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La Jetée: Ciné-Roman,
by Chris Marker (1992).
Zone Books
Distributed by The MIT
Press.
ISBN-10: 0942299663
ISBN-13: 978-0942299663
The inspiration for the
movie 12 Monkeys (1995), directed by Terry Gilliam.
Description:
In the aftermath of
World War III, both the earth’s surface and all of history – everything ever
dreamed or known – lies irretrievably buried in a heap of radioactive
devastation. Space has become off-limits, and the war’s few remaining
survivors, huddled underground in the dank galleries beneath Chaillot, seek
desperately an alternative path to survival – one perhaps that passes through
Time. At the expense of madness, death, and unspeakable cruelty, they begin a
set of experiments whose purpose will be to launch emissaries, in search of
food, medicine and energy, through a hole in Time. A man is chosen for his
unique quality of having retained a single clear image from pre-war days; no
more than an ambiguous memory fragment from childhood – a visit to the jetty at
Orly airport, the troubling glance of an unknown woman, the crumbling body of a
dying man. These elements become crucial hinge-points in the ensuing
narrative, thickening and accumulating nuance with each successful expedition
into the historical past. The image of a woman, increasingly suffused with the
time – and eros – bestowing capacities of a deep and impossible love, provides
both the kernel for the recovery of the dimension through which humankind and
history will be saved, as well as the tragic abyss into which both the hero and
the narrative inexorably fall.
Although Chris Marker’s
legendary film is no more than 29 minutes long and contains but a single moving
image, perhaps no other film has matched its combination of devastating
emotional power, former brilliance and philosophical complexity. The story
marker tells – a stunning parable of our modern fate – is about the death of
the world, about loss, memory, hope, and the indomitable power of love.
“This
strange and poetic film, a fusion of science fiction, psychological fable, and
photomontage … creates its own conventions from scratch. It triumphantly
succeeds where science fiction invariably fails.” – J.G. Ballard.
