What do you think?
Rate this book
Staring Back
Photographs by one of French cinema's most influential and enigmatic artists. Any new film and any new book by French filmmaker Chris Marker is an event. Marker gave film lovers one of their most memorable experiences with La Jetée (1962)—a time-travel montage set after a nuclear war that inspired Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995). His still camerawork is not as well known, but Marker has been taking photographs as long as he has been making films. Staring Back presents 200 black-and-white photographs from Marker's personal archives, taken from 1952 to 2006. Some of the photographs are related to his classic films (which include Le Jetée, Sans Soleil, ¡Cuba Si!, and The Case of the Grinning Cat ), others are portraits of famous faces (Simone Signoret, Akira Kurosawa), but most are pictures of people Marker has encountered as he has traveled the world (an extra who appeared in Kurosawa's Ran, a woman seen on a street in Siberia). The central section of the book contains a series of photographs documenting political protests Marker has witnessed, including the march on the Pentagon in 1967, the events of May 1968 in Paris, and the tumultuous 2006 demonstrations protesting the French government's proposed employment policies. The photographs are accompanied by several unpublished texts by Marker, including the English language text of The Case of the Grinning Cat and Marker's annotations for some of the photos. The book—which appears in conjunction with an exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University—also includes essays by Wexner Center curator Bill Horrigan and art historian Molly Nesbit.
165 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2007
4 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
About the author
Chris Marker
38 books42 followersChris Marker is a French writer, photographer, film director, multimedia artist and documentary maker.
He is best known for directing La Jetée (1962), as well as Sans Soleil (1983) and AK (1985), a documentary about Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.
He is best known for directing La Jetée (1962), as well as Sans Soleil (1983) and AK (1985), a documentary about Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 27, 2007
That there are those who look and those who look back.
May 28, 2022
Fascinating collection of stills from Marker's personal photography collection, with many intriguing anecdotes that help shed more light on the mythic recluse that was Chris Marker. Like, who would have known that he was a freaking Philosophy student of JEAN-PAUL SARTRE'S right at the end of the war, for instance?! Marker really just managed to document practically every pivotal moment in the latter half of the 20th century, and I just find this amazing. His work represents an undying desire to understand above all, and a search for real human connection. A very intriguing book overall which definitely helped me to better situate Marker's various cinematic works I've already interacted with in their greater whole.
September 14, 2007
The mysterious Chris Marker's most mysterious book. Great images by the man that is equally disturbing, beautiful, and just fascinating. A very odd and eccentric book. Which equals fantastic.
Oh and a killer portrait of Michel Legrand circ. the 60's.
Oh and a killer portrait of Michel Legrand circ. the 60's.
May 22, 2024
"For, I don't know why, it seems to me that with them I could conquer a world."
-Valery Larbaud as quoted by Marker.
Marker is a rarity for the arts. Philosopher, poet, photographer, political theorist, filmmaker, activist. You may be ready to say, "just like all artists claim!"
Yes, but Chris Marker really IS each and every one of these deeply. His work is a unified field of appreciation of labor as communal, dialectics as dialogue, and passions as pursuits. In this image collection Marker showcases his unique sense of the permutation of an Event and his prescient dissection of youth movements.
After you've been battered by the unmatched quality of the frenetic frames Marker developed, he leaves us to ponder our emotional precariousness. In 2002 he saw the youth opt out of French politics and then immense backlash from the youth after a right wing election win. We see the same today and Marker's question for us still stands: Is the "Spirit of May" still with us? And perhaps, has it been ever-present only needing that 1/50 of a second to fully develop from Event to Peace?
-Valery Larbaud as quoted by Marker.
Marker is a rarity for the arts. Philosopher, poet, photographer, political theorist, filmmaker, activist. You may be ready to say, "just like all artists claim!"
Yes, but Chris Marker really IS each and every one of these deeply. His work is a unified field of appreciation of labor as communal, dialectics as dialogue, and passions as pursuits. In this image collection Marker showcases his unique sense of the permutation of an Event and his prescient dissection of youth movements.
After you've been battered by the unmatched quality of the frenetic frames Marker developed, he leaves us to ponder our emotional precariousness. In 2002 he saw the youth opt out of French politics and then immense backlash from the youth after a right wing election win. We see the same today and Marker's question for us still stands: Is the "Spirit of May" still with us? And perhaps, has it been ever-present only needing that 1/50 of a second to fully develop from Event to Peace?
April 23, 2023
Didn't really like this but I got it for a steal on Trade Me. 2.5
September 21, 2007
Beautiful, politically-tinged b&w photographs from Chris Marker's (director of my favorite film, La Jetee) personal collection.
December 11, 2007
my wish list
December 27, 2007
Chris Marker makes human politics, well, human. And luminously beautiful. This book is a catalog from a recent exhibit - pick it up, it won't be around for long.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews