The Foundation of Memory: On Chris Marker's 'Photo Roman'

• Authors: Pitrus A.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The author examines the peculiar way in which Chris Marker 'is constructing movement' in his 'La Jetée', the 1962 film telling a fictional science-fiction story. Marker is cited here as saying his film was a 'photo roman', which were to point to the fact that the piece had much in common with literature and photography. Its dialogues are replaced by commentary, and the viewer has the impression that he is not watching a film but looking through a photo album. The story of the hero is made up of photos. The frames with stills - of which only one shot creates the illusion of a continuous movement - cause that the film spectator has the impression that he is watching things in motion. But as a matter of fact, he is only watching artificially 'constructed movement', a dynamic whole the director built solely from stills depicting the successive phases of movement. He argues that the method allows Marker to perfectly render the condition of the hero who travels in time in his mind. He also says that the represented world is deprived of a kinetic element because Marker wants to point to the literal and metaphorical stillness of the hero and to additionally emphasize the message of the film (the story of a nuclear apocalypse). In his concluding remarks, the author points out that 'La Jetée' is known as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's film '12 Monkeys' (1995).

Keywords

EN

MARKER CHRIS

Discipline

• ARTS_&_ARCHITECTURE: ARTS & ARCHITECTURE

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Kwartalnik Filmowy
• Year: 2006
• Issue: 54-55
• Pages: 231-236
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Pitrus A.

• A. Pitrus, Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Instytut Sztuk Audiowizualnych, ul. Golebia 14, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06PLAAAA01813884