La Jetée

Chris Markers La Jetée is 28 minutes long and almost entirely made up of black-and-white still images. Since its release in 1964, the film – which Marker described as a photo-novel – has haunted generations of viewers, and its spiralling narrative of post-war time travel has inspired writers, artists and filmmakers.
But as Marker rarely gave interviews, little is known about the origins of La Jetée or the ideas behind it. In this groundbreaking study, Chris Darke draws on rare archival material, including previously unpublished correspondence and production documents, to shed new light on the making of the film. He explores how Markers only fiction film grew out of his early work as a writer and his fascination with Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo (1958), and traces how La Jetées imagery can be seen to echo throughout Markers extraordinarily diverse oeuvre.

In his afterword to this new edition, Darke considers La Jetées continuing impact on contemporary cinema and culture: inspiring Asif Kapadias time-travel docudrama 2073 (2024) and Dominique Cabreras documentary Le Cinquième plan de La Jetée (2025), as well as appearing in the cinema section of the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony.