
- 272 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Formative writings by French avant-garde filmmaker Chris Marker
It is hard to imagine French cinema without La Jetée (1962), the time-travel short feature by the reclusive French filmmaker Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, better known as Chris Marker. He not only influenced artists ranging from David Bowie to J. G. Ballard but also inspired the cult film 12 Monkeys. Marker’s influence expanded beyond his own films through his writings for the French monthly Esprit as well as anthologies and newly founded film publications.
This first English translation of Marker’s early writings on film brings together reviews and essays, published between 1948 and 1955, that span the topics of film style, adaptation, and ideology, as well as animation and the debates surrounding 3-D and wide-screen technologies, ranging from late silent-era films to postwar Hollywood’s efforts to contend with the rise of television. Readers will find commentary on Laurence Olivier’s 1944 screen adaptation of Henry V, a scathing review of Robert Montgomery’s Lady in the Lake (1947), critiques of Walt Disney productions, a discussion of the pitfalls of prioritizing commercial success over aesthetic values, and more.
An indispensable resource for cinephiles and scholars alike, these texts document the emergence of Marker’s critical voice and situate him alongside such contemporaries as André Bazin and Eric Rohmer, as well as the future French New Wave figures Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. They show how his remarks on individual films open onto his engagement with films as social and cultural phenomena.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Editor's Introduction: Writing, Film, and the Marker Moment
- Note from the Translator
- Henry V's White Horse
- The Imperfect of the Subjective
- Corneille at the Movies
- One Hundred Masterpieces of Film
- Orpheus
- Siegfried and the Gaolers, or German Cinema Enchained
- The Aesthetics of Animated Film
- Gerald McBoing-Boing
- An Ornamental Form
- The Passion of Joan of ARC
- Letter from Mexico City
- Letter from Hollywood: On Three Dimensions and a Fourth
- Cinerama
- The French Avant-Garde
- An Auteur's Film
- Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Cinema, Art of the Twenty-first Century?
- Farewell to German Cinema?
- Hollywood on Location
- Animation Film: UPA
- On the Waterfront
- Translator's Notes
- Selected Sources and Filmography
- Index