Photography and Cinema

Book excerpt: Eclecticism seems to be one of the most recognized features of Chris Markerâ (TM)s work. He is often presented as a filmmaker and a photographer, a poet, a translator, a cartoonist, a visual artist, an editor, a software designer and a television and video director. Given the 50 years since the release of his most well-known film, La JetÃ(c)e (1963), this volume fosters discussion of the intertwining of photography and cinema within a framework that analyses Markerâ (TM)s influence in film and photographyâ (TM)s scholarship. In the last ten years, many books have been published on the subjects of photography and cinema, discussing not only the history of both media, but also the transformations they have undergone through digital revolution that came to blur the frontiers between them. Furthermore, the theory of photography has been raised to a new level, presenting new and fresh thinking, raised through innovative philosophical, historical and cultural approaches, as well as through the recognition of the importance and impact that photography and cinema, as documentary media, have had in the field of modern and contemporary art. Acknowledging this rich context, this book builds on recent research on photography and cinema, recognizing how digital technology has brought about new ways of working with images, in addition to raising new theoretical issues concerned with them. No author could be more stimulating and inspiring than Marker to start such a journey; his movies, La JetÃ(c)e in particular, have consistently been a source of inspiration to future generations of directors, as well as critics and scholars.