A Critic During Critical Times – Chris Marker: Early Film Writings

By Jeremy Carr.

It quickly becomes evident how astonishingly active Marker was at the time. And yet, as volume editor Steven Unger observes, [this collection is] just the beginning of what is hopefully a progressive release and appreciation of Marker’s writing.”

When introducing Chris Marker: Early Film Writings, editor Steven Ungar is quite correct as he states how hard it would be to imagine French cinema without Marker’s La Jetée (1962) and Sans Soleil (1983). Less persuasive is his inclusion of Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), A Grin Without A Cat (1977), and his 1997 interactive CD-ROM Immemory. Fascinating though they may be, these lesser-known works are hardly as imperative, in part due to their scant availability and their basically nonexistent presence in most historical texts. But if these projects are unfamiliar to most, just as alien are Marker’s writings on film, an issue Unger and translator Sally Shafto aim to rectify with this 2004 collection from University of Minnesota Press.

Chris Marker: Early Film Writings comprises 20 articles published by various outlets (Esprit most prominently) between 1948 and 1954, just before Marker began making his own films. As Ungar argues in his lengthy and extremely informative introduction, Marker—born Christian Hippolyte François Georges Bouche-Villeneuve, a far less palatable signature than his chosen pen name—was an exceptionally prolific writer, including works of poetry, radio scripts, short stories, a play, a novel, and, of course, film criticism. Marker’s later description of himself as the “author” of movies is, according to Unger, therefore significant, “especially when the term author reinforces the proposition that Marker’s cinematic imaginary—the various ways he thinks and writes about films—is distinctly literary.” Even his films, in other words, are an outgrowth of these earlier creative endeavors, bearing traces of the written word and its constructs.

In the preliminary pages of this collection, describing Marker as “a tutelary figure for the ‘Young Turk’ film critics and filmmakers at Cahiers who would soon launch the French New Wave,” Ungar interweaves the subject’s biography and his burgeoning cinephilia with his related work and assorted relationships within similar spheres of activity. This context for the writing that follows is valuable, situating Marker’s approach toward film within a larger cultural framework and providing a concise background sketch against which Marker’s critical perceptions were cast. One thing that quickly becomes evident in this is how astonishingly active Marker was at the time. And yet, as Unger notes, his film writing made up “less than 10 percent of his total contributions to Esprit.” Chris Marker: Early Film Writings is, then, as Unger observes, just the beginning of what is hopefully a progressive release and appreciation of Marker’s writing.

Despite the variance of his output, however, film could clearly be top of mind for Marker, and throughout the articles assembled here one delights in his impassioned insistence that cinema should stand on its own as a distinct artistic form. By utilizing its capacities for movement, space, and time, and by implementing its inherent means of visual storytelling, film is an incomparable medium, born from preceding art forms but with a nearly unlimited potential of its own design. “Following painting and theatre’s mastery over movement and space, the cinema will be recognized as their legitimate heir,” writes Marker. “While the older arts are left to their own domains, cinema will assume the task of completing their conquests and accomplishing their prophecies.” As a case in point, he pays tribute to Laurence Olivier’s 1944 screen version of Henry V, applauding the way in which it transformed its source material by adapting itself to suit the distinct features of cinema.

At the same time, Marker isn’t entirely sold on some of the more gimmicky efforts that were made to push the possibilities of cinema or to distinguish itself (in something of a panic) from the increasing popularity of television. For example, Marker points to Robert Montgomery’s Lady in the Lake (1947) and its attempt to express a wholly “subjective film,” a “film in the first person.” Not only does Marker find the results unsatisfying, but he notes how such attempts had actually been accomplished before—to more intriguing ends—in the realm of experimental film. “Montgomery has the honor of having made the first ‘commercial’ film, entirely in the first person,” writes Marker, who then begins the next paragraph with, “Let’s leave him that honor. It’s just as well because it’s the only good thing to be said about this undertaking.” More than just a formal letdown, Marker contends Lady in the Lake goes against its own attempt of subjective identification by not presenting the face of the individual with whom we’re supposed to identify (Marker’s approval for a good close-up is often apparent). “Instead of identifying ourselves with him,” he writes, “the process depletes and isolates us.”

As noted above, the time in which the collected articles were published is key to many of Marker’s concerns. These are translations that, according to Ungar, “record Marker’s early postwar reflections on films and film culture understood as art, industry, and social practice.” The rise of television had by this point taken its toll on American filmmaking, with a dramatic decline in attendance and a range of innovations aimed to lure those straying eyes back to the big screen. While Marker remains committed to the value of cinema, arguing, for instance, that even “the most recent B-film seems like Bresson when compared to the average television fare,” he is less enthused by diverting developments like theater concessions, giveaways, and 3-D. He is wary of a films like House of Wax (1953), a gaudy, gory, and contrived exercise where simply throwing things at the audience results in little more than a “shooting gallery in reverse.” Cinerama, on the other hand, is deemed “the most spectacular technique.” Though he appreciates the “technical and aesthetic revolution” that came from Hollywood’s innovation by necessity, Marker wonders, simply, to what end are these innovations designed: “These novelties, whatever their fate, will be only as good as the use made of them.”

Related to this idea of films embracing what cinema can achieve, distinguishing itself from other art forms as well as the more conventional ilk of its own, Marker compliments the recent product of the French avant-garde, where the “disenchantment with the forms of classical narration … [led] some to dream of a ‘pure’ cinema, that is, a cinema of pure movement, pure forms, with no anecdotal ballast whatsoever,” even if the result could be an acknowledged bewilderment for an “uninformed public.” Still, with this Marker is rightly skeptical of how such films will be seen, if they ever are. He laments the lack of revival theaters and is remarkably prescient in his concerns about how to inform the general public about cinema’s rich history. He stresses the importance of film education, availability, and presentations with proper context. Not surprisingly given his nationality and the time in which he was writing, Marker singles out the Cinémathèque Française and its influential co-founder, Henri Langlois, as a remedy. Screenings at this lauded venue put spectators in “an utterly religious state, torn between a sense of their unworthiness and a mad hope of finally … seeing the film.” Thus, “[b]orrowings are acknowledged, influences become clear, and discoveries gain a foothold.”

Why not present Marker’s writing as it was? Wouldn’t that give a more accurate illustration of what made him a distinctive critic to begin with?”

Marker also approaches global film competitions with uncertainty, regretting the skewed critical perspectives that emerge from such festivals and the ensuing theatrical response. “The critic discovers what they are supposed to discover, arbitrarily following releases and the festival circuit,” he writes. “The critic thus practices their art in a mold already half-hardened, whose contours can only be modified. Their personal tastes can at best lend only a helping hand.” Subsequently (and again this holds true today), the films made widely available were already pre-selected, curated with prejudice, and, more often than not, failed to offer up a full array of international cinema.

Although he has his obvious concerns, Marker comes across as generally hopeful. When he finds a film of which he is particularly keen, his praise is effusive and infectious. Take Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950), a film that left such an impression on Marker that he writes, “Cinema alone facilitates miracles, with its boundless public, its actors … It seems that cinema alone today affords the artist credibility.” Crucial to this is Cocteau’s creation of a film that must be evaluated not by traditional, uninformative degrees of “good” or “bad,” but by its own nuanced merits. Regarding Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc, Marker extols the virtues of its gripping use of film grammar, ultimately concluding the picture is “the most beautiful film in the world.” He also expresses his admiration of Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in 1954’s On the Waterfront, a film of which he is otherwise less impressed due to its handling of contemporary political issues (Marker always keeps a sharp eye on when and where a film was made, and how the sociopolitical realities influenced the film in question).

But Marker’s breadth of film knowledge and appreciation extends far beyond these standards of world cinema. He writes just as fervently about more obscure works—be they from Mexico or, as in several instances, Germany—and pens a case for the value of these features despite their relative unfamiliarity, which goes back to his concerns about film accessibility and preconceived judgments about what should and shouldn’t have proper distribution. His admiration of animated films is likewise enthusiastic and somewhat surprising, if nothing else due to the lack of enjoyment seen in the writing of his French contemporaries.

In one of the more interesting chapters of Chris Marker: Early Film Writings, “Corneille at the Movies,” from a 1949 issue of Esprit, Marker assembles the cinematic musings of teenaged high school students. One young girl cited, Jacqueline, summarizes her wish for moviegoing audiences and basically echoes Marker’s optimistic view of what is to come with the cinema of the future, when new, younger filmmakers are able to create something special, something unique. He hopes, quoting Jacqueline, these aspiring directors will be “wise enough to desire ‘that the audience might leave the cinema feeling healed after the tragedy saying simply “I won’t forget this film.”’”

A final, curious observation about this text comes after reading Sally Shafto’s “Note from the Translator.” Following Ungar’s gushing introduction to Marker and his writing, which convincingly builds up his significance and singular role in French—if not global—film criticism, we learn some substantial changes have been made to the samples afterward presented. “Stylistically,” Shafto states,

[Marker’s] writing is characterized by a penchant for long paragraphs and occasionally sentences of Proustian proportions, which Marker extends with colons, semicolons, dashes, and parenthetical asides. Two of the longest ones both clock in at 186 words! This translation occasionally truncates such sentences and long paragraphs to render his writing more dynamic … Some of Marker’s parentheses have been removed to give these supplemental thoughts their due weight. Marker’s numerous ellipses have been greatly reduced in number.”

Far be it from me to criticize anyone who can translate anything, but it is strange such alterations have been made. Why not present Marker’s writing as it was? Wouldn’t that give a more accurate illustration of what made him a distinctive critic to begin with? Perhaps it was done to make these samples more reader-friendly, and therefore more likely to be read by more people, but it seems unlikely anyone who has a desire to read the film writings of Chris Marker would quibble over long sentences, multiple parentheses, or numerous ellipses.

Jeremy Carr is a Contributing Editor at Film International and teaches film studies at Arizona State University. He writes for the publications Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, MUBI/Notebook, Cinema Retro, Vague Visages, The Retro Set, The Moving Image, Diabolique Magazine and Fandor. He is the author of Repulsion (1965) from Auteur Publishing and Kubrick and Control from Liverpool University Press a contributor to the collections ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May, from Edinburgh University Press, David Fincher’s Zodiac: Cinema of Investigation and (Mis)Interpretation, from Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, and Something Wicked: Witchcraft in Movies, Television, and Popular Culture, from Bloomsbury Academic.