Monsieur Hulot

Monsieur Hulot is a character created and played by French comic Jacques Tati for a series of films in the 1950s and '60s, namely Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Mon Oncle (1959), Playtime (1967) and Trafic (1971). The character of Hulot (although played by another actor) also appears briefly in François Truffaut's Bed & Board (1970).

He is recognized by his overcoat, pipe and hat, and his distinctive lurching walk. He is clumsy and somewhat naive of the evolving world around him, but still has a friendly, well-meaning, and good-natured persona. His escapades usually involved clashes with technology and the problems of living in an increasingly impersonal and gadgetized world. In Trafic, Hulot, the designer of a new camper-car, “struggles valiantly… against the perpetual roadblocks of cars, policemen, bureaucrats and just people.”

The name of "Monsieur Hulot" is believed to echo "Charlot," the French name for Charlie Chaplin’s character The Tramp. However, "Hulot is more distracted than the Tramp, he cannot disentangle himself from situations as effortlessly, and he is not as central a character, he is not ‘the reason for the film.'" As theorized by David Bellos, Hulot may even represent an inversion of The Tramp: “Hulot tilts forwards whereas Chaplin tilts back; Chaplin’s puppet-like waddle is very different from Hulot’s ‘springy glide’; and there is a difference in costume too: the bowler, tails, huge pants, cane and cigarette are replaced by a pipe, various accessories, pants that are too short, a sports blazer and a Homburg, although the striped socks are borrowed from Keaton.”

Of Hulot, Jacques Tati has remarked that he is “tall, and he cannot hide –he cannot conceal himself behind a lamppost or anything else –whereas Chaplin could hide behind a small trash can, leave his hat on the can, then sneak behind another small can, while making people believe that he was still in back of the first one, whereupon he would come back to grab his hat. Hulot, by contrast, has the stature of a rather steady or stand-up guy; he behaves exactly like any man from Paris or even from the provinces.”

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Wikipedia