CHRIS MARKER, NEVER EXPLAIN, NEVER COMPLAIN
7 FOIS CHRIS MARKER Presented with The Cinematheque Chris Marker, long considered the inventor of the film essay, was both a world traveller and a time traveller. Throughout his peripatetic life, he remained largely a secret cinéaste, although his name and his films (La Jetée, or Sans soleil, ranked third in Sight & Sound’s poll of the greatest documentaries ever made) have influenced generations of filmmakers. Three years after the retrospective at Centre Pompidou, organized after his death (he died on his 91st birthday), and in advance of the Cinémathèque française’s encompassing multimedia event planned for May 2018, I am proud to present to Vancouver audiences 7 FOIS CHRIS MARKER, a selection of Marker’s rarely screened films. The timing is curious, and like so much of Chris’s work, serendipitously entwined with our current moment in history. – Thierry Garrel, Program Curator Chris Marker, Never Explain, Never Complain | Jean-Marie Barbe, Arnaud Lambert, 2016
Le Tombeau d’Alexandre (The Last Bolshevik) | Chris Marker, 1993
“Who is Chris Marker?” is the question posed by the directors/ interlocutors of this new documentary, every answer revealing a different reality. One thing is clear, over the length of his career the elusive auteur was never content to do or be only one thing. Writer, filmmaker, photographer, polymath, cat lover — there is no single term that quite suffices.
Chris Marker’s expansive, nay, insanely encompassing portrait of his friend and colleague Aleksandr Ivanovich Medvedkin is composed of six different letters, each corresponding to a period of Medvedkin’s life and work.
Le Fond de l’air est rouge (A Grin Without a Cat) | Chris Marker, 1977 Une Journée d’Andrei Arsenevitch (One Day In The Life Of Andrei Arsenevich) | Chris Marker, 1999 Marker’s portrait of his friend Andrei Tarkovsky, edited some twelve years after Tarkovsky’s death for the collection Cinéma, de notre temps (Cinema of Our Times), is an extraordinary love letter from one filmmaker to another, and a memento mori of the most profound kind.
Here is Chris Marker’s magnum opus in all its ferocious intelligence and scale. More relevant than it was even forty years earlier, this tour-de-force work is a guide, seemingly torn from the current moment, made up of the folly and greatness of the human experiment.
L’Héritage de la chouette (The Owl’s Legacy) | Chris Marker, 1989 Le Souvenir d’un avenir (Remembrance of Things to Come) | Chris Marker, Yannick Bellon, 2001 This vivid portrait of photographer Denise Bellon, who pioneered the art of photojournalism, is, like Marker’s most famous work (La Jetée), composed out of still images. Circuitous and discursive, the narrative is pinned in place by Bellon’s extraordinary eye.
The legendary 13-part series, commissioned by Arte and the Onassis Foundation (that kept Marker’s work unavailable for twenty years), alights at DOXA in its first three episodes: SYMPOSIUM or Accepted Ideas, OLYMPISM or Imaginary Greece, DEMOCRACY or The City of Dreams. Program notes adapted from texts provided by DOXA, written by Dorothy Woodend For screening dates, and to purchase tickets, please visit doxafestival.ca
Chats perchés (The Case of the Grinning Cat) | Chris Marker, 2004
Cinematheque members will receive a DOXA membership for all 7 FOIS CHRIS MARKER screenings.
A more fitting film for our electoral moment is hard to imagine than Chris Marker’s last long-form work. The film has the serendipitous timing that is the hallmark of great art: it is always relevant, and au courant — sometimes painfully so.
FREE EVENT
The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach Showcase Join The Cinematheque’s Education and Outreach team for a special evening devoted to youth films, media literacy, and informed discussion about how today’s young connect with our complex and multi-faceted media landscape. Screenings of youth-made works from some of our 2016-17 programs – including Status Update: Critical Creations on Social Media; Canada on Screen: Youth Interpretations of Canada’s 150th; and the TREK Environmental Education Documentary Projects – will be accompanied by explorations of crucial topics for youth today: Social Media and the Self; and Dissecting Fake News: Media Literacy in the Post-Truth Era. We welcome you to learn more about The Cinematheque’s outreach programs and immerse yourself in the technology-mediated perspectives of today’s young people! TUESDAY, JUNE 20 - 6:30 PM
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