Cause, Effect and the Comedy Genius of Pierre Étaix’ “As Long As You’ve Got Your Health”
Pantomimist Pierre Étaix is perhaps most famous for his turn as one of the titular thiefs in Pickpocket and his frequent collaborations with the great Jacques Tati. But if this raucously funny evolutionary variant of silent era comedies is any indication, he should be remembered also as an elite filmmaker unto his own. Presented as four episodes, As Long As You’ve Got Your Health is a one of a kind case study in cause and effect. Frequently, I am a bit put off by anthological efforts, but here both the differentiation and the connective tissue are tuned perfectly to give four fantastic segments on a visual comedic thesis that’s just to die for. Each short uses specific means to explore detailed and interlinked series of mishaps that feel like watching a slapstick Rube Goldberg device fire off for an hour in real time. Below I wrote down some notes on each of the episodes, and how I felt they individually built to one of my favorite first watches of the year.
Note: these are quite detailed, and while they don’t spoil anything that would ruin the fun, I must encourage you to go and check this out! It’s on the Criterion Channel, and it runs just a little over an hour. You won’t regret it!
Insomnia
Unable to fall asleep, a man, played by Étaix, who features in all four shorts, decides to read a vampire novel. As he gets into the story, the line between his bedchamber and the gothic walls of the castle begins to dissolve. The sounds of his wife amplify the scares, and when he trembles the whole castle shakes. This first segment functions like an amuse-bouche and a cipher for the rest of the film in the way it depicts causal relationships that cartoonishly and cleverly transcend the bounds of reality. As someone frequently distracted by cats, outside noises and my own thoughts, it’s also a playful nod to that unique relationship between art and the observer in their environment, particularly after hours.
The Movies
This second short again blurs the line between art and the real world, though this time with a movie in place of a book. Here, instead of the ephemera of the room leaking into the fiction, bodies, rails, columns and bad angles block the film for Étaix as he comically looks for a seat in a packed theater. It foreshadows a classic like Goodbye, Dragon Inn in the way it makes physical comedy out of the mundanity of the cinema. Here though it’s punched up to lunatic heights, that is, until the intermission.
At the halfway point, a series of advertisements play and once again the movie merges the real and the unreal as Étaix is transported from the auditorium into an alternate infomercial reality that is, unequivocally, the lofty high point of the movie. It’s one of the only scenes with a lot of dialogue, and nearly all of it is delivered in the alien intonation of a late night ad, akin to consumerist white noise. The absurdist humor evokes post modern writers like Don DeLillo what, two decades ahead of schedule? And it’s just as funny? I wouldn’t say I decided to 5 star this from this short, but it sure didn’t hurt how I viewed the next two.
As Long As You’ve Got Your Health
The third episode drops both the media angle and the ceiling on the humor just a bit, relative to the first two. It more than makes up for those choices though by helping to clarify and expand the movie’s ideas on cause and effect. In this piece, the racket of the city wreaks hell on its people. As with the crowded theater of the last segment, bodies are packed into spaces, and everything is drowned out by traffic and the odious sounds of machinery. The Rube Goldberg comment in the opening paragraph is never more true than it is here where it feels the metropolis is one jackhammer thrust away from toppling like a deck of cards. The relationship between the ongoing ruckus is seen as clock hands, which also feature prominently in the first segment, droop from their marks. Another great bit is seeing Étaix watering plants, raising up like a beanstalk, to then pull out and see them risen by a crane.
What’s great about this episode is the pointed thematics. We see that cause and effect play out physically across the cityscape, but it also is one that embeds itself inside the citizenry. At the doctor, a reflex test (cause, effect, it’s everywhere, y’all) demonstrates how life in the rat race begins to bleed into the personalities and behaviors of all who make it up.
Into the Woods No More
This final short is perhaps the most pedestrian, yet nonetheless a masterful work of comedy hijinks. In it, a woebegotten hunter, a put upon farmer and a couple who just really, badly wants to have a nice picnic all contend with nature and each other on a day outdoors. There’s less ingenious structural or narrative choices to gush about, but within minutes I fully surrendered. The setups and payoffs alike all hit their marks resplendently. Like the whole film, it’s comedy bliss.
