Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Chris Marker (born: Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve) / Mongolia or France / 1921 (wikipedia)
Budget: unlisted
Gross: unlisted
Synopsis: In post WWIII France, the human race has been relegated to living in underground tunnels where a few ex-soldiers are being experimented on. These experiments consist of using favored memories of the host to unlock the pathways into time-travel. One man's memory of a beauty on the edge of an airport pier nets him an extended stay under examination.
Narrative and Visual Keywords: still photography couple with narration and German whispers. Sound design plays an integral role; and slow dissolves help to create ambiguous compositions.
Characterization/ Dialogue: Above ground France is reduced to rubble and edgy darkness lies underneath. In the lab, patients are forced to dream as German scientists whisper to one another in a disconcerting way.
Camera/lighting/editing technique: Still yet shaky photos / in black-and-white using a noir style of cast shadows / edited in a motivated, thought-provoking way that tells a running story using stills.
Political/ Social Commentary: In the future, our captors are those that have won the big war; and experiments along the lines of what Adolf Hitler was capable of our now amplified via new tech. / Our memories are the keys to our past... and our futures.
Historical Relevance/ Recognition: This short was the influence for the script of 12 Monkeys, of which was written by Chris Marker and filmed by Terry Gilliam.
Notable Collaboration: Marker produced the digital images used by Michael Shamberg in his film 'Souvenir', a film in which was heavily influenced by Marker's works. [Chris Marker Documentary]
Random fact, Etc.: Marker was influenced by Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' a decade prior to La jetee, and the shot where the time traveler and his manifestation point to a tree's rings is an homage to a shot in 'Vertigo'.
How would you classify the visual aspects of this film in relationship to theme or mood?
Desolate stills with subjects that lack overzealous emotion puts the viewer in an uneasy place where uncertainty and vulnerability reside. Darkness lies in the depths and memories are sought after, memories that can resemble stills in our own minds. There is no hope... but there are still relationships, albeit ones invented by the mind and studied by lost souls.
Does sound play an important role in the piece? If so, what?
"Nothing tells memories of ordinary moments, only afterwards do they claim remembrance on account of their scars." The low, droning narration sits just above the jittering stills and causes the viewer to dive deeper into every individual composition each still provides. The sounds of the planes, the choir echoing over a destroyed Paris, and again, the quiet German murmurs over the human lab-rat; all bring the pictures to animated life. It does what the pictures don't need to do.
What is your subjective take on the piece as a whole?
Learning about Marker and his solitude, I see him all over this piece. It's a tortured yet peaceful piece, and I want to re-watch it again and again. The way each scene is described in both this and Sans Soleil is of a detailed and honed-in on nature. I can't help but feel the beauty the film-maker seemingly feels; it's made so obvious, yet would I have felt it on my own?
It's as if this still-photo method is as fresh now as it more than likely was back then, and the only reason it hasn't been emulated is because no one as capable as Marker gave it a shot. The guts it took to consider doing this project in this way is commendable alone.
It's a success because I can relate to it beyond it's unlikely premise. I have memories that are "a unique image through peacetime to carry with [me] through the whole wartime," so that touchstone early in the film caused me to glom on from the start. It's a creative premise told in a unique way, and in 1962 it must've made heads spin.
The production values ooze care and even the jitter of each frame create a warmth that brings me closer to the vision. Every frame pleases; every transition is motivated. This is the ultimate auteur experience because Marker's work evokes the travels of one introspective being:
"The process of making films in communion with oneself, the way a painter works or a writer, need not now be solely experimental. Contrary to what people say, using first-person in films tends to be a sign of humility:
'All I have to offer is myself'" --Chris Marker, 1997 [Chris Marker Documentary]
No comments:
Post a Comment