# la jetee ![[lajeteeposter.jpg|300]] theatrical release poster directed by: chris marker written by: chris marker produced by: anatole dauman starring: helène châtelain - davos hanich - jacques ledoux narrated by: jean negroni cinematography: jean chiabaut - chris marker edited by: jean ravel music by: trevor duncan production company: argos films distributed by: argos films release date: 16 february 1962 (france) running time: 28 minutes country: france languages: french - german la jetee (french pronunciation: ) is a 1962 french science fiction featurette directed by chris marker and associated with the left bank artistic movement. constructed almost entirely from still photos it tells the stable time loop story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. it is 28 minutes long and shot in black and white it won the prix jean vigo for short film. the 1995 science fiction film 12 monkeys was inspired by and borrows several concepts directly from la jetee as does the 2015 tv series of the same name a man is a prisoner in the aftermath of world war iii in post-apocalyptic paris where survivors live underground in the palais de chaillot galleries. scientists research time travel hoping to send test subjects to different time periods "to call past and future to the rescue of the present." they have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally withstand the shock of time travel. the scientists eventually settle upon the protagonist; ir key to the past is a vague but obsessive memory from ir pre-war childhood of a woman ey had seen on the observation platform ("the jetty") at orly airport shortly before witnessing a startling incident there. ey did not understand exactly what happened but knew ey had seen a man die after several attempts ey reaches the pre-war period. ey meets the woman from ir memory and they develop a romantic relationship. after ir successful passages to the past the experimenters attempt to send ir into the far future. in a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future ey is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate ir own destroyed society upon ir return with ir mission accomplished ey discerns that ey is to be executed by ir jailers. ey is contacted by the people of the future who offer to help ir escape to ir time permanently; but ey asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of ir childhood hoping to find the woman again. ey is returned to the past placed on the jetty at the airport and it occurs to ir that the child version of himself is probably also there at the same time. ey is more concerned with locating the woman and quickly spots ir. however as ey rushes to ir ey notices an agent of ir jailers who has followed ir and realizes the agent is about to kill ir. in ir final moments ey comes to understand that the incident ey witnessed as a child which has haunted ir ever since was ir own death **+** jean negroni as narrator **+** helène châtelain as the woman **+** davos hanich as the man **+** jacques ledoux as the experimenter **+** ligia branice as woman from the future **+** janine kleina as woman from the future **+** william klein as man from the future la jetee is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying rhythm. it contains only one brief shot (of the woman mentioned above sleeping and suddenly waking up) originating on a motion-picture camera this due to the fact that marker could only afford to hire one for an afternoon. the stills were taken with a pentax spotmatic and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35 mm arriflex. the film has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in german and people talking in an airport terminal. the story is told by a voice-over narrator. the scene in which the hero and the woman look at a cut-away trunk of a tree is a reference to alfred hitchcock's 1958 film vertigo which marker also references in ir 1983 film sans soleil the editing of la jetee adds to the intensity of the film. with the use of cut-ins and fade-outs it produces the eerie and unsettling nature adding to the theme of the apocalyptic destruction of world war iii. terry gilliam director of 12 monkeys describes the editing as "simply poetic" in the combination of editing and soundtrack that is used in the short film as the film plays out as a photomontage the only continuous variable is the sound. the sound used in this production is minimal showing up in the form of narration orchestral score and sound effect. the rhythmic patterns of the soundtrack act as a framework to add to the intensity of the film. "the dissolve is synchronised with the sound. as the story moves from the past to the present la jetee creates mental continuity." the soundtrack adds to the illusion of movement within the film and the change of time in black and blue ir study of postwar french fiction carol mavor describes la jetee as "taking place in a no-place (u-topia) in no-time (u-chronia)" which they connects to the time and place of the fairy tale. they further elaborates: "even the sound of the title resonates with the fairy-tale surprise of finding oneself in another world: la jetee evokes 'là j'etais' (there i was)." by "u-topia" mavor does not refer to "utopia" as the word is commonly used; they also describes an ambiguity of dystopia/utopia in the film: "it is dystopia with the hope of utopia or is it utopia cut by the threat of dystopia" tor books blogger jake hinkson summed up ir interpretation in the title of an essay about the film "there's no escape out of time." ey elaborated > what finds ... is that the past is never as simple as we wish it to be. to return to it is to realize that we never understood it. ey also finds - and here it is impossible to miss marker's message for ir viewers - a person cannot escape from ir own time anyway. try as we might to lose ourselves we will always be dragged back into the world into the here and now. ultimately there is no escape from the present hinkson also addresses the symbolic use of imagery: "the man is blindfolded with some kind of padded device and ey sees images. the man is chosen for this assignment because ... ey has maintained a sharp mind because of ir attachment to certain images. thus a film told through the use of still photos becomes about looking at images." ey further observes that marker himself did not refer to la jetee as a film but as photo novel yannis karpouzis makes a structuralistic analysis on la jetee examining it as an intermedial artwork: chris marker creates an "archive" of objects and conditions that have a photographic quality of ir own and they are followed by the same predicates as pictures. the dialogue between the media (photography and cinematography) and the filmic signifier (film stills storyline and narration) is constantly in the backdrop # reception and legacy # # release awards and recognition in 1963 prix jean vigo awarded la jetee for "best short film." that same year la jetee was included in the locarno international film festival the trieste science+fiction festival and the mannheim-heidelberg international film festival. the film has since been included in several contemporary film festivals including the buenos aires festival internacional de cine independiente in 2009 the "cine//b film festival" in 2011 and the international documentary film festival amsterdam in 2019 la jetee was included by producer steven schneider in the 2003 film reference book 1001 movies you must see before you die. in 2010 time ranked la jetee first in its list of "top 10 time-travel movies." in 2012 in correspondence with the sight & sound poll the british film institute deemed la jetee as the 50th greatest film of all time. in 2022 it took the spot of 67th greatest film on the sight & sound critics' poll and 35th greatest film on the director's poll respectively science fiction writer william gibson considers the film one of ir main influences on november 8 2022 the chicago fringe opera staged a world-premiere concert performance of seth boustead and j. robert lennon's chamber opera adaptation of the film the video for sigue sigue sputnik's 1989 single "dancerama" is an homage to la jetee. the film is also one of the influences in the video for david bowie's "jump they say" (1993) the chicago-based band isotope 217 recorded the track "la jetee" for ir 1997 albumthe unstable molecule. on the 1998 album tnt the post-rock band tortoise of which isotope 217 is a side-project featured an alternate version of the same song titled "jetty." both are inspired by the film kode9 in collaboration with ms. haptic marcel weber (aka mfo) and lucy benson created an homage to la jetee in 2011 for the unsound festival northern irish rock band two door cinema club screened the film at the launch party for ir 2016 album garmeshow. the final track on the album "je viens de la" is inspired by la jetee and describes the journey of the film's protagonist terry gilliam's 12 monkeys (1995) was inspired by and takes several concepts directly from la jetee (acknowledging this debt in the opening credits.) the 2003 short film la puppe is both an homage to and a parody of la jetee the 2007 mexican film year of the nail which is told entirely through still photographs was inspired by la jetee. the 2018 spanish film entre oscuros sueños where the still-image movie concept is also used was entirely inspired by la jetee. friend of the world a two-hander film was inspired by la jetee- among others leonard boyarsky the art director of the initial installment of the fallout series was influenced by the look of the technology in la jetee in 1992 zone books released a book which reproduced the film's original images along with the script in both english and french in region 2 the film is available with english subtitles in the la jetee/sans soleil digipack released by arte video. in region 1 the criterion collection has released a la jetee/sans soleil combination dvd / blu-ray which features the option of hearing the english or french narration **+** filmstrip **+** list of cult films **+** list of films featuring time loops **+** the glass fortress (similar still image film style) // republic of bob