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kottke.org posts about Chris Marker

The Time Travel Movie That Doesn’t Go Anywhere

So first of all, before you watch this analysis of Chris Marker’s fantastic La Jetée, you should watch the film itself if you’ve never seen it. It’s 28 minutes long, entirely in black & white, and is a “speculative fiction masterpiece” done with “422 photos, a voiceover, and a score”. You can find it streaming at Amazon, Apple, Criterion Channel, or Kanopy. You will not regret it. And then come back and watch this analysis/appreciation by Evan Puschak.

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Chris Marker, RIP

Chris Marker, best known as a filmmaker and for his film La jetée, has died aged 91.

Marker’s creative use of sound, images and text in his poetic, political and philosophical documentaries made him one of the most inventive of film-makers. They looked forward to what is called “the new documentary”, but also looked back to the literary essay in the tradition of Michel de Montaigne. Marker’s interests lay in transitional societies - “life in the process of becoming history,” as he put it. How do various cultures perceive and sustain themselves and each other in the increasingly intermingled modern world?

La jetée is available in its 28-minute entirety on YouTube and is well worth watching.


La Jetee

After getting an email from a reader last week (thx, david), I poked around a little and found the cult French film on YouTube:

Some notes on the film:

  • It was made in 1962 by Chris Marker and is only 28 minutes long.
  • La Jetée is regularly included on all-time best-of lists.
  • The film has no dialogue and is almost entirely comprised of still photography.
  • Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys was based in part on La Jetée.