23rd March 2010 Double Bill!!!!
La Jetée 1966 (28 mins) Director: Chris Marker Cert PG
The Man with a Movie Camera 1929 (67 mins) Director: Dziga Vertov Cert E
Guest Speaker Dr Jon Kear: Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Art/Film

La Jetée (The Jetty), 1966
This highly-influential science fiction film won the Prix Jean Vigo for short film. In just 28 minutes of mostly still black and white scenes it tells the haunting story of a post-nuclear experiment in time travel which spans many centuries. In a destroyed post-apocalyptic Paris after World War III, some survivors in underground tunnels investigate time travel. A male prisoner is selected to travel back in time to re-enact a violent childhood scene, he is then projected into the far future where he meets highly-advanced technological people who give him the power to regenerate his own society. The story unfolds in a heartbreakingly despairing way as it explores the relationship between the personal and the universal.

The Man with a Movie Camera, 1929.
Set in various Soviet cities, this film is an experimental documentary with no story and no actors. In so far as there are any characters, these are the cameraman of the title and the people of the modern Soviet Union. As there are no actors, story or set, the film is regarded as ‘absolute cinema’ on the basis of its complete separation from theatre and literature. The film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques invented or further developed by Vertov, including double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, tracking shots, and stop-motion animations amongst others. These pioneering techniques, together with a (more-recently added) impressive soundtrack, provide a unique montage of Soviet life.