387 La Jetée and Sans Soleil

[arsonfilms]

They must be including both English and French versions, but it only says French with English subtitles at the moment. Isn't the English voice-over Marker's preferred version?

Read the whole listing!:

"Sandor Krasna's letters are read by Alexandra Stewart in the English version and Florence Delay in the French version."

[sevenarts]

They must be including both English and French versions, but it only says French with English subtitles at the moment. Isn't the English voice-over Marker's preferred version?

It says that at least Sans Soleil will have both versions. No mention of whether or not La Jetee will be both, though I assume it will.

Also, I think Marker simply prefers that each language get its own version, to avoid subtitles -- I'm not sure that he specifically prefers one language version over another. For my part, I've seen Sans Soleil in both French and English, and I greatly prefer the English version -- it doesn't work nearly as well with subtitles. I'm glad they're including both though, and I'll be especially curious to see how La Jetee works in subtitled French.

[magicmarker]

I'm sure both films will have English and French audio tracks. Even the French ArteVideo version is in both English and French (and has all the same features as the proposed Criterion disk, minus the Gorin interview, all on one disk).

I certainly hope that we will see some additional special features. As I've mentioned before, Si j'avais quatre dromadaires would make a great companion to La Jetee, and at 49 minutes would fit nicely on a disk with it. Or Le Souvenir d'un avenir, another film made up of stills (42 minutes). Or even L'Ambassade, Marker's other strictly narrative film (Level Five being a mixture of narrative fiction and documentary, although a potentially great companion to Sans Soleil).

But this is all wishful thinking. Perhaps I should just be thankful that Criterion is putting out any Marker at all, and start dreaming of an Eclipse set.

[denti alligator]

I'm a little disappointed that La Jetee isn't getting its own spine number, even though this would mean a higher price for both films. Do these two films somehow "belong" together?

[Anonymous]

Do these two films somehow "belong" together?

Apart from being made by the same filmmaker, not really. But as a double feature they fit pretty well together. After all Criterion's combination of Late Spring and Tokyo-Ga is also a double feature or pairing of some sort (the Wenders film not being simple "bonus material"). Then there was Mamma Roma and La Ricotta. Anyway, I am very happy these great Marker masterpieces are finally getting released by CC.

[Cinesimilitude]

Wow. I guess I should've sold my dvd when it was worth $80+...

It may still be, Ebay users are so caught up with their auctions that it takes them weeks to catch wind of an OOP title being re-released.

[magicmarker]

Absolutely. Besides the oblique references to La Jetee in Sans Soleil (and their shared references to Vertigo), both are thematically linked as meditations on the nature of memory, time, and the cinema itself (all pervasive themes running through almost all of Marker's films). They are also a nice pairing of fiction and non-fiction, narrative and non-narrative, short and feature length, black and white and colour, all of which justify their being packaged together.

[denti alligator]

Do these two films somehow "belong" together?

Apart from being made by the same filmmaker, not really. But as a double feature they fit pretty well together. After all Criterion's combination of Late Spring and Tokyo-Ga is also a double feature or pairing of some sort (the Wenders film not being simple "bonus material"). Then there was Mamma Roma and La Ricotta. Anyway, I am very happy these great Marker masterpieces are finally getting released by CC.

Yes, but La Ricotta does not technically share a spine number with Mamma Roma, neither does Tokyo-Ga with Late Spring. These are bonus features.

I still think La Jetee should have its own spine, like Night and Fog, which wouldn't really have worked sharing a spine with Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

[Kinsayder]

GUILLAUME-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET

He must be getting on a bit now, in cat years. He looked more than a kitten in Chat écoutant la musique (1990).

[arsonfilms]

GUILLAUME-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET

He must be getting on a bit now, in cat years. He looked more than a kitten in Chat écoutant la musique (1990).

It would make me sad to think that Chris Marker would be the sort of man to keep his pet names the same throughout the lives of several different animals.

[Rupert Pupkin]

mmmhhhh... I already have the Arte French edition; artwork is the same, and content seem identical (minus the Gorin bonus)...

I'm diasppointed because I thought that Criterion could have added an introduction or video interview with Terry Gilliam (this expectation was emphasized with the monkey-hint cartoon in the Criterion newsletter)...
The bonus about Bowie is great, but short. I'm a huge fan of David Bowie; but since Criterion is working with parrallels between movies : Terry Gilliam's work "Army of 12 monkees" (sorry if I'm wrong with the title, I only know this movie under "l'armee des douze singes" title) was necessary to be discussed in such edition...

[Harvey Domino]

I really hope this release is just the tip of the iceberg -- these are two of the easiset Marker films to obtain; it's his dozens of others that need to be released.

[Kinsayder]

I really hope this release is just the tip of the iceberg -- these are two of the easiset Marker films to obtain; it's his dozens of others that need to be released.

Quite. I'll probably buy this for the extras, but how disappointing that when Criterion finally take notice of Marker it's to publish the two films that anyone with a serious interest in him will certainly have already.

There's an old thread here with info on other Marker releases, not all of which are English-friendly.

[Rich Malloy]

I'm diasppointed because I thought that Criterion could have added an introduction or video interview with Terry Gilliam (this expectation was emphasized with the monkey-hint cartoon in the Criterion newsletter)...

Gilliam may have something of interest to say, but if his "commentary" on the Short Cinema Journal2:Dreams release of "Jetee" is any indication... perhaps not. Of course, that commentary was literally phoned in.

Chats can live up to 18-20 years, depending on the breed.

[Kirkinson]

Though I haven't heard the commentary Rich Malloy is referring to, I don't imagine Gilliam would have much to say about La Jetee, as he never even saw the film until it opened for 12 Monkeys at a festival premiere (I forget which one). If Criterion were to include some sort of extra to tie-in with 12 Monkeys it would probably be wiser to talk to David and Jan Peoples, who wrote the script.

[zedz]

. . . he never even saw the film until it opened for 12 Monkeys at a festival premiere (I forget which one).

Now, that's a cruel act of programming spite.

[Blackmail Is My Life]

I would love to see Criterion release The Grin w/o a Cat. It's easily my favorite doc about the New Left and the Vietnam Era [tho' de Antonio's In the Year of the Pig runs a close second.]

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

What's In the Year of the Pig about? I'm familiar with the Marker film, but I've never heard of that one.

[Steven H]

What's In the Year of the Pig about? I'm familiar with the Marker film, but I've never heard of that one.

Maybe Wikipedia knows.

[Tribe]

What's In the Year of the Pig about? I'm familiar with the Marker film, but I've never heard of that one.

Maybe Wikipedia knows.

There's a nice HVE release.

Tribe

[sevenarts]

Just got confirmation that there will be NO other short films included in the set, per Marker's desire to just pair these two specific films together. But "We would like to work with him again in the future and hope that we can get a few more of these films out there."

[Eric]

Just got confirmation that there will be NO other short films included in the set, per Marker's desire to just pair these two specific films together.

Disappointing. I'd have thought Marker was a little bit less likely to perpetuate a "greatest hits" syndrome.

But "We would like to work with him again in the future and hope that we can get a few more of these films out there."

Not disappointing, but I'll believe it when I see it, especially with the deep claws of First Run/Icarus in the mix.

[CSM126]

Noticed a change to the extras for this one. There are now two - count 'em - TWO excerpts from Court-circuit: the originally advertised David Bowie "Jump They Say" clip, and now a bit on Vertigo and how it influenced Marker.

Well I thought it was worth mentioning, anyway.

[der_Artur]

It is worth the mentioning, the clip connecting Vertigo and La Jetee is really clever.

[Kinsayder]

There are multiple references to Vertigo in La Jetee. Catherine Lupton enumerates them in her book "Memories of the Future":

...the slice of sequoia on which the hero indicates his place outside time; the arrangement of the woman's hair, which recalls the spiral hairstyle of Madeleine/Judy in Vertigo; the presence of exotic flower arrangements, when the hero first spies the woman in a department store, invoking the Podesta Baldocchi florist where Scottie first spies on Madeleine; the natural history museum echoing the preserved Spanish mission and the painted wooden horse in Hitchcock's film. What they cumulatively conjure up is another story of a man who, like Scottie in Vertigo, seeks to turn back time by recreating the image of a lost woman, and who fails.

Sans soleil, of course, contains its own abundance of Vertigo references.