Well, I haven´t seen any previous film told entirely through the use of still photographies, and the documentary-fiction poem “Sans Soleil” is also unique unless one counts Marker´s own earlier films like “The Koumiko Mystery”. I think that he is indeed one of the most original and creative filmmakers who ever lived, and that he ranks alongside innovators like Robert Flaherty or Dziga Vertov.
I think Marker genius does not lie in his technique but in how he turns the genre on its head. For example Sans Soleil is a fictional documentary.
He uses real images to make fiction whereas most filmmakers use fiction to explore reality.
I also love his explanations of Vertigo, in my opinion he as also created an alternate meaning to that film, another fiction thar arises from other reality. Or fiction from fiction in this case, but one that equals a very solid point of view.
I claim no real knowledge of film history, so the example I cite may well not be the first as it is, but 1) La Jetee wasn’t told with entirely stills, and 2)Orson Welles proceeded Marker in employing that technique with the intent of using it in contrast to moving images in The Fountain of Youth. As for Sans Soleil, Peter Greenaway was working with the notion of imposing fiction on “real” and documentary footage in multiple films years before.
“As for Sans Soleil, Peter Greenaway was working with the notion of imposing fiction on “real” and documentary footage in multiple films years before.”
Sources? Sans Soleil was made before Peter Greenaway had much of a career.
“La Jetee wasn’t told with entirely stills”
And it’s the one shot that thus gains significance, adding to the heavily psychological tone of the film.
@Law:“Sans Soleil was made before Peter Greenaway had much of a career.”
Water Wrackets
Vertical Features Remake
The Falls
Water Wrackets and Vertical Features Remake both write a story onto landscape images, The Falls mixes documentary footage with created footage and writes a story onto both.
You may also find short films by the Lumieres that use similar techniques as Flaherty, and Walter Ruttmann´s “Berlin, Symphony of a Big City” was made a year before Vertov´s “Man With the Movie Camera”, but what makes those directors innovators is the extraordinary brilliance of their approach. There are precursors for every single director, and even Welles was hugely influenced by Ford before making his first films, but this shouldn´t deviate us from the importance of their achievements. I don´t know wether Marker has seen the film by Welles or not, but as he stated himself did the idea originally come from a little stills picture apparatus he owned when he was a child. It´s possible that there doesn´t even exist true innovation in cinema, since many important concepts are taken from previously existing art forms, but as long as one agrees that the term"originality" is always ambivalent is there no need to decline Marker the respect he deserves.
And whether or not Marker saw the Greenaway films, the point of Sans Soleil was not its premise but the exploration of memory and cultural differentiation that it presented. Like Apursansar, I doubt there is such thing as a completley original artist. And even if there is, it doesn’t mean that artists who create works that have been done before (e.g. Godard was heavily inspired by Brecht), they still deserve much credit for the works that they create and the ideas that they express, and by bringing something unique to cinema, they are truly innovators. Unless Marker and Greenaway made the exact same film exploring the exact same themes, of course.
Beside, The Koumiko Mystery was made in 1965. Does Peter Greenaway really deserve the reputation of a cinematic innovator? (Yes.)
since many important concepts are taken from previously existing art forms, but as long as one agrees that the term"originality" is always ambivalent is there no need to decline Marker the respect he deserves.
Ah, and with that, we need to move on, but this being the web, the same “discussion” will happen over and over because there is no history on the web – everything starts with last post.
People need to understand that originality has been rendered meaningless in a postmodern world.
What matters is the POV – what they are saying and the way in which they use the medium to say it.
Maker is an innovator because of the things he said using the form of the content to say them, at a time when others weren’t saying those things in that form.
I think you need to dig a little deeper.. you are too concerned with technique and not enough about content.
I have seen nothing structurally similar to Sans Soleil but Robinson in Space, and even then the techniques are vastly different. I don’t think the idea behind how to structure Sans Soleil is very unique, but the result is—and the ideas behind its content are just simply unmatched in any other film I’ve seen. Even when you find a comparable single idea, the totality of the film is overwhelming and the ideas fit so many contexts that Sans Soleil is largely a process of layering them just to fit every interpretation in. It is, like a Borges short story, a rather succinct and finite approach to describing infinity (among other things).
The only La Jetee-like movies I’ve seen were inspired by La Jetee. Again, plot not necessarily entirely new, technique has its basis in art history, but the combining of them and the effect is unprecedented, and unmatched. Keep in mind, too, that style and content with Marker are more incontrovertibly linked than most other filmmakers, and that it’s largely impossible to describe one without the other. The only filmmakers that pull that off are the ones that we end up discussing on this board over and over and over again, like our friend Tarkovsky—a friend of Chris Marker, in fact.
But whereas “cinematic innovation” is concerned, also remember that Marker doesn’t consider himself a filmmaker, and is much more interested in multimedia and theory. La Jetee is also a picture book; Sans Soleil is also a computer program. They are also critical essays unto themselves, rendering most critical essays written about them quite redundant.
—PolarisDiB
“People need to understand that originality has been rendered meaningless in a postmodern world. "
in other words,how to alter meanings in pseudo-philosophical rambling…
Kubrick once said (and I’m paraphrasing) that “everything has already been done, all we can do is do it better.”
I don’t think I’ve seen a film more beautiful in it’s philosophy than “San Soleil.”
I think the cinematic innovations lie in his juxtaposition of words, images, and the story they tell together.
Not necessarily.
I’ve read into quite a bit of postmodern theory, and the theory that is based on the abject revulsion of “altered meanings” and “pseudo-philosophical rambling” is, in fact, the postmodern theory that Marker operates in and that, in my belief, should be well recognized and understood by contemporary readers today. Marker’s look into the first world and third world as “extremes of survival” are significant in that way.
—PolarisDiB
Jia Zhangke’s “24City” is a good recent example.
“People need to understand that originality has been rendered meaningless in a postmodern world.
What matters is the POV – what they are saying and the way in which they use the medium to say it.
Maker is an innovator because of the things he said using the form of the content to say them, at a time when others weren’t saying those things in that form.” – RWP3, above ^
Yes.
— I reiterate other people writing here: less focus on raw form, more focus on meaning, intent, and the choice of a technique to make those intentions clear.
La, J’étais > La Jetee. Some things are obvious when you step outside of the boundaries of your own culture and embrace the language of another.
Sans Soleil is a meditation on the geography of self and memory: inspired by a song cycle, which in itself is a key (impression, emotion, the inexactitudes of poetry and remembrance).
These are works of great cinema, and unparalleled innovation and prescience for their time.
re: originality — We are all either standing on the shoulders of giants, or kneeling at their feet.
Well said my friend, well said!
Who says innovation is defined solely by technique? And who says Marker’s innovation didn’t involve technique, among other things. Yes, he absolutely deserves his reputation.
“— I reiterate other people writing here: less focus on raw form, more focus on meaning, intent, and the choice of a technique to make those intentions clear. "
Amen, if La Jetee had been about giant blue people fighting for to preserve their environment against evil usurpers nobody who matters would give a damn about his technique.
There is one moving shot in “La Jetee.”
One can argue until the Disney cows come home as to whetehr or not Marker is an “innovator,” bu his status as a filmmaking great is indisputable. “La Jetee,” “Sans Soleil,” "Le Joli Mai’ and “Le Fond de l’air est rouge” are masterpieces.
Glad to see you’re still here David:)
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/video-of-the-day-chris-markers-overnight-2011
Interesting discussion going on in The Notebook about Marker’s latest video work. Join us! Or let the discussion spill over here if you prefer.
Bruce
I’ve enjoyed all of his films that I’ve seen (admittedly not many, but the two films on the criterion disc, in addition to a few shorts online) quite a bit, and I think there is a great deal of merit in his work, but I can’t think of any techniques he employs that I haven’t seen elsewhere first.