I’m not that keen on the film maybe because it is a photonovel, but then it is also the very essence of cinema, with that brief magical moving image becoming all the more memorable. And isn’t the camera a moving eye? A perfect choice by Marker
Film. It isn’t long enough to be a novel, and photo-short-story doesn’t have the same ring.
I’d say it’s a film. The images are often shown with just a few seconds between them in movement (although maybe I’m just splitting hairs.) I suppose I’m inclined mostly to call it a film because A) I’m a big fan, and B) whenever I remember it, I don’t remember it as a 28-minute series of images; I remember it as a film! Not that calling it video art or a photo-novel would diminish it in any way…
Cinema is the best word. For one, there is movement: the smile. And moreover, it is aware of itself as a medium when put against other forms of movies. It is more self-conscious of it not being simply a window one looks through. It draws attention to all the things that exist in other films—editing, mise en-scene. And the actors still need to act. Indeed, they have to convey more with less.
I don’t know what you mean, Umberto, by target.
La Jetee = la photo roman
A photo roman is something in print, so what do we do with a photo roman in motion? (One of Antonioni’s early “documentary” shorts is about photo romans!)
This is what I wanted to say: could we consider “La Jetee” a “film”, even if it’s just a “photonovel”?
I think we couldn’t because of the lack of movement, actors’ intepretation and director’s touch. To me, “photonovles” are not “films”. So, I think that it is probably wrong rating “La Jetee” just like a film…
That’s all.
Actualy, Daniel, it can be both. Technically it is a style which can be applied equally.
The thing that is so magical about this film is that it leaves so much to the imagination, which is the essence of every great film. Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, I thought, was a perfect moving-picture vision of Chris Marker’s original version. I’m sure Marker would have been pleased. But to answer the initial question: Yes – it is most definitely a film, and the moving parts are left to the imagination.
its a film. its cinema. because it has to be projected like a film does, or broadcasted like television programs. its the only way to be able to see it. so that fact right there determines its status.
plus, and even more important, its edited. editing is the one thing that separates film from all the other arts. its what gives cinema life. “just as novels must be written, films must be edited.” i cant remember who it was that said that, but that encapsulates the idea for me.
“Cinema” is the projection of 24 subsequent pictures per second. You can’t show me the same picture 24*X times (where “X” is the number of seconds) and call that “Cinema”.
That’s just a “photonovel” (ie: a collage of photographies) !!! You are free to expose your pictures in a Modern Art Gallery, not in a movie theater…
If stuff like “La Jetee” were showed to the public on the evening of 28th December 1895, there wouldn’t have been no Cinema, I suppose !!!
Photonovel or cinema,
whatever you’d like to call it,
it’s superb.
So what is Warhol’s “Empire”? Or Brakhage’s “Mothlight”?
it is cinema. the pictures tell a story, and gives the effect of movement, whether its 24 times a second or 1 time a second.
plus, not all films run at a frame rate of 24×.
cinema isn’t determined by showing 24 frames a second. thats just one mechanical process. the art form is predicated on utilizing images to narrate something, and utilizing editing to sequence those images in temporality.
it’s a revelation, regardless.
You’re quite right, Christopher – I need to get more sleep before posting sometimes :)
Just saw this for the first time, and I have to strongly agree with this being a film – just as Marker’s brilliant Sans Soleil. Perhaps ‘experimental’ could be attached to it, but I think it is completely beside the point to get into these academic types of discussions, as it was when the subject of Russian Ark was brought up – is it a film or documentary? Is Man with a Movie Camera a film or not? Surely, the context of film as cinema is wide enought to hold the more imaginative and creative constructs, like Marker’s. Is Last Year at Marienbad a film or not, because it purposefully resists all attempts to define a ‘plot’ out of the material on screen? Don’t limit the criteria by trying to define what is ‘suitable’ to be considered a film, please.
i agree with you, except about the part for not needing academic discussion. these issues and concerns need to be discussed, whether in an academic setting or not. that’s what keeps the debate lively.
Well, was it printed on celluloid? If so it would seem to be a film to me.
I would absolutely disagree that video art has no “target.” The work of Bill Viola, for instance, is rife with “targets” or objectives which are more or less narrative.
And even more complicated is the example of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series. In that case, the works were all target, without a plot or affective hooks on which to hang your sympathies for characters.
I would absolutely disagree that video art has no “target.” The work of Bill Viola, for instance, is rife with “targets” or objectives which are more or less narrative.
And even more complicated is the example of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series. In that case, the works were all target, without a plot or affective hooks on which to hang your sympathies for characters.
Umberto L.
I watched “La Jetee” for the first time and I liked it.
But an obvious question came to my mind: can a photonovel like “La Jetee” be considered “cinema”? What the “Video Art” is like, then?
Technically, “La Jetee” is cinema, just like the works from “Video Art”, because we have 24 frames per second. Philosophically I don’t think so, because there’s no movement in a photonovel, and there’s no target in a “Video Art” work.
Plus, in a photonovel, the film-editor, the cinematographer and the writer become more important than the director and than the actor…
What do you think?