Isabel Ochoa Gold

Chris Marker: Immemory

The legendary French filmmaker's labyrinthine memoir, first published by Exact Change in 2002 as a CD-ROM, now reconfigured into book form after a laborious process initiated by the artist before his death in 2012 Filmmaker, photographer and writer Chris Marker never adhered to the conventions of a particular art form. Each of his films, from La Jetée to Sans Soleil, pushes the boundaries of its medium, merging at times with the essay, political manifesto, personal letter, art installation and even, finally, a computer game. For Immemory, first published in 1998 (French) and 2002 (English), Marker used a CD-ROM to create a multi-layered, mixed-media memoir. The reader investigates ""zones"" of travel, war, cinema and poetry, navigating through image and text as if physically exploring Marker's memory itself. The result is a veritable 21st-century Remembrance of Things Past, an exploration of the state of memory in our era. With it, Marker both invented a literary form and perfected it, just before the digital format he chose for the experiment was quickly rendered obsolete. Immemory: Gutenberg Version reinvents this unique work for the printed page, a project the author dreamed up, titled, and began working on with Exact Change before his death. Now finally realized, it brings this seminal work into the present and future through a time-tested, durable format of the past: the book. Chris Marker (1921–2012) served in the French Resistance, and then the US Air Force, during World War II and worked as a journalist while honing his film career. He received international acclaim with La Jetée in 1962, and became a critical voice in film theory and production as well as a widely admired "cult" artist, a filmmaker's filmmaker.