Chris Marker [Hardcover]

The maverick filmmaker's personal and political relationships with film

Best known in the United States for his visionary short filmLa Jetée, Chris Marker spearheaded the bourgeoning Nouvelle Vague scene in the late 1950s. His distinctive style and use of still images place him among the postwar era's most influential European filmmakers. His fearless political cinema, meanwhile, provided a bold model for other activist filmmakers.

Nora M. Alter investigates the core themes and motivations behind an unpredictable and transnational career that defies easy classification. A photographer, multimedia artist, writer, broadcaster, producer, and organizer, Marker cultivated an artistic dynamism and always-changing identity. ""I am an essayist,"" Marker once said, and his 1953 debut filmic essayThe Statues Also Die(with Alain Resnais) exposed the European art market's complicity in atrocities in the former Belgian Congo. Ranging geographically as well as artistically, Marker's travels led to films like the classicSans SoleilandSunday in Peking. His decades-long struggle against global injustice involved him withNight and Fog, Le Joli Mai, Far from Vietnam, Le fond du l'air est Rouge,andPrime Time in the Camps.

Insightful and revealing,Chris Markerincludes interviews with the notoriously private director.