La Jetée

Infobox Film
name = La jetée


caption = Theatrical poster
director = Chris Marker
producer = Anatole Dauman
writer = Chris Marker
narrator = Jean Négroni
starring = Hélène Chatelain Davos Hanich Jacques Ledoux
music = Trevor Duncan
cinematography = Chris Marker
editing = Jean Ravel
distributor =
released = 1962
runtime = 28 minutes
country = France
language = French
German
budget =
amg_id = 1:152971
imdb_id = 0056119

"La jetée" (English: "The Jetty" and "The Pier") (1962) is a 28-minute black and white science fiction film by Chris Marker. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. [imdb title|id=0056119|title=La jetée.]

Plot

In the movie, the survivors of a destroyed Paris in the aftermath of World War III live underground in the "Palais de Chaillot" galleries.

They research time travel, hoping to send someone back before the devastating war to recover food, medicine, or energy for the present, "to summon the past and future to the aid of the present." The traveler is a male prisoner; his vague but obsessive childhood memory of witnessing a woman (Hélène Chatelain) during a violent incident on the boarding platform ("The Jetty") at Orly Airport is used as the key to his journey back in time.

He is thrown back to the past again and again. He repeatedly meets and speaks to the woman who was present at the terminal. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the deep future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society.

On his return, he is cast aside by his jailers to die. Before he can be executed, he is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time, but he asks to be returned to the time of his childhood. He is returned, only to find the violent incident he partially witnessed as a child was his own death as an adult.

Cast

* Jean Négroni as narrator
* Hélène Chatelain as the Woman
* Davos Hanich as the Man
* Jacques Ledoux as The Experimenter
* Ligia Branice as a woman from the future
* Janine Kleina as a woman from the future
* William Klein as a man from the future

Title

In French, "jetée" means pier. When air flight was first introduced, airplanes would taxi up to a concrete walkway built onto the runway that was at the level of the entryway to the plane. As planes changed over time, airports were forced to change to movable walkways and staircases to accommodate ever-increasing diversity.

The title is also a near-homophone of "there I was" "(là j'étais)."

tyle

"La jetée" has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German; the story is told by a voice-over narrator. It is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying pace. It contains only one brief shot originating on a motion-picture camera. The stills were taken with a Pentax 24x36 and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35mm Arriflex. [ [http://www.net4image.com/pedagogie/cineastes/marker.htm "La jetée"] revue & dvd et site internet. Last accessed: January 8, 2008. fr icon.] The film score was composed by Trevor Duncan.

Distribution

Due to its brevity, "La jetée" is often screened in theatres alongside other films; Jean-Luc Godard's "Alphaville" (1965) was the film with which it was first released.

In Region 2, the film is available with English subtitles in the "La jetée/Sans soleil" digipack released by Arte Video. In Region 1, the Criterion Collection has released a "La jetée/Sans soleil" combination DVD, which features the option of hearing the English or French narration.

Influences

* The scene in which the hero and the woman look at a cut-away trunk of a tree is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film "Vertigo", which Marker also references in "Sans soleil". ["On "Vertigo", special feature on the Criterion Collection DVD of "La jetée" and "Sans soleil".]
* Mamoru Oshii's "Akai Megane" (a.k.a. "The Red Spectacles") is a 1987 live-action film that was inspired by "La jetée". It features a scene on the Tokyo jetty which is a tribute to "La jetée", one of the Japanese director's favorite films.
* David Bowie's "Jump They Say" music video contains a reference to "La jetée".
* The 2003 short film, "La puppé", is both an homage and a spoof of "La jetée". [ [http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/shortnotsweet/puppe.html Independent Lens] "La puppé," backgrounder, 2008. Last accessed: January 12, 2008.] .
* Three Chicago-based instrumental rock groups (which all share members) have recorded songs inspired by it: Isotope 217 - "La jetée" (1997); Tortoise - "Jetty" (1998); Chicago Underground Trio - "La Jetée" (1999).
* A famous tiny bar in Tokyo is named "La Jetée" and is decorated with stills and posters of the movie. The bar appears in Marker's Sans Soleil.
* The music video for "Son of Sam" by Elliott Smith (directed by Autumn de Wilde) was inspired by "La jetée".

Adaptations

* Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" (1995) was inspired by, and takes several concepts directly from, "La Jetée".
* In 1996, the MIT Press released a book version of "La jetée". [cite book | last = Marker | first = Chris | title = La jetée | publisher = Zone Books | location = New York | year = 1992 | isbn = 9780942299670 ] It reproduced the film's original images along with the script in both English and French and is now out of print, [ [http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4947 "La jetée" at the MIT Press] ] though it was re-released in 2008 by Zone Books.

References

Notes

External links

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* [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/4/jetee.html "La jetée"] at Senses of Cinema: Platonic Themes in Chris Marker's "La jetée" by Sander Lee.
* [http://www.ballardian.com/la-jetee "La jetée"] analysis of themes and storyline by Simon Sellars
* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=387 "La jetée"] at Criterion Collection

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