Chris Marker Monografico

8/7/2019 Chris Marker Monografico

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Who is Chris M arker? Better to ask"How many Chris M arkers have therebeen?" Ever since the name Chris.M a rk el ' ( th at doL patiently w aiting for itscom) first appeared in the late Forties, them an born C hristian Francois Bouche-V illeneuve has developed into whatHoward Hampton describes in the fol-low ing pages as "the most unclassifi-able of directors." M oving back and forthbetween book and film , word and im age,past and present, here and there, M mkeris a n e ve r-e vo lv in g h yb rid. T ha t ide ntity -concealing dot was left off some time

ago as Marker became cinema's con-summate diversifier: w orld traveler, filme ss ay is t, w rite r, p ho to gr ap he r, p olit ic allyengaged int ern at ion al is t.

W h y " unc la ss ifia ble "? P artly be ca us e3 2 F IL MC OM ~IE NT

The crowd looks up:A Grin Without a Catof the multifaceted (and, it has to besaid, m ostly invisible) nature of the w orkitself but also because M arker's achieve-ment has been to make him self prettym uch invisible, too. N o m ean feat, giventhe c ult o f p ers ona lity th at s till do min ate scinema. But it's been a lifetime's work,this Cheshire Cat-like vanishing act,this reverse-engineering of an absence.Modesty, or a kind of inverse narcis-sism? In truth, they matter little, them otives for his self-rem oval to the statuso f a r ec urr in g f oo tn ote , h is m u lt ip lic ati onuf surrogates and heteronym s (M arker,Krasna, Y am en ek o, e tc .). A s a ta ctic al plo yin the w ider strategy of keeping m oving,e vo lv in g, a nd p ro du cin g, it's b ee n th e w orkthat has mattered most, and his vanish-ing act has had the beneficial side effectof making the voice, the personality,reside entirely in the work. The M arkernon-persona of "The M an Who Was(and W asn't) There," the Parisian Oz,would have been just a great gag had thefilm s not been quite so unforgettableand behind which, the suspicion grew ,there may have been some kind of realw izardry at w ork.

There have been tim es w hen M arker'sr en ow n h as b ee n littl e m om th an a c in ep hile sw hisper, a rum ored sighting of a face saidto exist in only a couple of photographicimag es . Bu t s te ad il y, t he wh is pe rs h av e g rownin volum e, and cine-kids find them selves

discoursing enthusiastically w ith m ovieelders about that black pearl at the heartof cinem a's crow n jew els, La Jellie . O t;about the "spirals of tim e" that have encir-cled them , one generation after the next,in San s so le i l. It seem s to m e, and evidentlyto all the other writers in this two-partd os sie r, th at t he w his pe rs h av e n ow r ea ch edsu ch a p itc h th at th e qu es tio n ''\VllO is ChrisM arker?" m ay w ell be w orth po sin g a new.

So, w hat do we k now a bo ut M a rk er? '1 11 alhe was born in Paris-or U lan Bator-in1921. That he was a published writer illhis m id-twenties, producing a novel, acritical essay on the playwright JeanC irsudoux, and a num ber of collaborati ve"m ontage texts" incorporating w ords andim ag es , a s well as regular contributions tot he p ub li ca ti on s Esprit an d C ahiers duc inema. That he w as a socially engaged left-ist w hose travels w ould take him to C hina,the U 5S H,K oren, C uba, Isra el, Japan, andm any points in be tw een. T hat he w as a c oll -aborator wi th o th e r Iilnunakers, notably AlainResnais, before he began m aking his ownfilm s and that, in the 50-plus years sinceh is f ir st f ea tu re , Olympia 52 (5 2), h is o ut-put has included film s of varying lengthsf or th e c in em a , d oc um ent ar ie s fo r rv, col-le ctiv e film s, written commentaries fo ro th er f ilmmak er s, and m ultim edia andvideo work,

It's tem pting to reduce the great diver-sity of M arker's output to a checklist of Ilatthematics, time and memory, word andim age, struggle and liberty, etc. B etter tolet this dossier's contributors guide youthrough the M m'ker labyrinth and to pro-ceed by indirection, taking the detoursoffered th ro ug h the ir c ho se n a ppro ac he s.In some cases these take the form ofexplorations of specific film s (L e [ olima i ; M arker's m ost recent w ork, Remem -b ra nc e a /T hiJ lg s to C om e; his film s of thela te F iftie s a nd e arly S ix tie s). E lse wh ere ,the approach is them atic (H ow ard H am p-ton 's overv iew o f th e Marker ' "m emor y z on e"and C atherine L upton on his ever-chang-ing relationship w ith technology) or geo-graphic (O laf M oller on the film maker'slife lo ng re la tio nsh ip w ith J apa n in P art lI).

To paraphrase the man himself com -menting on Japan: "If you want to gelto know M arker you can as well inventhim."-CHRIS DAIlKE


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D e finin g q ua litie s of th e p erip he ra l v isio n-ury: o bliq uit y, m o de sty , t ho ug htf uln es s,hum or, critical e ngagem ent, a retrospec-tive appreciation of experience. H is peri-patetie zigzag mind t ra ve ls o n (w h at e ls e? )e at fe et, s id lin g th rou gh cmw ds o f re fu ge e-lik e im a ge s. M e llin g- plo t s pe cte rs c om e [ romverywbere=-Moscow, Tokyo, Paris,

Havana, O kinaw a, C ape Verrle, Vertigo 's, an Francisco, Tarkovskys Solan's , cyber-sp ac e, O uija b oa rd s. (I k eep f or ge tt in g: IsLa J e l t S e th e archaic p reque l to 12 M o n k e y sor the science-fiction sequel to Laura?)These shadow couriers carry nom adicgeographies w ith them , imprinted liketattoos: "the map becomes the territory,"inscribing the precise latitudes and lon-gitudes of unspoken lives, hidden con-tradictions, telltale traces, calm, measuredvoice m akes itself heard ahove the w hitenoise of w ars, pol iIi ea l s av ag e I)" implodedrevolutions. 11draw s us in w ith th e c on fi-d en tia l, c la nd es tin e tone of a tiny adslippe d into the Prood p ers on als: lu cidalertness seeks lik e- rn i n de d companion-ship, with eye toward escaping globalnightmare o f k am ik az e ideologies, DOAutopias. dom ination h)' consumption,Throughout a serpentine journeyint(}-and ou t of-the pa st, C hris M lllk erhas been the m ost unclassifiable o rdirectors; a whimsical-my, tical-dialec-tical link betw een Zen and Marx? AZone poet stalk ing Ihe inn er I if e of his-tory? N ature documentarian trackingtha t m os t e lu si v e o f e nda ng ere d s pe cie s->subjectivity? 1 5 lurker the late, semi-lam ented 20th century's most p itile sscoroner or its last partisan? H is body ofwork meets us on it'; own h er eti ca l te rm s ,less a series of discrete mo tio n p ic tu re sthan so many passionately sketched-ou t chapters. Call e ac h a "C on vo lu te ,"u sin g W a lte r B en jamin 's n om en cla tu re a ndth e OED's definition: "Ro lle d lo ng itu di-n al ly u po n i L o ; e I f , as a lesf in the bud." O neby o ne , p ie ce by piece. a


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o r (\011.1'5('., I have one sitting in the cor-ner of m y living room , too---a Sc reamsomeone gave me as 11 fond token of ashared history, though the Red Army capshe go t fmlll iO l souvenir stand in T ianan-men Square keeps falling off th e pOOl"thing's h~ad. I t, too, is a d inosaur of sorts,u n d o a Ia the one M arker's girl graspslike a Leddy hear, if you look at i t from acertain perspective, you can just about see A Grin Without a Cat x 4"the blm k hole' of history condensed ini ts : ;i lent banshee mouth. (That "0" is alsothe spyglass-teie cope shape he loves toinsert in the frame: zeroing in, a s it w ere .].'5;) this is the summ ing up," a Marker nar-rator would say: a cheap novelty item toshow how much meaning can be emptiedou t o r the w O l i d in a wave of indil ierent massp rodu ctio n. YeLthe same inanimate thingm ay also bl:' filled with personalizedmeanings, made a beacon for the future,a repository of mem ory, or a pinata whoseillusions are ripe for the bursting. Con-st-iousnessis no t aiheme or a trope in thiswork-it's th e un-rarefiedair hIS films 3hrealheveven i f they sometimes mustdo n g'i.lSmasks 10 w ade through the stencho r I. le cum pos i n g lie s.

With Marker, the same motion thaiw eaves layers of evocation also peels themhuck: homing in on the beauty of images,h e a ls o in terrogates them endlessly. Addone other ineffable quality to this meta-phys ica l-mater ia li st p enumbra: the fa ct th ath is ( jlm s aft' so little circulated, so hard tot ra ck d own .. always something of a chanceencounter. Is larker then th e greatestliving film d irec tor (e ven though he does-n't make "[ilms" exactly, or quire "direct"the-m in the conventional sense o r Iheterm)? I would answer that his work,though uneven by it s velY exploratory,I ee li n g- i!s-way- u n d e r-t he-skin na tu re ,equals th e o bje cts o r his a rdo r: Verl.igo,Metlvedkin's Happiness , Tarkovsky's TheM i rr o r . Only not in tum, bu t all at once, and 4more I.IS w ell. T he re 's a he ad strong over-a hund a nee of ta nge nts, impre ssions, sen -sations ..and idea here tha t goe s a gainstany sm ooth grain of shrink-w rapped,hoxed-iu, edifying perfection. This is thes ig na tu re ' o [ cinema's last dissident, like alugged MaJ('vichcross found in a n a ncie ntH uhlev pain tin g, the future a lre ady pre se ntin the past and vice versa, the bittersweetlu llaby o f "nega t ive signs of li fe."

In other words, the M arker touch.Houm rd Hampton re sid es in th a; suburbo f th e Zo ne k nown a s th e l /o jave Deser t .

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One Day in the Life of .Andrei Arsenevich

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The Last Bolshevik x 2

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::bec1jJ'-rf4t'1 + '- v:R MEMBRANC OF THIN'S TO COM' EXAMINES T EPERIOD BETWEEN THE WARS THROUGH THE PROPHETICCAMERAEYEOFDENISE BELLON. BY MICHAELALMEREYDA

From the Bellon archives (left to right): Salvador Dali, Henry Miller with Eve McClure, and Marcel DuchampIf a man ha learned to think," \ roteAndre Breton, "it hardly matters whathe i s t hi nk ing . At bottom, he is alwaysthinking about his own death."Breton is a recurrinz pre -enc in Chris Markr's newv i c ! a R em em b ra n ce o fT h in g in C om e ( o uu en ir d 'u n a lJ el1 ir)though the [ilrnmak r him-elf-an e xt re me ly agile

think rat8l-idest ps or atleast suppr sses, dime!' coo-ternp lation of his own rnor-t al ity while searching oUIhi roric gh . ts, clu s, an dport nts of tragedy in th workof departed colleagu 0 niseBellon, French photojournal-ist and world travel r in the

adorab le daughters, on e of whomYannick Bellon, shares a directingcredit on this film. Also, as a member

all but rO l'go1ten R epublican attemptto reconquer Franco's Spain.

Remembrance oJThi l lg. \ to Come is alovingly opaque tribute to H el-1 0 1 1 , a virtual rurnmage sal" ofherlife's work, but the ['ilm 's Iullpower and reach have evel)'-thing to rio w ith N hu -k cr'f; abilityto s e impending doom in nearlyevery image in the photogra-ph r' archive-Io conjure con-nections between Bellon'ssu bj~cts and the currents offeelin g and thought th at w ou ldcarry the world into W8r. It'smole, r to w hat ex Lent Marker hasleaned 011 hi collaborator sinceth e film's e xp l ic it voic("-thenow of narrated commentary-i. uniquely, familiarly 1arker'.The m ode is di . .ursive, descrip-

ti ve, C ) L l ick-witt d, den . The tone is atonce t snder and stoic. A 'ertain Lough-guynostalgia i s . o rn ehow enhanced by the fartthat Iarkers narrator is a w om an (A lexan-dra tewart) with a calm, lucid vuice. Aif mboldened I an air offerninine/felineamusement, intimate asides t lescopeinto riffs of wide-rangi ng specu lation.And, c lo thed in this voic . Markel" s stemaphori: m. be .ome seductive,On Bellon" vocation: "Being u pho-tographer mans n ot o nly 10 look hut to

Thirti s, a lime "when post-v 31' wasbecoming P I ' -war."

Throughout 1 J 1 e T hirties and Forties,Bellon photographed Paris str Is and'orld's Fair xhibits, made portraitsof Breton an d other surrealists, and

chronicled the childhood of h .1' two3 6 F ILMCOMMP.N 'J '

Bellon by Bellonof the A l l iance PI,oLo ag ncy (P I' -cursor to M agnum), the photographermanaged to get ou t of Ihe hou agood deal, docurn .nting A lrica und rFren h colonial rule, Legionnaire inMegreb, prostituL in 1'0 co, m il-itary preparation. in Finland. BeingJel'l'ish (nee Hulrnann), she wail dout th war in L on-"capital oftheunderground, . Marker inform u -butby 1944 she was at large in thePyrenees, recording an "in ane' and


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sustain the gaze o f others." On MarcelDuchump: "He wanted 10 reveal thevanity o f a lt. One d ay h e'll be L I.ed 10 vin -d icate the art of vanity." On the pomp of~ o rl d's Fairs in the Thirties: It seem:th at n atio n on the v rge of war make apo i nt of paradi ng Ihei r weal th.' On 0neo f Bp .l lo n 's last surrealist g ro up p or tr ai ts :"T he his tory of the c nturys end wi II hethat of its maoks."

That. aid, the re 's a n e ng agin g, ama-teurish simplicity to the m ovie. Th...filmmakers pan and zoom their waythrough the photos, with an occasionaloverlay o f fi lm [OOlaf,>e-stoek sho ts of w w naerial combat, a cl ip from ~'euillade's Le sVo;mpre s-anJ now and then a jarringvideo cutaway, in color, show ing handsflipping through a magazine or hook. Aplaintive .. n ih scor enforces a mount-ing en. e of dread.'J he 111m . er es up a fe l imazcr ofDenise Bellon herself. glamorou.1 ouna,with a wide, bright smile in ever. shot.But her eagerness. optim i rn, and senseof adventure are attributed to the spiritof th e time she w as documenting; her per-sonal. story is implied, or buried, in herpictures. (A perfunctory G oogle searchreveals that she raised tier daugh le rswi th a second husband, later married athird, and died at 97 in 1999. The film-makers leave out even the: (' bare hio-graphical facts.)

m ore awkward om ission, and a sig-nificant measure o f Ma rk er 's mao [cryas a conjurer, involves the blunt truth thatBellon was not a particularly remarkablephotographer. Her pictures of Dali's1938 World' Fair show do not comparefavorably w ith the lush an d loopy photosby Eric 'chaul recently collected in Sa l -vado r D ali 's D ream o] Venus , docu-menting the artist's 193 9 exhibition in N ewYork. Tn th e massive Modern History 0 /t he S u r re a li st Movement, just issued hyChicago University Press, totaling some750 pages, Bellon 's I\lork is n it her citednor seen. Unlike, say, L ee Miller, one ofthe era's truly gifted cam era-carryingicons, arker's muse did not poss san extraordinary eye. Perhaps th i: m ake sIarker' project more inter sting. Bel-

lo n wa. imply and mysterious] ,a solidwitness, a reliable observer in rernot loca-tion ,a photojournalist \ hose pic lire'become revelatory only when re-cup-Lioned. nearly 70 ye1.1rS later, hy a poet,

Al I the same, there's cause to concedethat Remembrance of Things to Come

regisLers as a retreat from Marb~r'sessay/portraits coneerning ~ [low film-m akers M edvedkin (T he L os t R ol.~h e-v ik and T arko sky (O ne D ay ill th e L i P ~of Andrei Arsenevich). ou could taketh ese e arlie r f i lm .. like the nex one. ashrilfiantunorthorlox slide lectures, butthey also work as p oignan t po. thu rn nu se xte nsio ns o f lhe lrienrlshipr they recountand the careers the)' review. They'repmh ing ly persona l, sear ch in g , p la yf ul e venquarrelsome. They make their pointsw ilh riskier cinematic conceits and Iea-lUll'! mo re d ir ec t evidence of Mmker' . affec-[ion and sense of loss, m aking this currentproject seem tame h y c om pa riso n. T o w ha textent did Marker know Bellon-e-or Bre-ton, D ucham p, H enri Langlois, or an y o rthf' ether figures appearing in this f i l m ?Hf". self-effacing en ou gh to steer d Ill"of pel. onal admiss ion, .But a tame arker film i wildb another standard, and in aluable underan y circumstance. nd this late: Ihap-pens to weigh in \ ith h .ightened rele-vance. D epicted as a recordi ng angel, asidekick to W aller B enjam in's Angel ofHisLory blown backward into the future,Deni~ Bellon provides a portrait of a w orldunder the cloud of unseen and inevi t ab lew ar. Y ou d on 't have to look ton c losely fiJIdire parallels w ith the current era, 01 tofeel, w ith Ma rk er , an implicit ache and

screening. "if h is shyness protected him[rom close scrutiny, Iremember hi shands bell r than his Iace. I-Ie v a.clutching his video camera, one of theearliest compact models. which he con-rf~ssf!d to love and take with him every-where. like a cherished pet, tonepoint he set it on 1 .1 table (his knobbyknuckles never far away) and, grinningcompared the camera Loa cat. 1wonderedthen-and still wonder, up to a point-why he cho re Lo entrust the narration ofhis films to people with calm . neutralvoices. The film s would be so differenti f ' hf! narrated them himself But maybehe cons ider s his w ork a lre ad y h ri rn lu l withhis own personality. M aybe he has adream of himself as an objective, lucidlevel-headed observer, M aybe he sim plyPI' Iers Lo hear hi. words spoken hylexandra f lewart. In any case, piainlenough M arker is intent on rejecting

the lalse authorit of routine dor-urnen-tary oiceover, trading standard (ma s -culine) a . iurance fo r something quieter,deeper, more questioni ng , and, no t inci-dentally, m ore poetic.Wh j I e we're somewhere near th esubject, I find i t curious that M arker, inth is new movie. sal utes Breton all aconnoisseur of visual images ("He harta perfect eye, as some have perfectpitch") and quotes him at length, hut

Bellon was, simply andmysteriously, a solid witness, a reliableobserver in remote locations,a photojoU'rna,list whose 'picturesbecome revelatory only when re.captioned,nearly 70 years later, by a poet.aw e shadowing the spectacle of peopleanrlthings that no longer exist,I happened to be in th e a ud ie nc ewhen Mark er p re sent ed The lasi Bolshevikat th e S a n F ra nc is co International FilmFestival i n 1993. Iknew o f ' h is id enti-fication w ith cats and ow ls=-evasive,predatory creatures-and h is ave rs io nto b ei n g p ho to gra ph ed (the man call heglimpsed in a sake bar. hiding behind anapkin, in W im W end el '. Tok '0 Ga).surpri e. then, to see Chri ' M arker in th ....flesh, an impish figure, unaffected amieven com ical, w ith a quick stam meringvoice and a giddy air of agitation-a al -1ic W oo dy Allen. I hovered in the sm allcrowd gaLhered around him [lCler th e

never gets around to confessi ng anappreciation of Breton as a consciencefor his generaLion, a voice combiningmoral imagination w ith ly ric al im p uls es .a poet pushing the boundaries of every-thing he undertook. Who other thanChris Markf'r, on his ownidiosyncraticterms, ha s carried this voice into film-m aking and into the current. perilous cen-til". ? Taking in ellen hi. simplestmov i . .. .-crammed \ ith inklings, warn-ings, and recognitions-it's impo '1-hi....no t 10 feel a ru s h o f g ra titu de .M i chael A lm ere ydas Ia t e s t fi lm, Th isSo-Called Disaster, is a d ocum en ta ryportrni: a/Sam Sheperd:


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MMAKERS. BY SAMUEL DOUHAIRE AND ANNICK RIVOIRETOINE DE BAECQUE,

in g the urne subj set 20 years later.Marker has overcome death by prayer,"When you read thal. wri uen hy someoneou don't know , w ho knows not hi ng o f h owthe mills carne to he. you rep .I a certainemoti on .. 'ome lh in g" has h appened.Whe n I IIImemory , your CD-ROM, w asre lea sed in 1 999, yo u sa id tho ! yo lt h adfound the ideal med i um , IT/hal do youth ink oJf)I'/J(

Wilh th e CD-RUM, il',.; not so muchth e te chn olo gy th ats im po rta nt a s th e an-hi-tecture, the tree-like branching. the pia)'.We'll mak DVD-ROMs. he DVf) tech-nology I; ; obviously superb, hut it isn'talways cin lila. G odard nailed it one andfor all: at the cinema, YOLI raise youreye, to the screen: in lronr o f th e te le vi-sion. you low er them, Then there is therole o r lilt' 'huller, QUI of lilt' lwo hoursYOll spent! in a m ovie the ate r, YOll spendon e ol th III in the dark. rt',; t hi s n oe tu r-nal portion that slays w i th us. that llxe .our memory of a film ina d ifferent waythan the .ame film seei on television oron a monitor, BuL having said that, I t'be hon ..I. I've just w atched the ballet fromAn mer i can ill Paris on th e screen of myiB oo k, m id J vel)' neatly ret Ii . covered the1igh tness that we fe It in London i11 ] 952.w hen 1 was there w ith [A lainJ H esnais and[G hislainJ C loquet during the filmingof Suuues Also Die. when we start devery day b y seeing the 10 a.m , show ofA n A mer ic an i n . Pur i s al a theaterinLeicesi r 'quare. I thought l'dlosl thatlightnesr forever when I saw i t on cassett .

Do es th e d em o cr at iza tio n o f t he m e a nso f f i lmmu .A- ing (Oil, tlig ua l e ditin g, d is -tribiuion via the lnternet} sedu ce theso c ia l ly e ngag ed f ilmmak e r I lu u )"0[1 are?Here's


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~1 man th ro ad . b lo od y an d so bb in g, p eo -ple lost interest in them .. To m y greatsurprise, Ionce round mys If explainingth l it in a o f Battleship Paemk in to a gmupof a piring Iilm makers in G uine< l-Bi " au,L I ina an all print on rusty I els; now rhosfilmmakers are h av in g th eir film s sel ct dfo r nnpetition in Venice (ke p an ey e ou tfor the n L musical by F lo ra G om es). Ifound the Medvecikin syndr me asain ina B osnian refugee .amp in 19 --a1 ) l U 1 C h o f k id s who h ad le am j all th tech-niques of television, wi ti l newsreaders an dcaptions. by pirating sa! llit TV an dusing equipm nt supplied by an NG(nongovernm ental organization . B ut t h ) 'didn t copy th dom inant languag -they just u ed the codes in 01'(1r toestablish credibility and reclaim thenew ' for other refugees. An e mplaryxp lien' . The. had the tool and theyha d the neces it . Both are indi pensabl .

Do TOU prefer teleoision. mov i e s on ab ig sc reen , o r su rfin g th e ln te rne i?I have a complet ly schizophr nic

relationshi] with television. hen I'm feel-in g lo ne ly , [adore it, p arti .ularly in 'tiler's heei cable, It s curious how cabloffers an entire catalog of antidotes to th epoi sons of standard TV. If one netw orkshows a ridiculous TV 1110 i abou tJ apoleon, yo u can nip ov rio the Hi -Lory hannel to hear H enri G uillerm in'sbrilliantly mean commentary on it. J f l:II iterary program makes us s u b m it to aparade of currently fa hionahl lerna]1I10n tel's. w e r-an 'hange over to M ezzoto m templat th lum inous fa ofHel ne Crimllud urrounded by her

i f th e o th ers 1 1 ve rar mom nts Ih n I

remember ( arn not alon . an d that's, h n I fall apart, The expon ntial "ToMIlof tupidity and vulgarity is so me th in g th ateveryone has noticed, but it', not ju tilvagLI sen e of disgust-it" a con '1 ' lequantifiable fuel YOIl ca n measur i tby th volume of the cheers that gre t thtalk- how hosts, \ hich have grow n by analarrni ng number of decibels in the lastfive years) and a crim against human-ity. ot to m nLion the perman nt aggres-, ion' again t th Fren h lanzuaze ....tid ince you are exploiting I l l y Russ-ian p nchant [or conf ssion.} mu I aythe w orst; I am allergic to commercials.In th early ixties, making 'omITI r .ialswa perfect! ace ptahl ; n ow , ii' orne-thin" thai no on Iill own up 10 . I can 1 0110lh in g a bo u t it. T I l is mann r o f pi a ing40

the mechanism of the lie in the serviceof prui e has alw ay irritated me...eveni f Ihave to U(~11i t that th i diubol i ca l p a tronIras occas ional] y fa en us som of the mostbeautiful im ag s you can see Oil thesmall SCl" en have you seen the D avidLynch com mercial w ith the b lu e lip s" ).Bul cynics al IVa s betray themselves,and there is a small consolation in theindustry's own term inology: they stopshort of calling themselves "creators," sothey CIlIl themselves "creatives.'And th~ movies in all this? For th e rea-

'on mentioned abov , and under th eo rder s o f Je. an -Lul ,; , I've said fo r a Ion" timt hat film s should he seen fi r51 ill the-aters, and thst tele vi ion and video a re o nlythere 10 refresh y ou r memory N oll' that I11 0 longer have an Lime a t all to go to th e

Sans soleilcinem a, I've started seeing films by 1011'-erinz my eyes. w i t h an ev r i nc reas ing senseof sinfulness (this interview is indeedbecom ing D ostoe kian). But to tell thetruth I no longer latch mun)' films. onlthose hy fiienrls, Of curiosities th at an Am er-ican acquaintance tapes for me on TC~1.Then' is too much to see on the new" 011th e m usic channels or on the indispens-ubi Animal Channel. A nd I feed 111)'hunser lor [io tion with what is b far themost accomplished ource: tho e greatAmerican TV series, like The Practice.There is a know ledge in them, a sense ofstory and econom y, of ellipsis, a scienceof Iramin g an d o f c uttin g, a d ram atu rg y an dan acting style that has no equal ,m y w here,and (: rtainly n ot in H olly wo od .L a Je te e in sp ired a v id eo b y Dav i dB ow i e aru l [dm. by Terry Gilliam. Andthere:~ also a bur called "La jetee, , in[apan. How rio -oufeel abou! this .uli?Doe s Ten . G illia m ~ imaginal i on in te r-sect wilh yours?Tetry's imagination irich enou gh [hiltthere' 1 1 0 ne Ito pia with compari '0115.Certainly. for me 12 Yfonkey ia mag-ni f .enl film (there ar p sople who thinkth ey are flatl ling me by saying o th erv is e,

thai 1..0 ./(!{tlf' is much hetter-s-the worldis ,I 'Irmlae place). I ts just one of the I I t lppysigns, like Bowie's video. like the bar inhinjuku (Hello. ' Iomoyo! rib know that fo r

almost 40 years, a group of Iapanes 0.1'gcl tin


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that. 'U,. ,011. Exc pi for M aspero.there x a -n 't a w ord in th press. And so-s-Failure.\' a" Ih'H reaction too personal? By

chance, it wa paired with a sim ilarevent. to which no line o r friendshipattach d 111'. T he sam e year, CapriccioR conls released a new re . .ording b y Vik-tor Ullman. Under his name alone, thitim e. P re vio u ly, he and C idcon K leinhad b en recorded as "There. ienstadtcom po sers , . (for you Ilger read rs: T here-si nstadt was the moo I c on .e ntr ati oncamp desianed to be visited by the RedCros : the Nazi. made a film about ilc a l l e d 1 71 e Fu h re r G i ve s a Cily to th e J ew s .)W ith the best int ntions in the world, [call-ing thern] that was a way of pullingth m both back in the C


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;'d1~O!JHOW THE "GENTLEMAN AMATEUR" OF THE DIGITAL ERAUSES NOT50NEW MEDIA TO MAP THE WORKINGSOF HUMAN MEMORY BY CATHERINE LUPTON] r emembe r d isc ussing C Iui s Mmker's lastleatur f i 1m , L ev el F iu e, wit h. a friend ofmine when il f i r s l curne ouL. he wasgt;m~ra.llyenthusiastic, bu t irritated by whatshe descri bed as "an 0]1I man' s v iew u f th elnternet." I did noL share her annoy-ance, but I could see what she mean t . Evenat the moment of its release. before theimpscr of the accelerated 0 1 IS l I Iescencthal kxlay make> ; the film look definitivelydated, the computer hardware and dig-i la I hypermedia eff ,t"ts-wh.ir:h bothappear in Lev el F u e as .liaracters, and hadheen used t o c re at e II-Iuoked distinctlyquaint, old-fashioned, and clumsy. TIl!"Apple I " I " cs lila t is seen in t he Ii Im wasnot ..~ recent model, w ith its lo w-r es olu -tion sem en and discolored plastic easing.] a dm ir ed t il l" "G a ll eIY o f Ma."ks" sequencf'fo r its lateral e voc atio n o f 'Lam11" (Cather-ine Belkhodja) as a mise-en-ubyme ofreceding and ambiguous projection ,a n il f i l l " M a r k e r ' s eviden t r e i ish i n < I1 11 U S -in g himselfwith Rog er Wagr ll :'I "s Hyper-studio: but nevertheless I winced inwardly


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Ghosts within and without machines: Level Five (above) and Sans solei! (below and inset)

I;


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The new Bible win be the eternal magnetic tape of a time thatthe film consist in pari of spoken recol-lections, but these reach us by at least tw oremoves-they


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ll have to re-read itself constantly just to know it existed.madeleine links to my unsettling expe-rience of the archaic w ithin the newte ch no lo zie s o f Ma rk er 's r ec en t w or ks . Bothexperiences disrupt the orderly tem po-rality [l(~ xistil1 g in w ha t B en jamin w ouldhave thought of as the "mythical" pre-sent, which if ; certain of its ow n identityin relation to past and future, and wh reprogress from the past and intu thefuture appear. preordained and free 0['influence from the historical forces ofhuman choice and action.

The mythical present is especiallydom inant in the realm of discourse aboutnew te ch no lo gie s, a lth ou gh this pm l'er ism anifested, paradoxically, as an insis-l en t o ri en ta ti on tow ards the future, Thm edia historian W illiam B oddy has exam-ined some ofthe my th ic al d imens io nsin the d velopment of popular dis-COLU~e5 about i r tual reality ( V [ { ) . Quot-in g Tom Gunning 's observation thai"technology can reveal the dreamworkl o f s oc ie ty a s m uc h a s its pra gm aticrealization, a nd e xte nd in g it to in clu d >the ways in which we imagine anddiscuss new technological develop-menls, Boddy rem inds us that tech-nological progress is never simplyneutral, progressive, and practical,but is actively shaped hy unconsciousfa ce ts o f desire and w ish fulfillment asmuch as consciously form ula te d in stru-mental needs. H e argues that \ e UI"inclined 01' invited to live so much in t hIantasy w orld of w hat w e think te chnologycan, sho u Id , o r m ig ht be that we ign or e thgap between fantasy potential and prag-matic realization. Put another way, weoften don't a ck nowle dg e th at th e te ch no lo gywe have now does not match up to ourmyth ic p ro jec tion ofits (r uth er th an o ur own )c ap ah i l il ie s. Boddy c on tr as ts b lith e, a llir -malive claim s m ade hy early advoc ates 0( "I'll that i t w ould allow users to cornplet lyo ereorne the social and phy ical lim itu-tions of their bodies w ith m ore cautionaryvoices that remind us that the p hy si ca l b od ycannot he transcended by VR, only tem-p or ar il y r ep re ss ed a nd f or goLLen.

M arker's w orks offer an altarnativemeans of navigating the gulf betweenth~ real i ty of technological develop-rnents and their fantasy potential. Theirapproach is to invoke the memUI)' ofth e future in or ler to establish a hisror-ical, rather than a m thical, persp '-live on the present. The time trav 1narrative of La [etee is perhap ths mostobvious and the most complex exam-

ple.Th pa: t of the film corr ponds tothe present in which it was made, It fie-tional present is both a n ima gi n d lutureand a metaphorical displacem nt oftraum atic: and tahoo aspects o f po itwarEurupe's historical past and the imme-diate present. The guards in the under-zround prison cam p where the hero of the1 1 1 m is used for time t r a v I xperim s ntsspeak in G erman, aw l their acti n alsoinv ok e th e e xte ns ive L Ise o f to rture by th er l'e neh aut ho ri ti es during t 11 lgerianw ar, The future proper in La J '/ ,( fe j a. i-ence-Ii l io n p ro je cti on o r p rf cte Ihum an capability, which, signif .antly,is offered to the film 's hero but which herejects in favor of annihilation in thepast, S a ns s o le i! describes a film tbat, an-

Sans soleildor Krasna never made but that h wasa oin g to c all k m s s ole il. It xm cerru a tim etra eler from the year 00 who r turnsto his planet's past. H e is draw n h y a fra g-mented memory of the Mussorgs k y songcycle that gave K rasna his film 's title, andby a c omp as sio na te f as cin atio n with th e"thi rd-w orlders of tim e," w ho are doom edto the pain of forgetting, but w ho, becauseo r this, enjoy emotional exp rienc , fur-eign 1 .0 his own epoch, 2084, D. t 'n -m inute film made by lark r in 1984,im agines the French trade union c r te-nar from another 100 y ar into tilefuture and explicitly rem ind vi wersLhu tIhe shape that history m igb lL ak e inth meantime is entirely up (0 them.L ev el F iv e projects its vision of L h .apac-ity of th . Internet into a science-fictionfuture borrow ed from W illiam G ibson 'snovel Neuromancer, in w hic h c om pu te rsL J iers "jack in," connecting their n 'I"VOUS. ys terns direct l to the n tw ork, Leve l F i ve 'simaginati el nhanced capa .itie for the',: arid ide eb make for a strikingj uxtaposiuon w ith the m undane-look-ing and old-fashioned te .hnologicul

hardware t ha i appeal 'S in th e film under-l in in g ( ra th er Ihan elidi ng) thp. g ul r thatexists between them.

These science-firt ional conceits arecertainly playful, and ll1/]Y eern rather[00 obvious in their neat reversal ufexpectations to have m uch critical im pact.Yet they do o O e r an insi. tent rem inder' ufthe PI' sent's hi 'lirical nature, b . invok-ing a pel pecti ve [rom \ hich o ur p re se nthas itself become absorbed by m yth:e it he r ic on ic ally f ro z 11 i nto manufacturedno lalgia or sirnpl: ' < 1 . 1 into oblivion-another empty ooille los!'. d ou t of th e w in -dow.ln borrowing Ihe d vi c ,s 0 sciencefiction, M arker's proj cted rutures maybe read as engaged in their own fashionwith Boddy's analysis of the way that

even our m ost pr'u"m 8lic discussionsof technological and sci ntific devel-opm ent are i n f u r ed w ith a good mea-su re of d es ire and f ant asy p rojec r ion .

Hetuming \0 m} ' a f fe ct iv e, awkwa rdr e o pons to V.wel f ive , I re cog niz e th atits power d pend. not only on myability to understand M arker's film ashaving the quality of Benjam in 'sdialectical image, which can pullfragm nts o r past and present (andindeed future) toa ether in a con st el -lation that activat historical con-sc iou sne ss. It a lso re st 011 the w ay that1 am involuntarily returned 10 my ow n for-

gotten pia e wi th in hi . tOI' ram ernbar-rai ed because I am being r turned to them om ent when Le v e l f iv e ' quaint-look-in g g ra phic s wen' nell' and exciting,forced to recall a hi. tori cd time IIive Jthrough but w hose m em ory I have rew rit-ten, forgotten, 01' repr . s ed in order to sub-scribe to the myths of the t ch nologicalpresent and future, My sense of shockcomes [rom an Apple Mac that belongsto thaL ur-histori .al limbo of technol-ogy thal is old enough to be ob olctehuL not IlL I old nough to have beenrecycled as nostaleia, I o th in g lo ok . '0old-lash ioned as that which ha i onlyjust gone out of fa . hion, In trying 10understand these responses to some ofMarker's works, I am .ompel led tounderstand m yself a, a participant in themyths of the pres nt, an I al the sam e L im eto g ra sp a n a lte rna tiv e p ers pe ctiv e all his-tory that m ay have the- potential Lo dis-rupt that mythologizing impul e.Ca th er in e L up to n is a eru o r Lecturer inF ilm and Telev ision t .udies al Roe-hamp t on University o f nrrey

4S


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RECONSIDERINGLEJOlIMAI'S INVESTIGATIONOF FRENCH SOCIAL ATTITUDES IN THE EARLY SIXTIESBY SAM DIIORIO[ocaled in the gray area between per~sonal essay and objective document,C lu is M9 I" ke nmd Pierre Lhommes ] 96;Jfilm L e [oli mai is both a tender portraitora cilY and an indictment of a way o fl il e.1 1 1 addition to being one of the key worksabout the French reaction to the A ll!;er~ia n war, thef lm is a1:;0 a Iu '" ' reach in g m ed -itarion on 111e relarionshi p hMwt'enindividual and society, one that corre-sponds to the leftist social vision elab-orated in much of Marker's work. For anu m ber of reasons (not the least of whichheing that till" v id eo cur re nt ly circular-ing in the .S . is m issing a significant por-L io nof the o rig in al film ), n one of th is m ig htbe evident to the casual viewer. Under-stand ing Le [oli mai becomes easieronce th 111m is placed within thelarger currents of French cu I~ture ill gener


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d signing outfits for her pets. In what isundoubtedly one of th e m ost o utla nd is hcat scenes in Marker's filmography, wes e p811 of her spring collection show n01T by a surpr is ingly pal i en i feline n iodel.

Rehearsal fo r La. F em m e sausag , aplay b y A lg er ia n writer Kateb Yucine.

An interview regarding the Frencharm y's use 0 1 ' torture Juring the A lger-ian war.

A discussion with students frem th e pres-tigious pre p school Janson de S ailly th aItakes pla ce d urin g ta rg et practice, Markeran d a nether interv iewer cri Liei ze t he stu-de n ts' naively el i Iis t po l i ti ca I s lance.

A folk concert at the Theatre 1ouf-ferard. Agnes arda, rrnand G a lli, a nrlA lain Hesnais are all in attendance.G ilbert S amson's song of a homesicksoldier is inrercut w ith footage of theprep school students being trained Loshoot an d ra dio m es.


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'It's P I' lly rare to be abl to take a walkin an im age of childhood." The e w ordsf rom Chri Marker's 1958 f i l r n - e ay Let-lerjimn S i i J e r i t J . are echoed lalm ; in La feMe,a (jim about "a man marked b y an im agefrom hi childhood. ' Both of these "imagesof childhood" are repris d an d subtlym odular d at th e h g inn ing of a ns s ole ilin th e film's opening "im age of happiness":three children on a road in Iceland.Between Letter and La Je/4e lies Marker's" lo st p er io d" -wh at one might can the

Is Paris Burning?: La Jetee

Letter from Siberia and Sunday in Peking

4a F1LMCO MM E T

childhood f his oeuvr . Maybe 'childhood"is to o precious a designation for w hat is,after all, early work, but il's work that ismore 01' less lost to us, orphaned from th eback catalogue if not disowned by it screator; When th e inematheque Franeaisepresented a M ark er re tro sp eetiv in 1 99 7,t he d ir ec to r denied p ra ctic in g a ny "ret-1'0 pective self-censorship" in chao ing1 96 2 (th e y ea r o f both InJette an d 1 . foUmai) as hi ea r Zero. Hath r, it was theca that Marker deemed thi work to bemerely "rudimentary" compared withla ter efforts . "Rudimentary" i s a c ar eful lychosen word , on e thai suggests "primitive"an d "fundamental; with th i work rep -renting th e ty ro fforts th at contain allth tr op es . tr ic ks , and strategie , all th eob essions that will recur lh ro ug ho ut th efilmmaker's career.Ifthe three long-form films that Markel 'm a de b etw ee n 1958 a nd 1962-Leaerfromib er ia , D es cn pu on . o f a S tr ug gle ( 60 ) and

C uba Si {61}-have th e le ge nd ar y a llu reof"lost" wo rk s, w h at of the others? halof the shorts, such as Sunda y in P ek ing(56)'? What of th collaborations withlain Re nais, su h as Statu es Also D ie

(59), whi h M arker and Re nai co -directed, or Totue L a m e m oir e d u, m o n de( 56 ) and L e Mysti !re de l 'a . le lW r q l ti m : e (57) ,to \ hich M ark er co ntribu ted commen-taries? Th fascination of th e filmsdoesn't only resid in their invi ibility. Inthem , one d iscovers the elem ents thatremain central to M.ukt"r 's activities andthat have alway informed and IUnpar-all 1 to h is filmmaking. It's la t s ly b comefa hionabl to refer to Mark r as a "mul-tim edia artist, , particularly ince herecently produced an Intemet-themed fea-t ur e f il rn ( L e ve l F i v e ) , a C D - R O , \ 1 , and a num -ber o f v id eo installations. But this missesth fact tl at Mark r was M ultiple M diaM an avant la lettre-active i n p ub li sh -in g and as a w riter a nd pho to gr ap he rp ri or to and t hroughou t h is f ilm carrel: la-ter-and La [etee are film s, of course, butboth also exist a books. The text of let-te r was publi hed in Comme n u u r e s 1(6 1), w hic h. w ith its com panion volume

Comme t ua i r e s 2 (67) colleoted wordsand image from the film s M arker hadmade between 1950 and 196 6. M arkel"relationship w ith the publishing com -pany Editions du Seuil d ate s b ac k fu rth erstill: to a photography-and-text coli tioncalled Coreenes (59), a critical m ono-graph on th e w rite r J ea n Girardoux (52),a novel, L e Co eu r n et [Ihe Tidy Heatt.4.9),as well as a long-standing and impo rt an trole in designing the series of travelbook "P tite Plan te" in the Fifti ,which, according to G uy Gauth ier (thauthor of a recent French study onMarkels work),"revitalized i ll us ua te d p u b-lishing in the Fiftie .' een in thi con-text, La Jetee was a project born not onlyfrom it director' a tivities a a pho-tographer but equally from his involve-ment in b oo k d es ig n. And it, too, is alsoa hook. Or, rather, the pho to - roman (a sM arker d ieribed th e film) becam acine-roman in 1992 , w hen the dire ctor pro-duced from th e still photographs an dcommentary text a further hyhrid obje t .

lf Marker was seen to have inno-vated in h is e xp lo ra tio n o f irnag lI'textrela-tions on th printed page, this wasequally true of hi early filmmaking. Itwas Andre Bazin who observed in a1958 article that, with Sunday in Peki l lg ,t he f ilmmake r had "already profoundlyIran 'fOlID d t he cu st oma ry relation hi pof th e text to the image. " Bazi n tared thatMarker "brings to h i films an ab olutelynew idea of montage, which 1 shall call'horizontal' .... Here, the imag does no trefer Lack to that which precede it or toth e one that follow bu t Iat rally, towhat is said about i.l.... Montage i madefrom the ear to the e ye ." B as in developsthis formal insight into a de cription ofMarker's m thod by examining perhapsth most famous equence in Let ter.Ov r the same three shots of a' treet inth e iherian city of Yak utsk-i n whichwe see, consecutively, a b us , w ork er s to il-ing on a road, and a local man glancingat the cam era as he 'rosses it fie ld ofvi ion-run three different comm n-taries, T he first is conven tional Com-


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rnunist-era propaganda; the second ,"Voice of A merica"-style m i iiniormation;the third is "n utral" in tone, bU L nomo t o r le ss r svealing for that. Tn th i actof c om ic al ly j ux ta po sin g r eg is te rs . M a rk el ;according to B az in, re vea ls th at "impar-tiality is an illu ion: the operation inw hic h w e p artic ip ate is th ere fo re p re cis elydial Iical and consists of scann ins thesam im age w ith thre e diffe rent intelle tualray and receiving back th echo." In ihort,a philosophical question-"W hat dothese im ages how?"-is posed w ith lit-erary legerdem ain. nd Letter, in all itslite ra rin es s, a U its b ag gy pistolary diver-sity and trav logue-happy self-con-. ciou ness, i tru ly the model for manyof the film s tha t follow , al l the way to anssoleil, wh er e t he t im e -t ra ve le r (this l imegiv n a name, andor K ra na ) w ri tes tohis anonym ou fem ale pen pal that h ha s"been around the world s veral time andnow only banality still interests m e."

Banality ha a face and a nam e. Y oumu t m ake a E , i nd o f bana l i ty . l n Sans s o l e uMrukees sur rogar e-he te ronym t racksi t "withth , lentles n of a bourn hunter," justas M arker h im If has don throughou t hiscareer. Think of Le loti mai and its ver-ite v ox -p op s. O r o f t he J~ well-known 1 heK o um ik o M yste ry (65) fo r which larkertrav led to Tokyo o ste ns ib ly to film th e 1964Olympic G am . and ended up m aking aportrait of a young Iapane e w om an,Koumik o Mura ok a. K oumik o gives "banal-ity" a face and a nam e and h en ce b ec om esth o pp os ite o f" xotic." But t he n, perhaps"th xotic" i nly the m ask that banal-i ty we ar s, a nywa y.

A lert to th e exotic. its lures and per-il. alike, [arker ha invented for him -self the persona of a voyager in m u 1ti piedim nsions. E very continent-hoppingtrav logue is irnulraneously a \ ayof lie-ing through time; every destination isacknowledged as being already frozen inon image-rep rtoire or another. Tak the"childhood irna e ofth G ate of Pek ingth at o pe ns Sunda y in P ek ing , f or e xam -ple, over whi h M arker comment , " For30 years in Pari . I'd been dream ingabout Peking without know ing it' a hestep into the im age from c hild hood an dmal hes it aga in t th e t r ri to ri al r ea li ty .It's an im age of the past et again" t a pre-s en t th at is itse lf in flu x, an d it's ofLen beenno t d that M arker's trav logues privilegecountries in m merits o f t ra n f orma ti on ;China under M aoism ( ZUlday i n P e k in g ),S iberia dm ing a S ov iet-prom oted Five-Y ear P lan of industria lization and elec-

trification (L ette r fr om S ib er ia ), Iraelin its in fa nc y ( D es cr ip ti on o f a S tr u gg le ),Cuba attem pting to onsolidate Cash'o'sRevolution (CubaSz) . nd whil som e ofthese film s have the flavor of 'B ulletinsto the Bro therhood of M an" about them ,e/wage di patche s 1 1 1 out in the spirito r international solidarity (in this respect,M arker the 1 It-leaning C ath olic h um an -i 1 was ve t much of his generation),th y also r present the development ofCl film ic la ng ua ge th at w ou ld wrest th e trav-dogue Cree from it s taint o f e as ef ul Colo-nialist ob erva tion. nd thi is wh reMarker's a hievements com e into theirown and III rit the tag of "greatnes ."

Mruker h a s explored an d d ev e lo p ed 1 : \ 0of the m ost rudimentary aspects o r f i l m lan-guage: th e lo ok and the cut, "The look" isunderstood here as being both that of thecam era it elf'(hence, the look of the film-maker and, by exten ion, the look of thespectator) as well as "the look returned"(the reciprocal gaze of the person beingf i lm e d ) . I t' s th i s l o o k that becomes h i s modusoperandi, his favored Ietishized momentand whose motto comes in S an s so le ilwhen, \ ith a career's worth o r frustra-tion behind him at cinema's underem-p lo ym ent a nd m is us e o f t his e xtr ao rd in ar ilyp ote nt d ev ic e. K ra sn alM a rk er c om pla in s:"Have YOll ever heard o f a n yth in g m ore stu -pi d than what they leach at f ilm 5 ch001-not to look at the cam era?' In m yimagination, a y ou ng Ma rk er -f ix ate dvideo-artist is out th re som ew here labor-in g o ve r a [o un d-fo ota g opus that \ ouldhe composed entirely of an as mbly of al lth ose eye s staring into the hea rt of Marker'slens. In fact, M arkers entire output ishu t throuah with the e moment that

at lin gere d over and m editated upon . C in-ema in general is described as l'im-primerie da regarc i (th "printing press ofthe look") and M arker's own cinem ahym ns "the m agical func tion o r t he e ye ."In this r spect, he stays true to an effectof i inema's OW11 childhood that his alm amater, th French N ew Wav , activelyexploited: the m om ent w hen a passerbyglances into the cam era 's lens and w hichthe F re nch film h i s to ria n J ea n- Pi er reJeancolas has narn d the "Feuilladeeffect" after the cin m alic pioneer L ouisFeuillade, w hose ow n film s, often shot onth e s tr ee ts o f P a ri s, in clu de d su ch moments,Whe n c onventiona l fiction film s ca pturethese glances they com e acm as merelyc ha nn in g, n aiv e, a nd u ng ua rd ed r em in de rsof prim itive cinem a. M arker exploresthem more probingly aware that there is

The money shot: La Jetees ome th in g mag ic a l < It work h re, somethingliterally transporting in this contactbetw een the camera eye and the hum aneye. Til contact he seeks is less of aglance than a gaze (and even w hen it i: onlya glance, he lingers on it like a ga? )keen to establish that mom ent when Iwolooks m eet in a kind of equality, w hen theeye is, quite lite rally, "ope n."In La Jetrfe th e o pe ni ng eye becomes

th e emb lem of lim . T he significanc . o fthis m om ent in the film is em phasized b ya brill iantly inventive, "rud im en tary"special e ff ec t w h os e impact i s wo rk ed upto throu 'h a refined. rh thm ic panoply ofc ro ss -fa de s, s up s rim po sitio ns , a nd fa de s-to-black. A woman's eye. open fromsleep at 24 Irames per econd, move-ment animates th e stills, and cinema isaw oken [rom a phnlo- roman.. B ut b link a ndGrimace without a face: La Jetee

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vou'll rni . it.It's intere 'lin g to co n id I'tile way the photograph in l. t: )clt!e if; a', 0-ciated both with death and reanimation,and to do so in the light of th first wordsof the commentary to if' Htu] Fou rCamel s a film m ade up ~ntirely ofthe pho-tographs taken in 26 countries between] 9 55 and 1965: ,. Phol ograp h y i.~ likehuntins, it's the instinct of the hunt \ ith-out the d esire to kill. lt's the hu nt ofangels .... One stalks. aim ', shoots alw ays deeply grate-ful for stuff that needs digging up inorder to be rediscovered, B ut one can't helpwondering whether urker's example-his solitary wanderinzs wilh camera andpen, hi . exploration o f th e forms of ssay,travelogue. and I'irl'll-pet'.'\on filnunak-ing-is not now an example whose tim!'has come arou nd again. , n I 1)\' cameras,desktop e ditin g s oftw are . all these nell't echno log ical t oo l> ;a re cu rr en tl y nv it al iz ingfirst-person filmmak in g. I t w uld be asalutary real ization for those exploringthis form to understaud that they an"not the first to do. o. That they are them-s el ve s t he c hil dr en o r an e lu si ve , mercurial,quixotic lather who, w ith a play of words[or his name, with a speedy cut and lill-'click of a shutter, ha . removed himself'into a no th er d imens io n, leaving the res Iof us 10 make our OWI\ journeys. not ;;(1I11LLCh following in his footsteps as trav-eling ill a time machine of his design.C hris D ark es sho rt v id eo portrait o]C hr is M ark er': in clu de d 01 1 {h e tecentl yreleased rle /Argus F i lms om o f La

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Chris Marker Monografico