Ciné-Club Presents: La Jetée (1962) and Toute la mémoire du monde (1956)

Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962)

Chris Marker’s La jetée is a landmark of science-fiction filmmaking, a 28-minute masterpiece told almost entirely in still frames. An unnamed man is a prisoner in the aftermath of World War III in post-apocalyptic Paris, where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods “to call past and future to the rescue of the present.”

Alain Resnais’ Toute la mémoire du monde (1956)

A 20 minutes long documentary that explores the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, its priceless treasures and how humanity remembers itself. While the movie beautifully shows off the labyrinthine expanse of the Bibliothèque nationale de France – its vast collection of books, manuscripts and documents along with herculean efforts to compile and organize all of its information – the film becomes a rumination on the lengths that humanity will go to keep from forgetting. The film features some gorgeous cinematography by Ghislain Cloquet and a soundtrack by Maurice Jarre.

(All films shown in French with English subtitles.)