Hacker Cinema
La Jetée
1962 · Film · short · 29 min
Directed by Chris Marker
A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.
7 positive5 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
Thanks! Here's the full list: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 8½, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, All That Heaven Allows, Apocalypse Now, Ashes and Diamonds, A Woman Under the Influence, Barry Lyndon, Bicycle Thieves, Breathless, Casablanca, Céline and Julie Go Boating, Chinatown, Chinese Roulette, Citizen Kane, City Lights, City of Pirates, Contempt, Daisies, Damnation, Dishonored, Earth, Electra My Love, El Topo, Eraserhead, Eyes Wide Shut, Film Socialisme, Fitzcarraldo, Fuego en Castilla, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Holy Motors, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, In a Year with 13 Moons, India Song, Inland Empire, Irma Vep, Koyaanisqatsi, La Dolce Vita, La Jetée, Late Spring, L'Eau de la Seine, Le Voyage dans la Lune, Lolita, Los Olvidados, Lost Highway, Lucifer Rising, Man with a Movie Camera, Metropolis, Mirror, Mulholland Drive, Night Music, Ordet, Orpheus, Persona, Pickpocket, Playtime, Psycho, Rebecca, Rosemary's Baby, Rumble Fish, Scarface, Seven Samurai, Sherlock Jr., Singin' in the Rain, Stalker, Sunset Boulevard, Taste of Cherry, Taxi Driver, Testament of Orpheus, The 400 Blows, The Blood of a Poet, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Color of Pomegranates, The Green Ray, The Holy Mountain, The Isle, The Lady from Shanghai, The Night of the Hunter, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Seventh Seal, The Spirit of the Beehive, The Tales of Hoffmann, The Tree of Life, The Turin Horse, Time of the Gypsies, Tokyo Story, Touch of Evil, Trans-Europ-Express, Ugetsu, Un Chien Andalou, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Vampyr, Videodrome, Wavelength, Werckmeister Harmonies, Wild Strawberries, Moonlight Sonata, Stellar, The Haunted House Biased toward European art cinema, experimental work, and directors who broke conventional narrative rules.
Where else but in MUBI can you discover the works of Andrea Arnold and her most recent film, Bird? The same goes for countless other directors whose oeuvre was unknown to me, someone who was introduced by my Father to Bergman and Kurosawa when I was barely seven.
There is also The Criterion Channel where I saw La Jetée for the first time after years of reluctance to immerse myself in a film essentially made of still photos. I have now gone back and watched it three more times, both in French and English. That’s how large of an impact it’s had on me. And I originally meant to get through it quickly (28 minutes duration), in preparation to rewatch 12 Monkeys.
Netflix does show some films that cater to a non mainstream audience, but may take more effort to find them. I recently saw Aftersun directed by Charlotte Wells, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. You will sob quietly.
I know, right? This line in particular got stuck out at me:
> They are mortally offended by the suggestion that Marvel might be somehow less good than Chris Marker, or that K-pop might be worse than Rimsky-Korasov.
Never heard of Chris Marker or Rimsky-Korasov, had to look those up. Chris Marker looks like an indie French filmmaker who 60 years ago made a 27 minute time travel film called La Jetée, using only still photographs, that William Gibson apparently considered one of his greatest influences. So yeah, this sounds like something that most mainstream people wouldn't be aware of or into and exactly the type of thing a film nerd or film hipster (who he said in the opening paragraphs were all killed because of how annoying they are) would be into.
And Rimsky-Korasov is a Russian classical music composer who's been dead for over 100 years. Someone that only a music nerd would probably be aware of nowadays, or go see a concert for.
If he didn't want to be such a hipster about it, he could have used like Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick and Mozart or Bach or even Debussy or something, a name most people would probably recognize, instead of these less recognizable names, especially in an article where he's making fun of nerds for being into obscure shit (while "their" movies have been dominating the box office for well over a decade at this point).
I'm not trying to defend Marvel here either. I don't think they're the best movies ever made (I thought Everything Everywhere All At Once was the best movie I've seen since Parasite, and considering it pretty much swept the Oscars this year, and Parasite did a few years before that, critics seem to agree with me there).
Another quote that stuck out:
> The culture we produce on Planet Nerd has nothing to do with desire whatsoever. Everything is sterile, mercilessly unsexy; no eroticism, not even visual pleasure.... Nerd culture, meanwhile, is basically quite boring to consume. Instead of the sadistic fantasy of being a superhero, doing fantastic things that ordinary people don’t get to do, the Marvel movies are about nothing more than themselves.
Sounds like someone needs to watch The Boys or Invincible. You'll get your sadistic power fantasy there. (I mean, just watch The Boys episode about 'Herogasm').
Marvel can't do that because it has to get parents to take their children to see them to make all the money. You don't see sadistic power fantasies about being a wizard in Harry Potter either, or overly sensual things with any Disney movie, barring the hidden 'SEX' in flower petals in Lion King.
Chris Marker made my favourite movie: la Jetée (on youtube with english subtitles here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ). It was the inspiration of the movie 12 Monkeys
The article didn't go into too many details about why it worked better, but these excerpts gesture at why:
"dialing up Gibson’s cyberpunk paranoia"
"the three computer graphic sections become quite coherent in black-and-white"
"it has this kind of a dreamy, 16mm feel to it. It reminds me of Tetsuo and Eraserhead, and all these great, kind of dreamy, black-and-white movies."
"the color graphics now look all pretty retro, but in black-and-white, it has its own quality to it for sure."
"I take inspiration from films like Alphaville, La Jetée, things like that"
My impression is that the color version sets an expectations that Longo never meant. It was always intended as a B&W art film, and not as a summer block-buster. The colors and expense were a distraction.
So, if you haven't yet, check out the movies mentioned. Ironman: Tetsuo, Eraserhead, Alphaville and La Jetée. They are definitely not Hollywood blockbusters.
The 'original Terry Gilliam movie' was inspired by a French short, La Jetée [1962].
After I watched Solaris I decided to space out the other Tarkovsky films over a period of years. They each hit me so hard that I wanted to always know there was one waiting for me that I could look forward to seeing, ideally as a restored print at the local rep cinema. Now I only have The Sacrifice left.
I also very much recommend Chris Marker's documentary on Tarkovsky, One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevitch [1][2]. Germane to this thread, he compares aspects of his films to Kurosawa in parts. Marker is also an incredible singular filmmaker, and the documentary is more of a love letter to Tarkovsky while he's on his deathbed. If you enjoy this, then oh do I envy you getting to go down the Marker rabbit hole and watching Sans Soleil and La Jetée for the first time.
[1] English with Turkish subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=35lETmPDypI
[2] French https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M56i90Q1-Y
Watch La Jetee (Chris Marker). A "film" comprised mostly of stills with just a few actual scenes with movement.
I don't know about many still image movies, but La Jetée is pretty respected. So if it can even be called a genre, it does not seem to be especially disrespected.
Exploitation is movies like the infamous "Ilse" which mixed Nazi-fetchism, sadism, torture, castration - basically wallows in the most taboo subjects imaginable.
Chris Marker is a french cinematographer. His works is unregular but this documentary (Letter from Siberia) is great. (Also, he is the author of the photo movie La Jetée, here in english https://vimeo.com/46620661, which inspired the movie 12 Monkeys !). He has communist leaning from what I remember but it doesn't feel like he's using cinema to convince you about his political beliefs, and he doesn't defends USSR, although he is culturally very interested in this country.
This excerpt is about media manipulation if you didn't understand it, it shows how it feels to change the voice over and keep the same images.
Why do you think it's BS, out of interest?
Sorry I wasn't talking about this documentary, it's not that bad, what he says in it is pretty obvious.
If you haven't already I would highly recommend you watch The Pier (La Jetee) which was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys. It has a really beautiful and unique style being composed almost completely of still images which suits the story very well.
Fun list! He's got some facts wrong (e.g. 2001 was not made as a companion piece to the novel, which came later), and he apparently never understood Jacob's Ladder (think Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge as a full-length movie). But who knew you could watch all of La Jetée (inspiration for 12 Monkeys) on Youtube?!! (Speaking of 12 Monkeys, why isn't that on the list?)