La Jetée.Chris Marker.(1963) 1/3

Directed by Chris Marker (inspiration for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys)La Jetee's Script pt.1This is the story of a man, marked by an image from his childhood. Theviolent scene that upsets him, and whose meaning he was to grasp only yearslater, happened on the main jetty at Orly, the Paris airport, sometimebefore the outbreak of World War III.Orly, Sunday. Parents used to take their children there to watch thedeparting planes.On this particular Sunday, the child whose story we are telling was boundto remember the frozen sun, the setting at the end of the jetty, and awoman's face.Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. Later on they do claimremembrance when they show their scars. That face he had seen was to be theonly peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had heinvented that tender moment to prop up the madness to come?The sudden roar, the woman's gesture, the crumpling body, and the cries ofthe crowd on the jetty blurred by fear.Later, he knew he had seen a man die.And sometime after came the destruction of Paris.Many died. Some believed themselves to be victors. Others were takenprisoner. The survivors settled beneath Chaillot, in an underground networkof galleries.Above ground, Paris, as most of the world, was uninhabitable, riddled withradioactivity.The victors stood guard over an empire of rats.The prisoners were subjected to experiments, apparently of great concern tothose who conducted them.The outcome was a disappointment for some - death for others - and forothers yet, madness.One day they came to select a new guinea pig from among the prisoners.He was the man whose story we are telling.He was frightened. He had heard about the Head Experimenter. He wasprepared to meet Dr. Frankenstein, or the Mad Scientist. Instead, he met areasonable man who explained calmly that the human race was doomed. Spacewas off-limits. The only hope for survival lay in Time. A loophole in Time,and then maybe it would be possible to reach food, medicine, sources ofenergy.This was the aim of the experiments: to send emissaries into Time, tosummon the Past and Future to the aid of the Present.But the human mind balked at the idea. To wake up in another age meant tobe born again as an adult. The shock would be too great.Having only sent lifeless or insentient bodies through different zones ofTime, the inventors where now concentrating on men given to very strongmental images. If they were able to conceive or dream another time, perhapsthey would be able to live in it.The camp police spied even on dreams.This man was selected from among a thousand for his obsession with an imagefrom the past.Nothing else, at first, put stripping out the present, and its racks.They begin again.The man doesn't die, nor does he go mad. He suffers.

Channel: Film & Animation
Uploaded: December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm
Author: headcancer25

Length: 09:00
Rating: 4.92
Views: 36629

Tags: 12  chris  cole  france  gilliam  goines  inspired  james  jeffrey  jetee  jetée  la  marker  monkeys  terry  twelve  

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