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"A cat is never on the side of power.” - Chris Marker
A prominent figure in French cinema, Chris Marker’s influence has transcended national borders. With his blending of fiction and documentaries, explorations of time and space, as well as all but inventing the film essay form, Marker’s work has continued to inspire since his passing in 2012. Born in 1921, he was a reclusive figure, whose life itself toyed with fact and fiction. Unlike his iconic counterparts—such as Agnès Varda with her distinctive love of purple or Jean-Luc Godard and his dark glasses—Marker famously sent images of his cat in place of his own portrait and refused interviews. The name Chris Marker itself is a pseudonym, his real name being Christian Bouche-Villeneuve. Yet this retreat was not one from the world, as his films remained deeply connected to politics and people. This retrospective celebrates the recent centennial of the filmmaker, writer, journalist, photographer, philosopher, and lover of cats. Marker lived through a turbulent century, marked by war and revolution. His first foray into cinema was working on Alain Resnais’s documentary about the Nazi concentration camps, Night and Fog (1956). (Marker had been detained in camps during World War II for his communist beliefs.) In the 1950s and 1960s, his work was marked by the essay form, as he traveled to China, Siberia, and Cuba. In 1962, he came to international attention with his now-iconic sci-fi short, La Jetée , made while he was filming the sprawling documentary about contemporary French society, The Lovely Month of May . In this decade, deeply influenced by the anti-Vietnam War movement and the revolutionary spirit of May 1968, Marker put aside his auteur-driven career to work with the activist documentary collective SLON. He returned to his personal political work in the 1970s and 1980s, and became interested in digital technology in the 1990s and 2000s. Abundantly prolific and never wedded to one medium or style, Marker may have disliked the idea of a retrospective, being someone who resisted the spotlight and linearity. But his films, so filled with formal innovations, philosophical depth, and curiosity, remain endlessly engaging. This series highlights some of Marker’s beloved works, as an invitation to always choose the path less traveled.
Programmed and notes by Kiva Reardon
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