Dan Bryan: Marker's La Jetee (1962) touches on an interesting angle from which to approach the idea of time travel by likening the process to dreaming. The still images through which the story is presented to us, combined with the vague descriptions given by the narrator, help to establish a dream-like atmosphere that pervades the entire film. Transitions between the present and other time periods occur while the nameless main character is stretched out on a hammock, his eyes covered. The one scene in which the images in the film have actual movement, when the young woman blinks, occurs at a point in the story in which the main character has grown more accustomed to time travel; this scene can be metaphorically interpreted as the main character's dreams becoming more lifelike to him as he transitions further into a dream-state. A viewer might also be able to interpret the main character's desire to spend more time with the young woman of the past as the main character using his dreams to escape from the reality of the present, in which he is a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic world.
Malcolm Driscoll: Marker's La Jetee in this film the main character was living in the past. He was able to do so through the experiments he was being put through. As he continued to go through the experiments he became more and more adapted to his past and this dream world he was in. Eventually he started to become obsessed with going to this dream world and wanted to stay there. This can be seen when the film breaks picture mode and the leading lady blinks. The main character's increased obsession with wanting to relive his past and go to this dream world eventually became his own demise and he died.
Natalie Brown: Marker's La Jetee shows an interesting compilation of stills that expresses a very apparent and visceral story. The mood of the film was shown through dark images, hushed, eerie, French whispers that I'm not sure I would understand even if I spoke French, and a narrator telling the story of a man who induced his own lucid dreams, unsure of reality. This creates an ambivalent story for the audience member. I, as an audience member, would call the prison where the experiments were performed the true reality, and I can say with confidence that it does not seem like an environment I would be interested in spending time in. He went in between the room that through still images came off as musty, dark, and fairly creepy, and his dream state of spending time with the woman he loved, where the sun actually shined and he held a meaningful human relationship. The back-and-forth between the dream state and reality increases as we approach the end of the film, each shot zooming in and out of still photographs, and our uncertainty, as well as his, of what is real increases with it. Finally what seems to be a climactic moment, we see the woman's eyes move in a major close up. This moment shows movement for the first time. He longs to spend his hours in the presence of this woman, and not with the strange doctors hovering over him. Eventually, this longing he feels to spend whats left of his life in this induced lucid dreaming state leads to the end of his life, which seems to be for the better, as it implies that this dream state will become his reality that he lives in for eternity.
Thomas Meason: The film Marker's La Jetee teaches how the still images can create a very interesting story. Although this was a movie of still images, the storyline could be followed very well because of the movement and angles the Director chose in this. This film is full of visuals and does a great job setting the mood which shows the audience the deep dreams the character was having. As this character is going into these self induced dreams, we can differ between when he's in a dream and when he's in real life. Towards the end of the movie we start to see more rapid cuts and this is to somewhat confuse the viewer as to what is real or not. Unfortunately this character loved going into his dream so much that it became his reality and confused him to his death. This movie overall was a very deep story with just still images that followed a good story showing the vivid dreams of the character.
Huming Liu: Chris Marker's La Jetee presents a story told in black-and-white still images, accompanied by music, sound effects and a soft, slow french voice-over narration.The main character, a war survivor living in Paris wasteland, is able to do time travel in dream through scientists' experiment, which is originally set to find a way to change ruined world. Rather than being a science-fiction story, the narrative actually shows how the unnamed character spends his unrealistic time on finding his beloved woman who lives in his vague memory. At the end of story, he died as he dashed toward his love.The still images are altered very quickly to show how painful and desperate his run is. The pace that Chris Marker edited these images enables every still moment to express emotion and meaning. The repeating close-up POV images of the main character and the scientist put audience in a position where we can even read what those characters are thinking. It makes a big difference when the theme of film is about the exploration of self.
Hunter Stutts: I found La Jetee quite interesting. When given the still image assignment, I wondered how you could bring out the story with no dialogue or video. This short film was a very helpful tool in embracing the idea of having more emphasis on the shot, rather that just what is happening story wise. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
La Jetee takes the idea of dreaming of what once was and brings it to life in this short film . I thought the transitions in the film where very interesting as it went from different time periods all the while the main character stays solitary on his hammock. I interpreted this of the character trying to find a way out from his present reality . I also noticed throughout the main characters longing to spend time with the girl in his past. I feel like she represents kind of a home beacon for him and gives him some kind of comfort. But then we come to find out that this leads to his own self destruction in the end of the movie . Overall, my opinion of the film was that it really had a powerful message of wanting to escape from your reality and return to what once was but that sometimes by doing that it can lead you to crash and burn.
Lydia Eichler: While watching Marker's La Jetee, I thought the use of still images to tell the story created an interesting contrast between past, present, and future. The fact that we were being shown images with a narrator reflecting upon what was happening in them made it feel as though we were looking through a photo album of images from the past, however the film was set in the future. This along with the abundant time travel featured in the film created a sense of dislocation and mystery. Jetee did a fine job using still images to convey emotion by using close-ups and shot-glance-shot sequences to give us insight to what the characters are thinking, even though we are not given any dialogue.
Kevin Dukes: This was a very good short film. I find it interesting how they can show the emotion from the character without using any dialogue. It seems to me that character has lost a loved one at some point in time and it shows that they are never gone or forgotten.
Jacob Holcomb: This short film uses the human minds own perception of what World War 3 would like. In a time when the world was still healing from the horrors of World War 2, anything could happen. The director uses the still images to convey the horrors that could occur and did occur. The shot in the scene that really stood out to me was as the man and woman's journey continued, the director uses one motion shot. The shot of the women looking up to the man right before he is pulled out of the experiment. The very next shot is the shot of the evil doctors that are torturing him. This film helps convey the seriousness of loss and the effects that war has on the world.
In Marker's La Jetee, still shots were used to tell the story of a man who time travels. I enjoyed how at the end the pictures changed faster and faster so that it made the viewer feel as though they were running with the actor. The tone was also made mysterious by the darkness of the shots. Overall I learned that shot composition is very important.
Wilson Weirich: Although not what I expected to be impressed with the most, LaJetee's strong point (in my opinion) was that it was composed of stills. The stills added a unique pacing to the story, as well as acting as a genius approach to easily the most haunting shot in the film. The scene that builds from stills of the woman in bed gradually gains a faster pace until the woman blinks and stares into the camera in live action, effectively shocking the viewer. The almost exclusive use of stills throughout required there to be an incredibly strong narrative and narration. The sound design/music is masterfully incorporated into the visuals. The soundtrack dropped in and out in a chilling fashion, while the sound design/effects established a feeling of uncomfortableness and uncertainty. The sound effects notably added to the intensity of the single live action shot, as the sounds of birds progressively grew louder throughout the scene. The overall sense of the film resonated themes of helplessness and discomfort through its impressive resourcefulness in shot composition, narration, and sound design.
Dan Bryan: Marker's La Jetee (1962) touches on an interesting angle from which to approach the idea of time travel by likening the process to dreaming. The still images through which the story is presented to us, combined with the vague descriptions given by the narrator, help to establish a dream-like atmosphere that pervades the entire film. Transitions between the present and other time periods occur while the nameless main character is stretched out on a hammock, his eyes covered. The one scene in which the images in the film have actual movement, when the young woman blinks, occurs at a point in the story in which the main character has grown more accustomed to time travel; this scene can be metaphorically interpreted as the main character's dreams becoming more lifelike to him as he transitions further into a dream-state. A viewer might also be able to interpret the main character's desire to spend more time with the young woman of the past as the main character using his dreams to escape from the reality of the present, in which he is a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic world.
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ReplyDeleteMalcolm Driscoll: Marker's La Jetee in this film the main character was living in the past. He was able to do so through the experiments he was being put through. As he continued to go through the experiments he became more and more adapted to his past and this dream world he was in. Eventually he started to become obsessed with going to this dream world and wanted to stay there. This can be seen when the film breaks picture mode and the leading lady blinks. The main character's increased obsession with wanting to relive his past and go to this dream world eventually became his own demise and he died.
ReplyDeleteNatalie Brown: Marker's La Jetee shows an interesting compilation of stills that expresses a very apparent and visceral story. The mood of the film was shown through dark images, hushed, eerie, French whispers that I'm not sure I would understand even if I spoke French, and a narrator telling the story of a man who induced his own lucid dreams, unsure of reality. This creates an ambivalent story for the audience member. I, as an audience member, would call the prison where the experiments were performed the true reality, and I can say with confidence that it does not seem like an environment I would be interested in spending time in. He went in between the room that through still images came off as musty, dark, and fairly creepy, and his dream state of spending time with the woman he loved, where the sun actually shined and he held a meaningful human relationship. The back-and-forth between the dream state and reality increases as we approach the end of the film, each shot zooming in and out of still photographs, and our uncertainty, as well as his, of what is real increases with it. Finally what seems to be a climactic moment, we see the woman's eyes move in a major close up. This moment shows movement for the first time. He longs to spend his hours in the presence of this woman, and not with the strange doctors hovering over him. Eventually, this longing he feels to spend whats left of his life in this induced lucid dreaming state leads to the end of his life, which seems to be for the better, as it implies that this dream state will become his reality that he lives in for eternity.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThomas Meason: The film Marker's La Jetee teaches how the still images can create a very interesting story. Although this was a movie of still images, the storyline could be followed very well because of the movement and angles the Director chose in this. This film is full of visuals and does a great job setting the mood which shows the audience the deep dreams the character was having. As this character is going into these self induced dreams, we can differ between when he's in a dream and when he's in real life. Towards the end of the movie we start to see more rapid cuts and this is to somewhat confuse the viewer as to what is real or not. Unfortunately this character loved going into his dream so much that it became his reality and confused him to his death. This movie overall was a very deep story with just still images that followed a good story showing the vivid dreams of the character.
ReplyDeleteHuming Liu: Chris Marker's La Jetee presents a story told in black-and-white still images, accompanied by music, sound effects and a soft, slow french voice-over narration.The main character, a war survivor living in Paris wasteland, is able to do time travel in dream through scientists' experiment, which is originally set to find a way to change ruined world. Rather than being a science-fiction story, the narrative actually shows how the unnamed character spends his unrealistic time on finding his beloved woman who lives in his vague memory. At the end of story, he died as he dashed toward his love.The still images are altered very quickly to show how painful and desperate his run is. The pace that Chris Marker edited these images enables every still moment to express emotion and meaning. The repeating close-up POV images of the main character and the scientist put audience in a position where we can even read what those characters are thinking. It makes a big difference when the theme of film is about the exploration of self.
ReplyDeleteHunter Stutts: I found La Jetee quite interesting. When given the still image assignment, I wondered how you could bring out the story with no dialogue or video. This short film was a very helpful tool in embracing the idea of having more emphasis on the shot, rather that just what is happening story wise. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteLa Jetee takes the idea of dreaming of what once was and brings it to life in this short film . I thought the transitions in the film where very interesting as it went from different time periods all the while the main character stays solitary on his hammock. I interpreted this of the character trying to find a way out from his present reality . I also noticed throughout the main characters longing to spend time with the girl in his past. I feel like she represents kind of a home beacon for him and gives him some kind of comfort. But then we come to find out that this leads to his own self destruction in the end of the movie . Overall, my opinion of the film was that it really had a powerful message of wanting to escape from your reality and return to what once was but that sometimes by doing that it can lead you to crash and burn.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLydia Eichler: While watching Marker's La Jetee, I thought the use of still images to tell the story created an interesting contrast between past, present, and future. The fact that we were being shown images with a narrator reflecting upon what was happening in them made it feel as though we were looking through a photo album of images from the past, however the film was set in the future. This along with the abundant time travel featured in the film created a sense of dislocation and mystery. Jetee did a fine job using still images to convey emotion by using close-ups and shot-glance-shot sequences to give us insight to what the characters are thinking, even though we are not given any dialogue.
ReplyDeleteKevin Dukes: This was a very good short film. I find it interesting how they can show the emotion from the character without using any dialogue. It seems to me that character has lost a loved one at some point in time and it shows that they are never gone or forgotten.
ReplyDeleteJacob Holcomb: This short film uses the human minds own perception of what World War 3 would like. In a time when the world was still healing from the horrors of World War 2, anything could happen. The director uses the still images to convey the horrors that could occur and did occur. The shot in the scene that really stood out to me was as the man and woman's journey continued, the director uses one motion shot. The shot of the women looking up to the man right before he is pulled out of the experiment. The very next shot is the shot of the evil doctors that are torturing him. This film helps convey the seriousness of loss and the effects that war has on the world.
ReplyDeleteIn Marker's La Jetee, still shots were used to tell the story of a man who time travels. I enjoyed how at the end the pictures changed faster and faster so that it made the viewer feel as though they were running with the actor. The tone was also made mysterious by the darkness of the shots. Overall I learned that shot composition is very important.
ReplyDeleteWilson Weirich: Although not what I expected to be impressed with the most, LaJetee's strong point (in my opinion) was that it was composed of stills. The stills added a unique pacing to the story, as well as acting as a genius approach to easily the most haunting shot in the film. The scene that builds from stills of the woman in bed gradually gains a faster pace until the woman blinks and stares into the camera in live action, effectively shocking the viewer. The almost exclusive use of stills throughout required there to be an incredibly strong narrative and narration. The sound design/music is masterfully incorporated into the visuals. The soundtrack dropped in and out in a chilling fashion, while the sound design/effects established a feeling of uncomfortableness and uncertainty. The sound effects notably added to the intensity of the single live action shot, as the sounds of birds progressively grew louder throughout the scene. The overall sense of the film resonated themes of helplessness and discomfort through its impressive resourcefulness in shot composition, narration, and sound design.
ReplyDelete