About —
La jetée (1962) is a science-fiction short by the French filmmaker Chris Marker. Recognized as one of the masterpieces of world cinema, the film is a succession of still shots accompanied by a voice-over narration that conveys the author’s profound sensitivity to questions of time and human memory.
In this truly remarkable experimental work, one of Marker’s most admirable films, the filmmaker breaks with filmic conventions producing one of the most original films in the history of the movies. La jetée brings into play the formal properties of film, photography and literature in order to construct a flash-forward, an imaginary voyage out into a world destroyed by World War III. Structured like a photo-story, the film is a succession of episodes, marked alternately by violence and tenderness, which oscillate between the reality of a bygone time and the dream of a future still unknown. The haunting quality of the voice-over narration and the expressiveness of the images combine to make La jetée a timeless work of art. Practically fifty years after its first screening, the questions that it raises and the concerns that it voices as to the future of humanity are still very relevant.
Biography —
Chris Marker was born in 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Best known for his films, which have made an everlasting contribution to film history, Marker is also a writer and photographer. Interested first by documentary films because of their educational impact, he begins exploring new formal possibilities in the late 1950s and eventually develops a profoundly original approach that is considered a milestone in film history. Internationally acclaimed, he was awarded many prizes amongst which the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo in 1963 and the Cesar for best documentary in 1983.