Image
Bild aus "La jetée" (1962) von Chris Marker

Chris Marker's "LA JETÉE & RADIAN live

25 Sep 2012

Chris Marker's "LA JETÉE & RADIAN live

This time he is close to her, he speaks to her. She welcomes him without surprise.
They are without memories, without plans.
Time builds itself painlessly around them.
Their only landmarks are the flavor of the moment they are living and the markings on the walls.

Chris Marker, who created this year's Viennale Anniversary Trailer made in 1962 - inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo - with "La Jetée" (The jetty) a dark science-fiction short film, which has become now a genre classic. Shot in black and white and assembled from individual still images, this "photo novel" depicts the search of an unnamed man for a woman, or better, for the image of this woman that has been impressed in his memory since childhood. A voiceover accompanies the protagonist on his way through a post-apocalyptic scenario and forms the narrative thread of the fragmentary story.

Besides the question of the reality content of memory and imagination, "La jetée" deals with the continuous progression of time, with the active process when viewing images, i.e. with film-inherent topics.
 

 

 

Sometimes he recaptures a day of happiness, though different.
A face of happiness, though different.
Ruins.

Especially two productions that are directly linked to "La jetée" gained international reputation in the 1990s; Marker's film was the inspiration for both David Bowie's music video Jump They Say and the screenplay of Terry Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS.

As part of the 50-year anniversary project-series, on Thursday September 27, 8.30 pm, the Viennese experimental rock group RADIAN will perform their live-soundtrack for LA JETÉE at Gartenbaukino; the band plans to perform an aesthetically-charged balancing act between their compositions and a small series of films by Chris Marker, Ben Russell, Peter Tscherkassky, among others.

Info & Tickets ...
 

 

 

 

(all quotes from the original text of LA JETÉE)