Vincent Jacques' book Chris Marker, CHRIS MARKER, LES MÉDIAS ET LE XXe SIÈCLE. LE REVERS DE L'HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE proposes a reflection on the role of the image in the mediatization of contemporary history, by examining Chris Marker's work.
Letter from Chris Marker to Paul Chan Direct link to YouTube video: www.youtube.com In October of 2010, I emailed Chris to ask him if he was interested in taking part in a special issue of eflux journal that the art critic Sven Lütticken and I were editing. The issue focused on whether contemporary art had or had not addressed the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the US and elsewhere, and how these largely nationalistic, homophobic and xenophobic movements...
The image below from Marker’s Staring Back photo collection book was posted to the Chris Marker Facebook page today by Ben McGill. Marker getting the not welcome please cease and desist moves by the US military police… Neither the image nor the film have lost their significance, to say the least, as the resistance to power renews itself after a short nap of reason (that of course produced monsters). As Ben aptly notes, “Perhaps the best place to hide is...
I’m still seeking to understand this piece of writing, which forgoes a close reading of Marker’s The Last Bolchevik for something else, something akin to thinking out loud in a somewhat associative manner, while using a film – a moment of a film removed from context – for purposes having only tangential connections with the film itself. It strikes me as the philosophical opposite of letting the object speak that Benjamin practiced beautifully and Adorno...
Quand les hommes sont morts, ils entrent dans l’histoire. Quand les statues sont mortes, elles entrent dans l’art. Cette botanique de la mort, c’est ce que nous appelons la culture.Les Statues meurent aussi I’d like to thank Christophe Crison for alerting me to this rare footage of the young Alain Resnais – whose death two days ago is still sending out shockwaves – and (a glimpse of) Chris Marker, recently published at www.ina.fr. The footage was...
An hour-long entretien has been published on France Culture: “Chris Marker (1921-2012),” in the collection “Une vie, un oeuvre” curated by Matthieu Garrigou-Lagrange. This eloquent, personal and erudite conversation is hosted by Virginie Bloch-Lainé; participants include Claude Lanzmann, Régis Debray, Raymond Bellour, Arnaud Lambert, Bruno Muel, Eric Marty and Edourd Waintrop. You can listen to the conversation embedded below or go to www...
In the recent Winter 2012 issue of October, Trevor Stark has published an impressive essay entitled “‘Cinema in the Hands of the People'”: Chris Marker, the Medvedkine Group, and the Potential of Militant Film.” Thankfully not put behind a pay wall, the article is available for download from mitpressjournals.org. Stark takes a comprehensive look back at the rencontres of filmmakers and striking workers under the name Groupe Medvedkine...
Prompted out of a kind of suspended time of my own by several emails from Christophe Payet, “journaliste pigiste,” I found my one-d and zeroed way to the above image on poptronics’ site, and thought about the strange swirling of time, the wounds of time as they might possibly exist in the New Year within the being named Chris Marker. I wandered simultaneously upon a passage in Roberto Bolano’s 2066, which has been keeping me company late...
New York’s Museum of Modern Art will show restored versions of both Loin de Vietnam and—wonderful news indeed—the incomparable Le Joli mai, in their upcoming To Save and Project international film preservation festival, which showcases re-releases of recently restored cinematic masterpieces. Le Joli mai (1962) Le Joli Mai (Chris Marker, Pierre Lhomme, 1963, 163 min.) will screen Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 1:30 p.m., while Loin de Vietnam will screen...
Thanks to Tyler Beaman for pointing us to this growing archive of Chris Marker aka Sandor Krasna photography. No stranger to new media, Marker’s pseudonymous forays into social media sites are atypical not only of his generation, but several following ones. An artist of many media, an Eye with many names, a being of “unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen,” out of or beyond time yet always keenly in the present, he retains his inimitable interest in the...