could it be that La Jetee by Chris Marker was inspired by Orson
Welles's The Trial--especially the opening illustrated sequence. both
mooies blend futuristic modernism/sci-fi elements with an overpowering
sense of the past. this was true of kafka's book itself but even more
so of welles film made in the early 60s when the International Style
was spreading across the european landscape. so, the contrasts are
even greater. joseph k of welles's movie is lost in the both the
gothic/neo-classicist and the modernist labyrinths--psychologically as
well as physically. joseph k is haunted by arcane fears and infected
with modern doubt. there is a sense that the past still controls the
present. or, that the present is still the past under a different
guise. or, that the new has uprooted us from the past--the soil of
meaning and identity. or, that both the past and present, mutally
hostile though they are, conspire to amass and abuse power to crush
the individual.
well, too bad that anthony perkins was cast as joseph k. he's fidgets
like a gay jimmy stewart or jack lemmon. sometimes, he even looks like
gilligan. whenever he's around, the movie feels like 'joseph k goes
to wa****ngton'. it's one the greatest miscastings in cinematic
history, all the more unfortunate because The Trial, for all its
faults, is a fascinating mooie.
anyway, it's just possible that Chris Marker--and even godard and
truffaut--were tremendously influenced by welles's The Trial. there
are Trialesque elements in Alphaville by godard. also in Fahrenheit
451 by truffaut. they all share the notion that meaning in the
future is only be found in the past(of course, 'the future' in sci-fi
is often a stand-in for the present--like 84 of 1984 was merely the
flip of 48 in 1948. the implication, then, is people of today must
look to the past). in Fahrenheit 451, montag finds meaning not in
technology and such but in forgotten and forbidden books. in
Alphaville, anna karina is finally saved by a mythic dick tracy-like
figure in a society overrun by science and technology--Alphaville also
employed akim tamiroff, a latter day welles regular. (there was some
of this in Les Mepris too. the modern world corrupted by capitalism
is cut off from the mythic heroism of the past as depicted by two
figures: fritz lang, the neglected artist, and odysseus, who for all
his troubles, was a free man returning to something priceless--home.
in the modern world of Les Mepris, everything can be bought--artists,
wives, etc. but odysseus fought for his woman and kibbler.) in La
Jetee, too much technology has led to nuclear apocalypse. the only
faint hope for mankind is to enter a fluid zone of eternity and travel
thru time, from past to the future--anytime but NOW. but, the past is
more alluring than the future because people need bonds. human need
humans more than technology or even security. so, when future beings
offer to save the doomed man in La Jetee, he'd rather go back to the
moment before the apocalypse to be with someone he cares about--even
if end of the world is just around the corner--than be safe in a world
of total strangers. for people and civilization, memory is more
im****tant than the future. even without progress and change, there is
meaning in life if one has memory. but, without memory, there is no
meaning; indeed, even future is impossible without what we remember
and already know.
this is why The Trial is unsettling. the past is presented in a dark
and oppressive manner but modernity is no less threatening. joseph K
is squeezed between both. he's like a rat crawling thru the cracks
between the past and the future. he has no sure place in either.
this may have been a neurosis peculiarly powerful among jews. in late
19th and early 20th century, jews had become rich, influential, and
prominent in certain parts of europe--especially in central europe.
they were european but they weren't. they were part of the goy order
but they weren't. they were powerful yet they weren't. they were
confident yet they weren't. a czech jew was and wasn't a czech. an
austrian jew was and wasn't an austrian. a europeanized jew was and
wasn't a jew. he didn't know what the hell he was. so, it's said
that jews were very im****tant in the development of modernism. with
all the power and influence they eventually amassed, they projected
and dissemenited their neurosis as a modernistic ideal onto all of us.
so, when jews say we should all be modern, they mean we should all go
see shrinks and babble like woody allen about our problems. jews are
funny this way.
anyway, look at the use of imagery in La Jetee. it's so much like the
look of welles's The Trial--mentally freeze individual shots from the
movie. also, consider the use of classical and modern music--how they
complement and contrast one another. modernistic music conveys a
sense of anxiety, uncertainty, and confusion while classical or
classicalesque music conveys a sense of order, stability, security,
sanity--or a sublime sense of loss. take the autumnal score for the
final scene of Fahrenheit 451. it's as though chill has descended on
civilization and literary leaves have fallen to the ground to decay.
but, the memory of those leaves have been pressed into the hearts and
minds of the book folks.
consider the music of the final scene of Alphaville which is
traditional classicalish.(same is true of delereus's score for Les
Mepris). and, consider the use of albinoni's largo-ish music in The
Trial. it conveys a sense of loss, futility, death, and tragedy. but,
such themes are still meaningful. they emotionally ground us in
something eternal, meaningful, spiritual; there is some sense of moral
order, no matter how futile or tragic.
truly jarring is the modernish stuff which violate our sense of
emotional perspective. even a funeral, no matter how sad, has a
certain unified theme. you know who is dead and what you're grieving
over. and in most cases, funeral music is appropriately classicalish
or spiritulish. modern music wouldn't cut it at a funeral.
regarding joseph k, it's as though he's being invited to a funeral
where he doesn't know anyone--not even the deceased. in the story,
joseph k doesn't even know what he's accused of, which is worse than
being falsely accused because at least you yourself would know you're
innocent. but, joseph k is befuddled big time because he feels guilty
of nothing and everything since he doesn't know what's what.
and, consider the music in La Jetee. i believes it uses some
religious bach-ish music and some modern music. at times, the
classical stuff sounds strangely modern--as bach music did in
tarkovsky's Solaris--while the modern music sounds strangely
classical. they conflict at times and merge at other times. the
past--culture, art, architecture, music, ideas, etc--maintains its
comforting mythic facades thru time but falls prey to corrosion and
erosion--and on occasion, a brutal act of vandalism or earthquakes.
yet, beauty survives even in its pockmarked form thru the ravages of
time.
the main character of La Jetee is kinda like Joseph K. he's man
trapped in some labyrinth. like joseph k, he's CHOSEN for some reason
or another that isn't quite clear. joseph k is chosen for a crime
which isn't explained--could it be the very fact of being joseph k is
itself a crime? the la jetee guy--whom we shall call monsieur jet--is
also chosen for an odd reason. he is told that he will travel thru
time to aid the survival of mankind barely holding on after the
apocalypse. yet, monsieur jet senses there's more than what the
scientists let on. to put it simply, both k and jet are in deep doo
doo one way or another. they were chosen and put through a process
which invariarably leads to death. fate is inescapable for all of us
but each is destroyed in his special way.
given the fact of inescapability and inevitability, the most we can
settle for is indivduality. people would rather be 'ME' than just a
part of 'WE'. in THX 1138, the hero may perish in the above-world
ground yet he chooses that fate over anonymous security underground.
in Blade Runner, deckard realizes the futility of his escape--and he
may also be a replicant--, but he chooses to stick with rachel
nevertheless. live or die, with her he finally found HIS reality
whether in life or death. even when people 'choose' tyranny, they
may do so because they'd rather be ME than become lost in the
anonymous WE. consider Woman in the Dunes. in that movie, the trapped
man finds meaning as a prisoner in the dune pit. so, he chooses
meaningful imprisonment over meaningless freedom. (it is indeed true
that some people who've been in prison FOR A LONG TIME dread being
released into society. they are SOMETHING within the prison community
while nothing in the 'free' world.) for many people, a sense of
belonging is more im****tant than freedom. to belong is to join the WE
but everyone wants to be part of the WE in a special ME sort of way.
this may be why joseph k is so screwy. on the one hand, he's a modern
free individual but he's lost in freedom. but, there is no place for
him in the WE order of tradition either.
though we speak of freedom and tyranny, even freedom devours itself.
anyone who goes to college must choose one path over others. choosing
one career means forsaking all other dreams. or, if you marry one
person, you must forgo your love of other persons. so freely choosing
one thing is to freely ban yourself from everything else.
in La Jetee, monsieur jet chooses to return to the air****t on that
fateful day. he knows the world is on the brink of apocalyse but
being there for a moment with the woman is more meaningful to him than
safe existence in some future utopia. his trek back to that key moment
is doubly sad because (1) he's killed by the mad scientist and (2)
even if he hadn't been killed, he--and the woman--would have perished
in the world anyway. but, the moment would have been redeemed for its
special meaning that it has for him.
it's as though his entire life existed for that tragic yet meaningful
moment. and, it's meaningful only for him. as a young boy, he had
seen her at the air****t. the image of her on that fateful day was his
memory and his alone. it was an image that stayed with him thru his
life. and, while traveling thru time, he was able to return to her
thru a time warp or drugged imagination. this has metaphoric
implication for memory in general. suppose you're walking one day and
see some lovely girl. she walks away and vanishes from your life
forever. you knew her for ONLY an instant. but, her image stays with
you. in essence, that image of her at that moment on that day becomes
YOUR image. even with the passing yrs, you keep returning to that
moment over and over. you wanna go back to that moment and get to
know her better. but, who was she? where does she live? does she
have a myspace.com site? in your mind, you go back to that moment
over and over. and that moment may be the last image inside your head
on your deathbed. (citizen kane was also about memory, best elucidated
in the scene where bernstein talks about a woman he'd seen long ago as
a young man.)
but of course, you can never go back. what's lost is lost. and,
monsieur jet cannot go back in time. it is not permitted. well,
human memory and cultural memory are frustrating stuff. our sense of
the past is kept 'alive' thru personal remembrance, books, photos,
sculpture, arts, etc, but the past is really gone for good. in a way,
la jetee is like a metaphor for cinema as a whole. long after movie
stars age, fade, or die, they are still there on the silver screen or
widescreen tv, still young and beautiful and vibrant. we go back to
past images as though they've been revived or as though we're
traveling back in time, but of course the real past, once lost, is
lost forever. memory and culture are ghost worlds. what's rather
perverse about the scientists in La Jetee is that they seem to know
that one cannot escape time, yet they keep experimenting with other
people's lives to achieve the impossible.
there is something similar in the story of joseph k. in the story
narrated by welles--told by the priest in the book--in the opening
scene, we are told of a some guy who's summoned to some fortress to be
judged by the law. but, there's a guard who won't let him in. the
guard describes himself as the least of all guards. beyond the gate
await more powerful guards. how many, we don't know. anyway, the
summoned guy waits and waits to be allowed in but grows old and near
death, asks the guard, 'if this place is a court of law and if
everyone seeks the law, how come i'm the only one who be waiting here
all these yrs?' whereupon the guard says 'this gate was for you
alone'. later in the mooie, orson welles brings up the story again
and says that some literary critics have suggested that the summoned
dude arrived out of his own free will. this sounds perverse but has a
certain truth. even though the summoned dude doesn't find the the
truth beyond the gate or obtains the Law, he still found a place that
defines ME against WE. he will never know the truth about himself but
has still come to a place that is reserved ONLY for him. it's like in
invasion of the body snatchers. happy or unhappy, people don't wanna
become pod people who are all like one another. pod people are all
WE. when one comes pod-ish, one loses the ME. ME may be full of
misery but it's still what defines a person from others. and, it's
what gives life meaning. this is one of the reasons why communism
failed. it was all about WE and tried to destroy the ME. by ME, i
don't necessarily mean 'my bigass wealth', 'my bigass glory', 'my
bigass popularity', etc indeed, that kind of ME is really another
form of WE. it's showing off to the world that you are MORE than other
people than distinct and unique from other people. so, if you show off
that you have a bigger-ass house than other people, you are saying 'i
wanna be like the joneses except that my joneshood is bigger-assed
than your joneshood'. a true sense of ME is essentially private. it's
about what your personal memories, private feelings, etc. no one has
to know about it. this is why john savage seeks the ME in brave new
world. but he fails because he seeks the ME all alone. all said and
done, human existence gains meaning thru interaction with others. john
savage, all alone, becomes lonely and nuts. he's not so much ME as
(all by)MYSELF. even ME needs the company of WE. ME is defined not
physically apart from WE but psychologically/emotionally separate from
WE.
anyway, to the extent that the summoned dude in the parable has found
a gate that was only meant for him, it could be said that he chose
that place--even if subconsciously. none of us may find the meaning
of life but each of us wanna find it thru our special way and on our
own special path. those who don't can go for communism where everyone
dresses, eats, lives, thinks, and speaks alike. hypercapitalism is
more colorful with different fa****ons, foods, cars, houses, etc but it
too has created a world of mindless WE where we all try to conform to
the brand.
anyway, though both The Trial and La Jette end tragically, all is not
lost because each character finds his own unique and meaingful path to
death. even if they don't the WHY, they know their paths in life were
theirs alone. in contrast, winston smith in 1984 dies without even
that. he dies like any other victim in the prison state--he dies
loving big brother.
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