Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1921 and died in Paris in 2012, Chris Marker was a writer, photographer, philosopher and film-maker who guarded his privacy and rarely gave interviews or let himself be photographed. Associated with the Left Bank group of the French New Wave, he created the essay film, an intimate, subjective and political reflection spoken over images. La Jetée (1962), a time-travel story told almost entirely in still photographs, inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. Sans soleil (1983) is a meditation on memory, travel and Japan, and A Grin Without a Cat (1977) a history of the left after 1968.
Filmography
- Statues Also Die (1953)
- Letter from Siberia (1957)
- La Jetée (1962)
- Le joli mai (1963)
- A Grin Without a Cat (1977)
- Sans soleil (1983)
- The Last Bolshevik (1993)
- Level Five (1997)