A collective, cinematic love letter to the elusive French filmmaker, Chris Marker; Emiko Omori's film captures the perso | dG1fM0Zsd2kwRTN6V0U
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00:00It was just 20 years ago that he delivered the expansive, elusive essay film Sans Soleil,
00:28and 20 years before that, at just 28 minutes, he made what is not only one of the greatest
00:34movies ever made, never mind if no one named it recently for sight and sound, in their
00:41ten best polls.
00:43I know that if you went to most of the people polled in that magazine and asked, what about
00:50La Jetée then, they'd say, oh well of course.
00:58He always said that La Jetée was basically a remake of Vertigo, his homage to Vertigo.
01:06He told us that it was sort of like it wasn't really his film, because it had just been
01:09dictated to him by whatever higher force dictated films to people.
01:18First he told her about three children, seen on a road in Iceland, and there they are,
01:24blondes, brighter still in the sun, in fields that still seem incompletely thawed.
01:31Just an image of happiness, or of movies' reckless talent for creating a golden past.
01:39He said that for him it was the image of happiness, and also that he had tried several times to
01:44link it to other images, but it never worked.
01:47He wrote me, one day I'll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film, with a long
01:52piece of black leading.
01:54If they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black.
02:01There to my horror, my shame, was Chris with a cup of lousy American coffee in one hand,
02:07and a donut in the other.
02:09And I said, oh God, Chris, I'm just mortified.
02:12I'm so sorry, I don't know what could have happened, I don't know why the pastries aren't
02:16here.
02:17And he said, no, no, no, don't be silly, you don't understand.
02:19For me, this donut is what the Medlin was for Proust, because my first donut was when
02:26I was in the American Army during World War II, and I haven't had one since.
02:31So I want to thank you for bringing this experience back to me.
02:38You wrote, this ending of Century is bleak, yet it has its pleasant surprises.
02:45Suppose someone announced a bloodbath in 1994 with the question, South Africa or Yugoslavia?
02:53Who would have wavered?
02:55So let's take history as unpredictable as it is and cross our fingers.