La Jetée (16 February 1967)
directed by Chris Marker
starring Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux
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Studio: Argos Films Script: Chris Marker Running time: 28 minutes Tags: airports; Black & White; Foreign Film; France; museums; Science Fiction; Short Film; time travel Tactical strength: [6/10]
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Terry Gilliam credited Chris Marker's La Jetée as his inspiration for making 12 Monkeys. In essence, the two films have the same basic plot: a little boy sees a beautiful woman in an airport just before watching a man get shot to death. Shortly after the airport incident, a holocaust occurs killing most of the world's population and driving the survivors underground. The boy, now a man, continues to have dreams about the beautiful woman. Scientists develop the ability to send individuals back in time, and in a call for help to the nearly extinct human races, they send the man back in time where he meets the beautiful woman.
If you went to elementary school in the days before DVD players and VCRs, you will probably remember the film strip -- a strip of still images on 35mm film accompanied by a soundtrack on a cassette. At the appropriate tone on the soundtrack, one lucky student would get to turn the knob on the filmstrip projector, advancing the film to the next image. I bring this up because Marker created his film as a series of still images, and I would categorize the production as a film strip rather than a short film. Because of the still images, I expected some significant transition to traditional film, which never happened.
Over the series of images, the narrator (Jean Négroni), explains that nuclear war destroyed most of humanity. The scientists try to send individuals to the past and future to make a plea for help. Because of the narrator's vivid dreams of the beautiful woman, he makes an excellent candidate for time travel. The narrator's body never seems to leave the present, but he manages to make a psychic projection of himself into the past. He meets and falls in love with the woman (Hélène Chatelain), and he tries to explain his situation to her. She doesn't believe his story about the future but keeps meeting him because she enjoys his company. In spite of only seeing still images of the relationship, we clearly get the idea that the two enjoy each other's company. We see them visit a museum of natural history, and we get a sense of their caring for each other. Seeing the modern couple visit a museum of the past strikes a chord with the viewer, since the narrator essentially visits a museum of his childhood.
The filmstrip presentation emphasizes the imperfect nature of memory and dreams. The narrator has fleeting moments of pleasure with his dream woman, and we only see still shots of his experience. From just a few images, we construct an entire relationship between the couple. I infer meaning from the briefest looks and glances. The narrator with just the briefest and limited set of memories finds hope and motivation that lasts throughout his lifetime.
Essentially, La Jetée shows the power of the briefest of memories to instill a life with hope. Marker's presentation as a series of stills emphasizes the periodic and fleeting nature of memory. We do come to understand the narrator's desire for a peaceful world in which he cannot permanently live, but we also know that like dreams, memories last only briefly before a return to reality.
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