Blu-ray Release: La Jetée and Sans Soleil

Blu-ray Release Date: Feb. 7, 2012
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion


La Jetée movie scene

True love stands the test of time in La Jetée.

Two movies by the seminal French artiste Chris Marker receive Blu-ray makeovers by Criterion: the influential, radical science-fiction short film classic La Jetée (1963) and the mind-bending free-form documentary/travelogue Sans Soleil (1983).

The two films — a tale of time travel told in still images (and the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s 1995 feature 12 Monkeys) and a stunning visual journey to Africa and Japan — remain the most widely seen films ever made by Marker, who’s also been recognized as a poet, novelist, photographer, editor and now videographer and digital multimedia artist.

Criterion released both movies on DVD before.

In the new Blu-ray, La Jetée and Sans Soleil got restored high-definition digital transfers, approved by Marker, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.

The Blu-ray contains the following features:

  • two interviews with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Chris on Chris, a video piece on Marker by filmmaker and critic Chris Darke
  • two excerpts from the French television series Court-circuit (le magazine): a look at David Bowie’s music video for the song “Jump They Say,” inspired by La Jetée, and an analysis of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and its influence on Marker
  • Junkopia, a six-minute film by Marker about the Emeryville Mudflats
  • booklet featuring an essay by Marker scholar Catherine Lupton, an interview with Marker, notes on the films and filmmaking by Marker, and more

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.