Mort de Chris Marker

July 30, 2012 5:11 AM

Chris Marker, director of La Jetée and Sans Soleil, among many others, and co-writer of 12 Monkeys, has died at age 91. English obit. French obit. Article on Chris Marker in the Guardian from 2002. Another appreciation from 2002. La Jetée on YouTube. Previously. Previouslier.
posted by chavenet (68 comments total)

(.^.^.)
posted by beshtya at 5:19 AM on July 30, 2012 [5 favorites]

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posted by Egg Shen at 5:24 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by jlbartosa at 5:32 AM on July 30, 2012

Y aura-t-il un jour une dernière lettre?
posted by theodolite at 5:36 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

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posted by tractorfeed at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2012

He didn't "co-write" 12 Monkeys. He wrote La Jetée, which is the source story.
posted by dgaicun at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2012 [5 favorites]

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posted by dbiedny at 5:41 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by .kobayashi. at 5:42 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by lapolla at 5:54 AM on July 30, 2012

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For the uninitiated, I present La Jetée (1962, English narration, SL Vimeo).

I don't know what the academe say, but IMHO, it's one of the most important films of the 20th c., up there with Citizen Kane. It's a betrayal if your only knowledge of the film is 'the source for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

"La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white. It won the Prix Jean Vigo for short film."

posted by vhsiv at 5:58 AM on July 30, 2012 [11 favorites]

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posted by MonkeyToes at 6:16 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by Chichibio at 6:17 AM on July 30, 2012

To my dying day, I will hold up La Jetée as one of the purest examples of how to tell the most story with the least number of moving parts. It is so rich and perfect and sad and haunting not because it is swimming with CGI and gee-whiz spectacle, but because it is saturated with restraint and shows an unwavering faith in the viewer's ability to create the story themselves. For the same reason I love radio drama, I love how this amazing film tells a story as much in withholding as it does in explication. More aspirants to the craft of storytelling need to stop here, along their way, and learn what not to include.

Just...oh my.

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posted by sonascope at 6:18 AM on July 30, 2012 [17 favorites]

La Jeté / La Jetée
posted by vhsiv at 6:20 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 6:20 AM on July 30, 2012

It's a betrayal if your only knowledge of the film is 'the source for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

Really ? a betrayal ?
posted by Pendragon at 6:21 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by Unicorn on the cob at 6:21 AM on July 30, 2012

I frequently refer to La Jetée as being "a perfect film"...


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posted by armisme at 6:21 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by Sys Rq at 6:22 AM on July 30, 2012

It's funny – just yesterday, I was thinking of "Grin Without A Cat," which is in my mind Marker's masterwork. It's the most eloquent political documentary I know of, a impassioned and incredibly detailed exposition of what happened to the New Left of the 1960s in France, in America, and beyond. The opening sequence is propaganda that transcends propaganda, a stunning rush of protest images that transfixes me and moves me deeply every single time I see it.

And then, just a few years ago in 2004, in Chats Perchés – a remarkable and whimsical film ostensibly about the sudden and mysterious appearance of M Chat street art in Paris – he returned to political themes, unable to keep silent about the Bush administration and the dawn of 'anti-terror' war, and the ways Europe reacted to it. That's another movie I urge everyone to seek out.

Chris Marker has had a profound impact on my life, and it's very sad to see his passing. It was so comforting, for a time, to know that he was out there, paying such attention, remembering the days in 1968, still watching the state of our regimes and searching out pictures of cats on alley walls. He will be greatly missed.
posted by koeselitz at 6:26 AM on July 30, 2012 [6 favorites]

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posted by Wolof at 6:29 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by hippybear at 6:29 AM on July 30, 2012

For those who know French, anyway, here is Chats Perchés on Youtube. It doesn't seem easy to find a version with English subtitles, I'm afraid.
posted by koeselitz at 6:32 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, Chris would have obviously approved of just before this one. Nice timing.
posted by koeselitz at 6:33 AM on July 30, 2012

Oh, and here is Chris Marker's last film in its entirety (it's only one minute long) – LEILA ATTACKS!
posted by koeselitz at 6:40 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's also apparently available in English on DVD from Icarus Films as The Case Of The Grinning Cat – and that comes with a set of his I haven't seen, Bestiary: Five Short Films about Animals. I believe I'll have to order that today.
posted by koeselitz at 6:46 AM on July 30, 2012

> Really ? a betrayal ?

La Jetée is a true indie, forged in the Paris of Guy Debord, his Situationists and Léttristes. Marker had to make no concessions with Hollywood to get it made. It's Art in a very pure form, direct from the artist to the inside of your head.
posted by vhsiv at 6:51 AM on July 30, 2012 [5 favorites]

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posted by gauche at 7:02 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by shakespeherian at 7:20 AM on July 30, 2012

There's a moment in La Jetée... I won't say what it is, for those who haven't seen the film... but for me it was the most truly startling moment in any movie I'd ever seen.
posted by spacewaitress at 7:29 AM on July 30, 2012 [8 favorites]

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fuck.
posted by silence at 7:30 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by interrupt at 7:32 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by cazoo at 7:35 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by dlugoczaj at 7:40 AM on July 30, 2012

I only discovered The Jetty a few weeks ago, and had not had a chance to see it.
Now I am doubly sad.
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posted by Mezentian at 7:46 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by dobbs at 7:57 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by shoepal at 8:07 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by cortex at 8:12 AM on July 30, 2012

Amazing filmmaker, amazing human.

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posted by gcbv at 8:26 AM on July 30, 2012

90 years and La Jetée, among others. I call that a good life.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:26 AM on July 30, 2012

. <--time travel-- . <--time travel-- .
posted by Artw at 8:30 AM on July 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

Obituary from the Guardian.

"The essay film, a form pitched between documentary and personal reflection, exploring the subjectivity of the cinematic perspective, has now become an accepted genre. Jean-Marie Straub, Danielle Huillet, Jean-Luc Godard, Errol Morris and Michael Moore are among its main recent exponents, but Chris Marker, who has died aged 91, was credited with inventing the form."
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:45 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

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La Jetee is the greatest film I have ever seen. I haven't seen a film before or since that has moved me as much. And spacewaitress, I know exactly what you're talking about.
posted by chrispy at 9:01 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by reductiondesign at 9:08 AM on July 30, 2012

What a long and rich life.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:40 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by lowest east side at 9:59 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by but no cigar at 10:07 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by nobody at 10:09 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by juv3nal at 10:56 AM on July 30, 2012

Sans Soleil on youtube
posted by juv3nal at 11:00 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by brundlefly at 11:04 AM on July 30, 2012

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posted by notclosed at 11:27 AM on July 30, 2012

"Grin Without A Cat," which is in my mind Marker's masterwork.

Agreed. I don't always agree with his politics, but that's maybe the greatest piece of art to come out of the radical left cinema that 60's France gave birth to.

Sans Soleil is one of my favorite pieces of film of all time as well. He was able to make you feel like the inside of the human head was the most interesting place in the world to be.

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posted by lumpenprole at 11:42 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh also possibly of interest:
chrismarker.org
Kosinki, (possibly?) Marker's youtube account
posted by juv3nal at 11:46 AM on July 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

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posted by doctornemo at 11:50 AM on July 30, 2012

> Chris Marker has had a profound impact on my life, and it's very sad to see his passing. It was so comforting, for a time, to know that he was out there, paying such attention, remembering the days in 1968, still watching the state of our regimes and searching out pictures of cats on alley walls. He will be greatly missed.

What he said. An amazing artist; I wish he'd made more films, but I intend to keep on watching the ones he did make. He'd be remembered for La Jetée all by itself—my first exposure to it was unforgettable, I saw it again every chance I got, and I was thrilled when I was finally able to own a copy. A life well lived.
posted by languagehat at 12:28 PM on July 30, 2012

Also markertext.com, which has the English transcripts of La Jetée and Sans Soleil, among others.
posted by theodolite at 2:01 PM on July 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

"La photo, c'est la chasse, c'est l'instinct de chasse sans l’envie de tuer. C'est la chasse des anges… On traque, on vise, on tire et — clac! au lieu d'un mort, on fait un éternel."

"The photo is the hunt, it's the instinct of hunting without the desire to kill. It's the hunt of angels. You trail, you aim, you fire and — clic! — instead of a dead man, you make him everlasting."

(via)
posted by juv3nal at 2:19 PM on July 30, 2012

I'll never forget seeing beautifully-restored versions La Jetée and San Soliel on a double-bill at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. For those who've never seen the Castro Theatre, it's a jewel of an old movie palace, with a working Wurlitzer that gets played before every major showing. Seeing a film there is always a magical experience, one that feels genuinely suspended between the historical past and the present. I can honestly say that seeing those films there was the most electrifying cinematic experience of my life. Pure, breathless rapture and ecstasy, from the first frame to the last.

Sans Soliel -- I'm convinced this film is sentient, that it comes to life every time someone falls under its spell, and that Mr. Marker managed to leave a living piece of his psyche in that Möbius strip of a film.

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posted by treepour at 3:11 PM on July 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

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posted by cozenedindigo at 4:37 PM on July 30, 2012

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posted by From Bklyn at 7:05 PM on July 30, 2012

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One of the greats.

Marker, by the way, was an active (though always pseudonymous) user of social media. For the curious, here is his YouTube account. Love that the first video he favorited was this.

Here is a Flickr account he stopped using in 2009. There may be others under different names.
posted by alexoscar at 10:34 PM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

After posting: I see juv3nal already posted the YT link. I can confirm via some FB friends who knew Marker personally that it's the real thing.

There are very few photos of Marker around. He never appears on camera during the interview he did with Agnes Varda (very worth seeing, especially for the sight of Marker's office -- the kind of place that could only belong to a genius or a compulsive hoarder or both). Anyway, one of the aforementioned Facebook friends posted a picture of him working in memoriam. It seems recent.
posted by alexoscar at 10:47 PM on July 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

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posted by drezdn at 10:21 AM on July 31, 2012

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posted by ubiquity at 2:07 PM on July 31, 2012

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posted by MythMaker at 4:21 PM on July 31, 2012

Chris Marker's Faces
posted by Wolof at 6:27 AM on August 3, 2012

a large portion of The Owl's Legacy viewable online here.
posted by juv3nal at 1:52 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]