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Chris Marker

Early Film Writings

Chris Marker author Sally Shafto translator Steven Ungar editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Minnesota Press

Published:16th Sep '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Chris Marker cover

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.

"One of the pleasures of Chris Marker’s films is the singular literary voice of his inimitable commentaries, in all its wit and quicksilver intelligence. That voice is present here, being honed through contact with others’ images and before Marker moved from the page to the screen himself. This groundbreaking collection introduces aficionados old and new to work likely unknown to them and allows us all to discover another dimension of this prodigious artist: Marker the film critic."—Chris Darke, author of La Jetée (BFI Film Classics)

 

ISBN: 9781517913199

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 13mm

Weight: 312g

248 pages