ArtFocus 5 | Archive » Chris Marker

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Chris Marker // Description of a Struggle

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C h r i s Ma r k e r Born (1921) and lives in France. An unusual writer, photographer and film director, he first won international recognition with his film T h e J e t t y (1962). His experimental work, which constantly examines multimedia and new forms of technology, well reflects the contemporary sphere of visual culture. His works have been exhibited at prominent museums worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Like most of Chris Marker’s films, Description of a Struggle (1960) is about time and memory. Marker – an artist, filmmaker, journalist, writer and essayist – has amalgamated his various practices into a body of works consumed by memory. Given his background as a left-wing activist, his memories from early 1960s Israel are unusual in terms both of what he was interested in and what he overlooked: Israel was a David surrounded by numerous Goliaths, while today it is a regional superpower; back then, the kibbutz merited an attentive, if skeptical and ironic gaze; Marker observes the European pioneers, yet almost completely ignores the country’s Middle Eastern Jews; he pays attention to the Bedouins but not to Palestinian refugees Is this why this film has been ignored by its creator, alongside several other of Marker’s early works?

Latifa Echakhch