The extra for Sans Soleil is a seventeen minute interview with Gorin again. In this extended segment he comes off a bit more knowledgeable than in the deliberately coy smaller excerpts for La Jetee. The films come in English (dubbed) and French, with English subtitles. The musical scoring for both films is very good, with wistful music often acting as the mortar between images in La Jetee, when the images are static and sans narration. All the visuals and editing were done by Marker, and he proves masterful at both.
As these two films are Marker’s best known works, and considered his best, one wonders if this is a critical misinterpretation, or apt. Naturally, I’ll decide when I see other films of his.
That stated, it bears repeating that these films, despite many claims by critics notorious for the tack of critical cribbing, are definitely about memory. They will use some mnemonic devices, but they are about perception; and there is a difference. Perception is memory in the moment, in the now, whereas memory is perception of the now’s shadow, the moment’s shadow. Therefore they scan two different beats. One is the thing as it is, and the other a recreation of what seems to be the thing as it was. Memory is always an act of creation, or re-creation, which takes talent and skill to effectively convey. Perception just takes good senses. Perception requires attention, but it can be loose and amorphous. Memory does not. It requires strict concentration for seeming accuracy. And, as great as the purely cinematic elements are, as I’ve shown, both La Jetee and Sans Soleil would be vastly different and inferior films without the narration that sutures word to image, and both to a whole. These films are essential works of art from the 20th century, and will likely have impacts that reach far into the future, long after much more celebrated works and artists have been forgotten.
Strike memory!
Article comments
1 - Dave
Of course it is inconceivable to Mr. Schneider that the film may be about BOTH memory and perception.
But of course, then he wouldn't have anything to act smug and superior about whilst talking about other critics.
2 - io
couldnt agree more with the previous comment. the films are about both memory and perception.
from the moment i read him stating that vertigo is an overrated movie i knew i couldnt take him seriously.
3 - Outofyourmind
Quoting: "one can understand why I was never particularly moved to engage the films of this man; especially considering that he was French, from that nation that launched the careers of such notable filmic failures as Jean Cocteau and Jean-Luc Godard."
So you would never have watched French cinema because of a whole 2 French directors being failures? Surely that's not very constructive discrimination? That would mean that you wouldn't watch any American cinema on the grounds of how much junk they put out every week? I think American cinema is great, don't you agree?
Cocteau a failure? Please develop... compared to what? Compared to "Terminator" in terms of box office numbers (since you mentioned Terminator in your critic)? What makes you say such a gratuitous, ignorant thing? The guy invented more than most can today with more technology and everyone at the time looked at him as the way forward for the new cinema... Get your head out of your brainwashed box, forget what you learned in the all-good-thinking schools and cinema academies (what's that suppose to mean anyway?) and embrace!
4 - El Bicho
Here's one that doesn't understand that reasoning
5 - what?
Film, after all, is a medium founded and nurtured by the written word. Without a good screenplay, a film is just shadows on a wall."
6 - Christina
Anybody who would judge all of a country's cinema based on disliking some particular movie or director from that country lacks credibility as a reviewer. Those "filmic failures" you mention are actually considered renowned classic filmmakers, and its fine if you don't like them (you are obliged to dislike anyone you please) but stop trying to rewrite history with your shallow denunciations.