Coudal Partners Chris Marker b. Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve (1) b. July 29, 1921, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France filmographybibliographyarticles in Sensesweb resources “I write to you from a far-off country…” Information regarding the early life of Chris Marker, photographer, filmmaker, videographer, poet, journalist, multimedia/installation artist, designer, and world traveler, is scarce and conflicting. Film school textbooks and books on film history have arrived at a general agreement to treat any French filmmaker working outside of (or alongside) the French New Wave as secondary: exclusions include Jacques Tati – who, like so many other giants in the medium, worked on a wave of his own design – and the filmmakers who belonged to the Left Bank group. My association with Marker’s work began when, as a lark, I picked up the New Yorker Films videotape of Sans soleil, based on praise by Geoff Andrew, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and others. Filmography Olympia (1952) 82 minutes ¡Cuba Sí!
Part 3: Cinematography Section 1 - Quality This section explores some of the elements at play in the construction of a shot. As the critics at Cahiers du cinéma maintained, the "how" is as important as the "what" in the cinema. The look of an image, its balance of dark and light, the depth of the space in focus, the relation of background and foreground, etc. all affect the reception of the image. For instance, the optical qualities of grainy black and white in Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Maarakat madinat al Jazaer, Algeria, 1965) seem to guarantee its authenticity. On the other hand, the shimmering Technicolor of a musical such as Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, 1952) suggests an out-of-this-world glamor and excitement. Early films were shot in black and white but the cinema soon included color images. Juliet of the Spirits was the first Fellini film in color, and he intended to make full use of it. Contrary to popular belief (and Goethe), colors do not necessarily carry exclusive meanings.
Eisenstein's montage theory Montage--juxtaposing images by editing--is unique to film (and now video). During the 1920s, the pioneering Russian film directors and theorists Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov demonstrated the technical, aesthetic, and ideological potentials of montage. The 'new media' theorist Lev Manovich has pointed out how much these experiments of the 1920s underlie the aesthetics of contemporary video. Eisenstein believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images. Two or more images edited together create a "tertium quid" (third thing) that makes the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. Eisenstein's greatest demonstration of the power of montage comes in the "Odessa Steps" sequence of his 1925 film Battleship Potemkin.
Peak Moment Television Terry Gilliam b. Terence Vance Gilliam b. November 22, 1940, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA filmographybibliographyweb resources Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963) opens with one of cinema’s seminal dream sequences: a man is liberated from his car and coasts inhumanly between lanes in a swell of immobile traffic, extends his arms and coasts into the sky. Thematically this action is a durable metaphor in film, a staging of temporary freedom from vices and disturbances that bear numerous incarnations. A capsule description of Gilliam’s work obligates a variety: his films depict over three millennia of history, approach birth and death, youth and old age. Terence Vance Gilliam was born in 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gilliam is seen peripherally as an actor in Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969), though it is his handcrafted, cut-out animation sequences that is his distinguishing contribution. Comedy, inevitably, distinguishes each of Gilliam’s first films. Time Bandits ostensibly resembles Jabberwocky.
Touching the Film Object? Notes on the 'Haptic' in Videographical Film Studies As a longtime devotee of observing from a scholarly distance, I had never been grabbed before -- or, indeed, 'clasped' or 'fastened' (the original meanings of the Ancient Greek verb haptein) -- by Laura Marks' notion of 'haptic visuality'. But after I had made some video essays about films, the desire to explore hapticity and its workings took hold. This is how the above video/text collages and the below notes came into being. While I still believe that Marks' concept could benefit from a more thorough thinking through in relation to audiovisuality, hapticity -- a grasp of what can be sensed of an object in close contact with it -- seems to me now to be very helpful in conceiving what can take place in the process of creating videographic film studies. In the old days, the only people who really got to touch films were those who worked on them, particularly film editors. But, are there other ways in which 'touching film' is just a fantasy? Finally, does TOUCHING THE FILM OBJECT?
FilmmakerIQ.com Jamie Beck e Kevin Burg - Cinemagraphs - fotografie in movimento “There’s something magical about a still photograph - a captured moment in time - that can simultaneously exist outside the fraction of a second the shutter captures.” Jamie Beck La fashion fotographer newyorkese Jamie Beck, in collaborazione con il designer e motion graphic artist Kevin Burg, è l’autrice della serie “cinemagraphs”, gif fotografiche animate a metà strada tra video e foto. Immagini statiche decongelate e trasformate in attimi. I due artisti hanno iniziato a sperimentare questa tecnica durante la Settimana delle Moda di Milano, a febbraio. Il primo approccio è stato quello di sequenziare le immagini con loop in rapida successione. Il risultato finale è unico. Of course the technology to create GIF’s has been around for decades but I believe its potential for both expression and impact, within the fashion world, has yet to be fully explored. Jamie Beck
Retrospecto: La Jetée Nothing sorts memories from ordinary moments. They claim remembrance when they show their scars.Chris Marker. La Jetée. review by Simon Sellars The films of Chris Marker are often termed ‘essayist’, participating in a phenomenological play with deep roots in French intellectualism. La Jetée is perhaps the most ‘fictional’ of Marker’s output, weaving its story of a nuclear-devastated Paris in the near future; it is far from conventional. La Jetée‘s prologue depicts a young boy watching passenger jets take off from the jetty at Orly Airport. Flash-forward to the aftermath of World War Three: Paris is in ruins as a ragged band of survivors hole up underground. He is sent to the past on a trial run: the scientists know he has a deep-rooted memory from that time that will cushion the shock of ‘awakening, fully born, into another age’. Time-travelling, he meets the woman. He is at the Orly jetty. La Jetée‘s influence is palpable. – Simon Sellars
A tendency of French cinema Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français Ces notes n'ont pas d'autre objet qu'essayer de définir une certaine tendance du cinéma Français-tendance dite du réalisme psychologique-et d'en esquisser les limites. Si le cinéma Français existe par une centaine de films chaque année, il est bien entendu que dix ou douze seulement méritent de retenir l'attention des critiques et des cinéphiles, l'attention donc de ces Cahiers. Ces dix ou douze films constituent ce que l'on a joliment appelé la Tradition de la Qualité, ils forcent par leur ambition l'admiration de la presse étrangère, défendent deux fois l'an les couleurs de la France à Cannes et à Venise où, depuis 1946, ils raflent assez régulièrement médailles, lions d'or et grands prix. Au début du parlant, le cinéma Français fut l'honnête démarquage du cinéma américain. La guerre et l'après-guerre ont renouvelé notre cinéma. De l'adaptation telle qu'Aurenche et Bost la pratiquent, le procédé dit de l'équivalence est la pierre de touche.
Full Documentaries Egypt, land of the pyramids, mighty monuments constructed in the early days of history. Monuments that endure to this day attracting visitors across the world. Many visitors come to Egypt to see one pyramid in particular, the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the most celebrated man-made constructions of all time. Of the seven, only the Great Pyramid of Cheops survives, but history and archaeology are able to tell us the stories of all seven, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pharos of Alexandria. And for the first time in some 3,000 years, viewers see the Seven Wonders restored to their original glory. Twit This!
Platonic Themes in Chris Marker’s La Jetée Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetée (1962) is probably best known today as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film 12 Monkeys. Some also consider it an influence on other popular time-travel films such as the Terminator series. Most serious critics acknowledge that Marker’s film is vastly superior to any of its imitators in its brilliant use of still images and sparse narration to construct a story which is both compelling and haunting. Indeed, an enormous amount has been written about Marker’s body of work and about this film in particular. In the face of this critical outpouring, it may be thought that nothing new or interesting could possibly be said about the film. In this brief essay, however, I wish to approach the film in a manner which I believe offers an interpretation not normally associated with it. La Jetée begins with the description of a memory. On the tenth day, images begin to ooze, like confessions. A peacetime morning. They walk. Endnotes