Chris Marker, French documentary filmmaker, photographer and multimedia artist, has died at 91.
Chris Marker, French documentary filmmaker, photographer and multimedia artist passed away at 91, on 29th July in Paris. His most renowned work was the short film „La Jetée” (1962) of a time travel experiment in a post-nuclear world, which inspired Terry Gilliam to make “12 Monkeys”.
Chris Marker (born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve) debuted as a director in 1952 with „Olimpia 52” about the Olympics at Helsinki. His most recognized works include: „Letter from Syberia” (1958), collage documentary portraying Siberia as a part of USSR from three different points of view; controversial and anti-American,incorporating Fidel Castro’s interviews „Cuba Si!” (1961); and „Le Joli Mai” (1963), interviews with passersby shot on the streets of Paris.
In the late 60’s and 70’s Marker was a member of the left-wing film collectives SLON and I.S.K.R.A. He returned to his personal work in the late 70’s with a documentary „A Grin Without a Cat” (1977), the metaphor of political anxieties of the 1968. In 1982 he made „Sans Solei”, film essay, combining different ways of narration, about memory and journey around Japan and Africa. In 1984 on the set of „Ran”, the portrait of the director Akira Kurosawa titled „A.K.” was made.
Since the end of the 80’s. Marker has engaged in multimedia art – „Level 5” (1996), „Immemory” (1998, 2008) and "Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men" (2005) based on T.S. Eliot’s poem for The Museum of Modern Art in New York were made.