La Jetée ) is a 1962 French science fiction featurette directed by Chris Marker and associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Chris Marker, (1921-2012) was a French filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor and multi-media artist who has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Marker’s La Jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel. Furthermore what makes the film interesting for the purposes of discussion, is that while in editing terms it uses the language of cinema to construct its narrative effect, it is composed entirely of still images showing images from the featureless dark of the underground caverns of future Paris, to the intensely detailed views across the ruined city, and the juxtaposition of destroyed buildings with the spire of the Eiffel Tower.
LA JETEE
La Jetee was composed of static images with a VoiceOver which provided the necessary information for the audience to understand the short film. The phrase ‘La Jetee’ translates to English as ‘The Pier’ more specifically ‘a small pier for use as a landing-place’ which relates to the meaning of the film. ‘The story of a man forced to explore his memories in the wake of World War III’s devastation, told through still images‘ which suggests ‘The Pier’ connotes this idea that its his path to freedom once he is able to relive his memories he has forced to hide. Furthermore the main theme that La Jette is trying to explore is morality. As how the man lives to only find out the moment that has marked his entire life is the memory of his own death, from a philosophical point of view, La Jetee is an existentialist tale of doomed existence, inevitability, and predetermined death.