Christ Marker died yesterday, and I’m really sad about it, because he was definitely one of my favorite living filmmakers. Until he died.
For those of you who didn’t go to graduate school, or don’t have intellectual pretensions (like me), Marker was the director of films such as La Jetée and Sans Soleil. He was also a travel writer, a militant, a hermit, and an avid lover of cats.
His films should still be available on Netflix. Check them out.
Photographer of the Week: Jean Chiabaud
(Chiabaud took the photographs in Chris Marker’s La Jetée, a 1960s post-apocalyptic film composed entirely of Chiabaud’s still images, with voiceover. I’m dreaming of dystopic worlds almost exclusively this week, and because of it, La Jetée has been on my mind. It’s worth watching in three parts on YouTube, but my favorite of Marker’s is Sans Soleil, which you should watch on Netflix.
The films are meditations not only on images, but also on a deteriorating world. Such issues will seem especially poignant as protests—hopefully more effective and intelligent ones than Occupy Wall Street—will continue to sprout up around the United States. They won’t be big, so they’ll be mediated by images, which today make larger statements than the number of people participating in an event. There is unrest here in the United States, and it will be documented.
I’m not a supporter of OWS, but I’m a supporter of people beginning to ponder history, and our future as Americans. Changes need to be made so that we don’t lose our privileged way of life…or at least can prolong our bounties and freedoms for a bit longer.)
I’m pretty sure that every “intellectual” in the world has already seen Sans Soleil (1983) by Chris Marker, and now I have. So what does that make me?
I’m also pretty sure that Netflix Instant reached the height of popularity many months ago, when I still didn’t have Internet in my apartment. But I got Internet last week, and now I know about it, so it’s brand spanking new to me. Did you know it is awesome? I didn’t go to three birthday parties because of it, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t showered since I last left the house. Four days ago. I kid.
Anyway, as you probably have both Netflix Instant and an intellect in your apartment, you should watch Sans Soleil. The script is incredibly beautifully written, and has the undertones of yearning and melancholy, like a great love story, even though one is never referenced. (Did you know melancholy is mourning without letting go?) Despite the fact that it was made when I was a year old, living on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, smoking cigarettes with my non-intellectual 22-year-old parents, the film is incredibly poignant to me. Here are some of the best quotes:
For my ennui: “I’ve been round the world several times and now only banality still interests me.”
