Chris Marker

Chris Marker is a pseudonym of Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve (b. 1921, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France–d. 2012, Paris, France), a French director, screenwriter, photographer, editor, writer, and multimedia artist. A major figure in the history of both experimental and documentary film, Marker turned out to be a mythic artist, who is always elusive about his past—even his place of birth is highly disputed (Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and Belleville, Paris compete with Neuilly-sur-Seine). In addition, Marker was known to refuse interviews and not allow photographs to be taken of him (though these claims are not entirely accurate). After studying philosophy prior to World War II, an involvement in the French Resistance during the German occupation, and having joined the United States Air Force as a paratrooper, Marker emerged as an intellectual, journalist, writer, and photographer in Paris in the 1940s. Already he showed a particular interest in filmmaking and he eventually made his debut as a filmmaker in 1952 with a documentary of the Helsinki Olympic Games. Soon after, he collaborated with Alain Resnais on Les Statues meurent aussi—both Marker and Resnais became key members (next to Agnès Varda, Jean Rouch, and Marguerite Duras) of the so-called Rive Gauche group. From the 1950s onward, Marker made seminal documentary essay films such as Dimanche à Pékin, Lettre de Sibérie, and Le Joli Mai. In 1962, he became known internationally for the short La Jetée (The Pier), which consists of still photographs. After his involvement in collective and radical filmmaking for SLON and ISKRA in the period 1967–1974, Marker made Sans Soleil, his best-known and most widely seen essay film that combines documentary and fiction. Already interested in the interactions between various media from the beginning of his career, Marker also developed into a leading video and multimedia artist beginning in the 1980s.