The shot sequence is different, and we loose the sense of the
chronology.
It feels like we’re inside a whirlwind.

2. 2
This is a good clip to look at how a game lifts things from the real in to something else.
He talks about a clip where there’s a game where someone tries to beat the other in a game, but by
cheating.
Playing at being another – 3
rd
Category
‘Simulacre’.
Tomboy is a great example of this.
Playing with objects - cars
He talks about Luxemboug and life in minature.
Play as an apprenticeship for reality.
Toys as objects created for play. How they are integrated in to our everyday sociatal models….
Clip from Tomboy
The two levels of play. The game and the playing of being a boy.
She observes, watches how to be and how to play at being a male.
He talks about the skill of the actor and the flimmaker. How the interior life is betrayed by exterior
gestures.
It’s a great film he says.
Clip from Intervallo
This is a MUST for CCAJ he says.

3. 3
The double play.
The field of play is very, very clear.
She narrates the fiction of the scene and plays out the parts. Then he takes over narrating what he
sees in his imagination.
Reality interrupts their play. What is that we’re hearing?
The play between the two of them.
The game slides from one thing to another.
Amongst boy games we find War most commonly represented in films.
Two teams against each other.
Home Alone.
Clip from the War of the Buttons
Games of honour and consequence.
The roles that they define themselves within the game - the chief the henchmen.
Their weapons - that’s not something that we have today. We’re past the age of wooden swords. It’s
more brutal than that now.
There’s a touch of Western about it, too.
Then there’s the battlefield, which is an historical archetype which proposes its own narrative.
Then there’s the actual fighting.
There’s a scene after this where the children explore the notion of Democracy.
It’s mostly an anarchic film.
Second Clip from the War of the Buttons

4. 4
To fight nude - the advantages…?
The wee one gets lost - and theres a couple who are off out on their bikes and they’re unaware of the
wee man.
The scene where they discuss democracy.
Another CABIN!
They discuss the finery of what Freedom and brotherhood & equality mean - you know the word but
not the meaning!
The struggle for control over meaning.
“To each his own work - that’s equality!”
This next clip is not part of what we’re studying but, oh to hell with it, I love this film, he says.
It’s a bit like Zero de Conduite.
The afterwar period.
Refelcted in childhood play.
Clip from Les Mistons
The goonies.
Clip from Petite Lumiere - Alain Gomis.
How we create a universe contrary to our actual one.

5. 5
It’s pure cinema, it allows us to enter in to her head.
The contrast bewteen snow and sand.
Clip from Modern Times -
Playing at being rich in the big store, when they’re totally skint.
LA Story - the art gallery bit
Playing at being rich is the bedroom bit, but before that it’s a game of dizziness. When we’re not
conscious of the danger he’s totally at ease, the minute he realises that he’s in danger he can’t perform
as well at all.
Vertige - it’s to do with height. About the up and down.
Quote from Winnicotte. Which I missed, sorry.
The playpark games which allow you to experience the vertical. Instability of perception.
Labyrinths and other things, which are more visual than cinematic, but they work very well for
film. Things which alter or hide aspects of perception.
Clip from Lumier Bros – Blanket
Throwing a fellow up in a blanket.
The weird man in the corner shouting.
Clip from 400 Blows - wall of death
It’s fascinating because of the chioce of shots.

6. 6
His choice lets us feel what he’s feeling.
Truffaut plays a lot around the idea of what’s inside Leau’s head.
It recalls the Zoetrope.
Clip from The Flowers of St Francis
Spinning, and where you fall decides the direction in which you must travel.
The contrast between extremely serious people and silly things deciding their fate.
It’s a game of spinning and dizziness, but also a game of chance.
The innocence of the community and the innocence of their play.
How they prepare their food is also part of their play.
They play constantly. They rest in a state of innocence.
It’s a sequence that we know well, but it’s worth looking at.
Clip from The Little Fugitive
On the roundabout.
Game within the game.
The Labyrinth from the shining is perfect.

7. 7
Clip from The Circus - hall of mirrors
The following of rules within games.
The way he plays at being the moving statue.
Clip from Partie de Compaigne – Swing scene
Blackbird by Norman McLaren played in full
The metaphorical notion of play in this, how it’s tied in to the filmakers manipulation of the things on
screen.
When we Truffaut shows us how Leau feels it’s based in reality, but with animation it’s beyond that.
Clip from the Shining
The moment with the ball in the main hall – to the maze.
There’s two levels of play - the child and mother lost in the maze and then the paranoid play of the
director.
How the maze is shown from above. From Jack’s perspective. The play between the model and the
reality. Which is the opposite of the way he plays with ball.
Moving on to another Category which is separate from the 4 identified.
Play between adults and children.
Games of apprenticeship - where the child learns from the adult by way of play.

8. 8
Clip from Nanouk of The North
We learn from doing something in miniature.
The clip of the boy and bow.
The contagion of play from the world of children to adults and vice versa.
Clip from You Can’t Take it With You
The Fisher King - elements of play / Robin William’s approach.
The contrast between what Jimmy Stewart is talking about, the loss of hope, his growth as an adult,
and then that bubble is popped by the arrival of children with whom they dance, and then the policeman
pops that bubble too, returning them to the world of adults.
Clip from The Royal Tennenbaums
The Grandfather leading the children off the track. It’s the reverse of the previous clip.
Wonderful.
Clip from End of the Mass / The mass is over by Morretti
Where the priest plays football with the children.
An adult entering the world of children.
Ozu all looks at how the children and adult worlds collide.

9. 9
Clip from Dernier Caprice - Ozu
The game of doing something and not being seen. The observer doesn’t notice, but each time it
changes.
Marco-Polo
Games to cover another thing, here the grandfather trying to sneak out.
It’s a double game, as he’s playing hide & seek, but he’s also got his own agenda of trying to dash out
unnoticed.
It would be brilliant to classify the clips in terms of their games, such as with a ball, to create a database
of the clips so that you get unexpected links emerging between the categories.
Two examples now on something else, but in the same world.
Clip from Lumiere Bros - the snowball fight
The adults are rarely serious in these clips.
The roles of the people in the clip are interesting. They appear to be bourgeois, and formal, but yet
here they are - playing like children.
Clip from Les Deux Anglaises…
By Truffaut.
Truffaut loves to do mime things.

10. 10
Forfeits of games.
Deciphering games where the rules aren’t explained.
It’s once more about suicide. Oh joy.
Talks about where they have to get warm by being helod close together.
Games that allow you to transgress codes of behaviour that would otherwise be forbidden.
Clip from the Great Dictator
The globe scene.
The object - the world. He wants to be alone in his delirium.
Clip from The end of Bunny Lake is Missing
There’s a psychotic unhingement.
I don’t know if we could show this because of the representation of mental health, it’s not entirely
balanced…
The camera movement showing the unhinged nature of the character’s perspective.
They work around through all the different games and playthings - the swing / hide & seek.

11. 11
Coming out of the register of everyday life.
Clip from Fleur Maigre.
The children speak between languages, their accents mixed.
Collection of beasties.
Children playing with the very minimum to make the most out of it, whilst an adult explains the bleak
nature of their situation to a child.
It allows a commentary on the situation, the miners out of work etc.
Here’s another along the same lines - the world of work.
Clip from En Construction by Guerin
Children play at being builders in a real site.
I think this is really interesting. This is how we played as children. The making of dens, etc.
The contrast with the real work.
Making the toboggan.
The liminal imaginary / real space. It’s making a fictitious place out of a real situation / location.
Now lets look at how children play with the real, more dangerous world.
Clip from Spirit of the Beehive

12. 12
The trainline with the children. Get away from the line!
Clip from Mon Oncle
The man child that is Hulot, the chaos that he brings to the world, he contaminates an adult world with
child like chaos,
Freedoms & Transgressions.
In terms of play it’s not always about freedom.
Play can also be a representation of learning how society works how people interact.
The great example of this is the playground.
How children play in the playground.
This is a clip from Claire Simon
The games are unregulated, they’re spontaneous and of the moment.
In the mean time, here’s a word from our sponsors…
Clip from Recreations
Dropping things down holes.
Manually moving people in to the positions you want them in. Directing your own ‘play’.
Immediate passions and responses in younger children.
It’s quite a full on clip, isn’t it - he says.
The dynamic of the group. The social dynamic defining itself.

13. 13
The symbolic value of an object. In this case it’s the little bits of twig. If someone touches them he
goes totally mental at them. They’re so significant for him. They’re invested with meaning and value.
They can be everything.
Gathering as many as he can is his aim.
Games that talk more of the bigger picture rather than the smaller situation. Games of societal
apprenticeship.
Games which liberate the body and societal pressure.
Clip from L Ete de Giacomo
He’s a deaf boy, who’s a bit unusual a bit out of the normal. Ah yes, we see that.
Sensational things - things that create a sensational response in the viewer.
The assumption of the character of an animal. Something that allows you to transgress the norm.
This is a tricky category. It’s very uneasy. Painful duration of the clip.
Water is often a freeing space, the body can move otherwise than in the air. It frees it.
He’s freer than her. He can do all sorts of forbidden things - but then he also knows when a line has
been crossed.
It’s the filmmakers brother, so it’s a very clear cut relationship that allows this to happen.
Throwing the blobs of sand, all that.

14. 14
Clip from Mustang
Boys playing. Things that they’re doing outside of the knowledge of their parents.
This is the opening of the film, which we interpret as freedom, and then the film comes in properly and
stifles all the freedoms. Reality comes in and takes over.
After this scene the parents find out what happens. And they get shut in to their rooms etc.
This moment of play, this innocent moment of play in another culture, leads to major repercussions in
this culture.
The ability to talk about things that we can’t talk about in reality, that we don’t have the chance to talk
about.
Clip from Fanny & Alexander
What’s funny is the contrast between the two scenes. The clash of the two.
And again the idea of contagion, the uncle has infected the atmosphere. (Quite literally).
And who is it that pays for the transgression - it’s the maid.
The notion of the result of a transgression. It’s not an isolated event it has consequences.
Clip from Zero de Conduite
Freedom and expression. The body in space.
The sound is vital in this. The music becomes very odd. It’s not normal. It’s part of the transgression.

15. 15
In the play it is possible to have social learning, social mirroring and the representation of social
anarchy.
Clip from Slumdog Millionaire.
This is a short clip but it’s really full of play elements.
It was a flashback. It’s got so much in it. There’s all the heights things, there’s a pursuit by the police,
but yet it’s the mother who has the most power. He bows down to her power. Frustrated, but he won’t
cross that line.
Questions from the floor about the topic
How about some suggestions?
It’s a huge area of investigation. It brings to life so many things. The body, the body in space, in play.
It’s profoundly rich.
Talking about Winnicott who says that sexuality kills play - so how come there are clips with sexuality in
them here?
Aye, its true but the films sanction an end to sexual things. They’re never seen through. They are
broken.
Sexual excitement is another register, it’s not about play, what we have here is not that, it can ‘rub
against’ it, but it’s not that exactly. There’s a space.
[Tricky, I think].
Play as a right of passage.

16. 16
He identifies certain games. Like playing doctor.
In Nanouk the child playing with the bow acts as an act of initiation. It brings the child in to hunting by
way of play.
Talks about war, too.
The distinction between game & play - please give us a bit more on that.
Game is pure game - where you can’t break the rules. The two clips at the start they’re like that.
Where the rules of the game are more improtant than playing that’s where its a Game.
Play is more free.
Play - no rules - free imagination.
The gap between the two is very large, and full of other definitions and classifications.
In my opinion if there’s Play there needs to be a basis in reality. In screens there’s no reality - except
Pokemon Go - it’s a mix of reality and play. [He’s a level 56 Pokiemaster. Not True]
It’s to do with space. The play in space.
Electronic games becoming play in the real world.
The player plays with a device. The word PARANOIAC needs a bit more translation, sorry. There’s a
level of subtlety I’m not quite getting there.
Video games are totally forbidden in this work.
He hates von Trier’s earlier work, It’s nasty. He thinks he belittles his actresses just for the hell of it.
We’ve not really seen many examples where the director plays.

17. 17
Alain says there are loads, but the problem is that in terms of what we’re doing - we can’t show three
full feature films. Pierrot Le Fou is bound up with the duration of the film. It just takes up too much time,
too much by far. There’s so much more to look at.
I could have used P le Fou to show you all 4 categories of play, but then what can we do with that in
terms of an educational project?
We’d need to watch the whole film to get it. And that would just gobble up all our time.
Goddard says that cinema is principally a game.
Les Filles Au Moyen Age is a film to have a look at.
Video games and representations of video games in young people’s films. They’re banned this
year. No film to have anything like that thank you.
Kaisa asked if there’s any film specifically to watch this year. Alain says… there’s lots of bits in lots of
films.
Casino has things in it.
But no one film to watch.
Play often provides the brackets in between which action happens.
Have a look at:
Roger Caillois: The Definition of Play, The Classification of Games
Jiburo is a film worth having a look at. Isa mentions this.
------------------------
The RULES OF THE GAME

18. 18
Nathalie reads the rules.
No games with computers or phones, please. Not at all.
I wish you were all closer, this would be easier. I’ll try to do this quickly.
1 - An individual exercise. Choose a game that you like. Film it in a documentary manner. Just show
us it in operation. This game can be played by one or more children, it can be a whole game or just a
moment of a game. It must be a maximum of 2 minutes in length and consist of one shot only.
2 - in small groups.
2 children thrown out of a class by the teacher. They are put in to a small space. They make a game
out of what they find there. Their bodies, the space and objects in that space. 2 mins max / one shot
or several shots, it’s up to you.
3- Again in a small group.
One person looses their spatial recognition - they get dizzy or whatever. This is reflected in the acting
and the way it is filmed.
Film the character and the sensations that they are experiencing.
2 mins max with montage (as many shots as appropriate).
Final Film
Make a film where the the story is interrupted at a certain moment, when a character finds their
freedom through playing which allows them to escape from the confines of their everyday reality.
It allows them to fork off from their reality.
Music, sound, space, montage is all a part of this, they have major importance in the delivery of this.

19. 19
It must last 5 - 10 mins max.