Letter From Marker (2017)

A video essay by Luís Azevedo using the words filmmaker Chris Marker spoke about himself to tell his story In 1958 after watching LETTRE DE SIBÉRIE 1957 André Bazin wrote that Markers first feature film resembles nothing hitherto seen in documentary films The important word is essay understood in the same sense that it has in literature an essay at once historical and political written by a poet as well Generally even in politically engaged documentaries or those with a specific point to make the image which is to say the uniquely cinematic element effectively constitutes the primary material of the film with Marker it works quite differently I would say that the primary material is intelligence that its immediate means of expression is language and that the image only intervenes in the third position in reference to this verbal intelligence In 2017 the intelligence in his essay films still flows in the fringes of filmmaking