Film Screening--A Tribute to Chris Marker (1921-2012):

Featuring:

La Jetée (1962, 28 min)
       and
The Case of the Grinning Cat (2004, 59 min)

-- Introduced by Prof. Anne-Gaëlle Saliot (Romance Studies)!

La Jetée
(Chris Marker, 1962, 28 min, France, in French and German with English subtitles, B&W, BluRay)

Chris Marker’s La Jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told almost entirely in still images. Set in a post-apocalyptic near-future, it tells the story of an unnamed man whose vivid childhood recollections make him the perfect guinea pig for an experiment in time travel. After a lengthy and nightmarish period of conditioning, he is sent into the past, where he falls in love with a woman. At the experiment's conclusion, he is visited by an advanced race, who offer him the opportunity to journey into their future world...

-- “One of the most startling and haunting films to ever fall under the banner of science fiction.” -- eye WEEKLY

The Case of the Grinning Cat
(Chris Marker, 2004, 59 min, France, in French and Eastern Frisian with English subtitles, color, DVD)

Marker combines two of his long-time passions, felines and Leftist politics, in this documentary essay film.  A devoted cat lover, Marker became curious and began to investigate when the city of Paris repeatedly fell victim to a graffiti artist spray-painting grinning kitties all over town. Appearing not long after the September 11 attacks in New York City, the image of the grinning cat was eventually embraced by anti-war activists, who attached it to the slogan "Make cats, not war!"

-- “Organic and overflowing with ideas... Marker's even-handedness and playful spirit show that innocent art and activist politics are two sides of the same culture... this whimsical winner cannot be pigeonholed.” -- Premiere Magazine

Cost: Free and Open to the Public!

Sponsors: The Program in the Art of the Moving Image (AMI), with support from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation.