Sans Soleil
Encyclopedia
Sans Soleil is a 1983 French film
directed by Chris Marker
. The title is from the song cycle Sunless
by Modest Mussorgsky
. Sans Soleil is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory and how, as a result, the perception of personal and global histories are affected.
, this experimental essay-film is a composition of thoughts, images and scenes, mainly from Japan
and Guinea-Bissau
, "two extreme poles of survival". Some other scenes were filmed in Iceland
, Paris
, and San Francisco. A female narrator reads from letters supposedly sent to her by the (fictitious) cameraman Sandor Krasna.
Sans Soleil is often labeled as a documentary, travelogue, or essay-film. Despite the film's modest use of fictional content, it should not be confused as a mock-documentary; the fictitious content works as a device to assist meaning in the film which, along with its occasionally nondescript movement among locations and lack of character-based narrative, is derived from the juxtaposition of narrative and image.
from his tragedy Bajazet
(1672):
Marker replaced this quote with the following one by T. S. Eliot
from Ash Wednesday
(1930) for the English version of the film:
, clips from Japanese films and television, and a few excerpts from other films. The original documentary footage was filmed by Marker with a 16mm Beaulieu
silent film camera in conjunction with a non-sync portable tape recorder; the film contains no synchronous sound
. Some of the stock footage shots were colourized with a Spectron video synthesizer
.
's Vertigo
and Marker's own earlier film La jetée
. Marker's use of the name "The Zone" to describe the space in which Hayao Yamaneko's (who is, in fact, Marker himself) images are transformed, is a homage to Stalker
, a film by Andrei Tarkovsky
, as noted in one of the letters read in the film.
French films of 1983
A list of films produced in France in 1983.-1983:-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database**...
directed by Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
. The title is from the song cycle Sunless
Sunless (song cycle)
Sunless is a song cycle by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in 1874, to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer.-Song Titles:The individual song titles are as follows:#«В четырех стенах» Within Four Walls...
by Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
. Sans Soleil is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory and how, as a result, the perception of personal and global histories are affected.
Description
Stretching the genre of documentaryDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, this experimental essay-film is a composition of thoughts, images and scenes, mainly from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, "two extreme poles of survival". Some other scenes were filmed in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and San Francisco. A female narrator reads from letters supposedly sent to her by the (fictitious) cameraman Sandor Krasna.
Sans Soleil is often labeled as a documentary, travelogue, or essay-film. Despite the film's modest use of fictional content, it should not be confused as a mock-documentary; the fictitious content works as a device to assist meaning in the film which, along with its occasionally nondescript movement among locations and lack of character-based narrative, is derived from the juxtaposition of narrative and image.
Introductory quotations
The original French version of Sans Soleil opens with the following quotation by Jean RacineJean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
from his tragedy Bajazet
Bajazet (play)
Bajazet is a tragedy by Jean Racine in five acts , in Alexandrian verse, first played at the Hotel de Bourgogne, on January 5, 1672, after Berenice, and before Mithridate. Like Aeschylus in The Persians, Racine took his subject from contemporary history, taking care to choose a far off location,...
(1672):
"L'Éloignement des pays répare en quelque sorte la trop grande proximité des temps."
(The distance between countries compensates somewhat for the excessive closeness of time.)
Marker replaced this quote with the following one by T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
from Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday (poem)
"Ash Wednesday" is the first long poem written by T. S. Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930 , this poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem",...
(1930) for the English version of the film:
"Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place".
Production
Sans Soleil contains some stock footageStock footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...
, clips from Japanese films and television, and a few excerpts from other films. The original documentary footage was filmed by Marker with a 16mm Beaulieu
Beaulieu (company)
MAISON BRANDT FRÈRES, CHARENTON-LE-PONT is a French manufacturer of motion picture cameras especially well-known for its Super 8 and 16mm hand-held cameras, founded by Marcel Beaulieu. Marcel Beaulieu had earlier been associated with GIC cameras introduced in 1950. The company's first cameras...
silent film camera in conjunction with a non-sync portable tape recorder; the film contains no synchronous sound
Sync sound
Sync sound refers to sound recorded at the time of the filming of movies, and has been widely used in movies since the birth of sound movies.-History:...
. Some of the stock footage shots were colourized with a Spectron video synthesizer
Video synthesizer
A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal.A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept...
.
Influences
The sequence in San Francisco references Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
and Marker's own earlier film La jetée
La Jetée
La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white...
. Marker's use of the name "The Zone" to describe the space in which Hayao Yamaneko's (who is, in fact, Marker himself) images are transformed, is a homage to Stalker
Stalker (film)
Stalker is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their novel Roadside Picnic...
, a film by Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
, as noted in one of the letters read in the film.
External links
- Sans Soleil The film is now published on Google Video with a creative commons licence
- Full text of the film