Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat

Edited by Chris Drake Magnus Af Petersens, and Habda Rashid

This important study -- published in conjunction with the Whitechapel's acclaimed exhibition -- is the first comprehensive survey of filmmaker Chris Marker's influential oeuvre, surveying the entirety of his prolific career

Illustrated throughout, the book charts Marker's unique commentaries on societies at times of upheaval, from his early writing and photography to his later use of CD-ROM and appropriation of web technology. Integrating his films within the display, it also brings together for the first time all of Marker's multimedia installations.

Alongside a wealth of images that chart Marker's substantial creative output, Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat also explores the filmmaker's shift from word to image, the commissioning of his multimedia installations and the subsequent interplay of media. It includes key essays by the curators Christine van Assche, Chief Curator, Centre Pompidou, Paris, writer and film critic Chris Darke, and Whitechapel Gallery curators Magnus Af Petersens (Chief Curator) and Habda Rashid (Assistant Curator); texts by critics Raymond Bellour and Arnaud Lambert; plus the first English translations of two key early writings by Marker, an essay on Jean Cocteau's film Orphée (1950) and his short story Till the End of Time (1947), which takes place the day after VJ day amidst a torrential rainstorm and features a demobilised soldier subject to apocalyptic visions, anticipating Marker's most famous film, La Jetée (1962).

Published by Whitechapel Gallery

0.5" x 11.0" x 9.4" / 1.4 lbs

136 pages