For more than 50 years, Chris Marker has cultivated an image as one of contemporary cinema's most mysterious figures.
The French director, who turns 85 on July 21, has rarely granted interviews, or allowed himself to be photographed. One of the few approved shots (right), captures him partially concealed behind the camera, beside one of his cats. Public appearances are unheard of. He shuns major retrospectives of his award-laden career.
Through the Eyes of Chris Marker, Le French May's showcase of some of his key works, will certainly have to do without the presence of its enigmatic subject.
Marker's retreat from public view contrasts with the transparency of his subject matter. He's one of the most overtly political filmmakers of his generation. Since 1953's anti-colonialist Statues Also Die, which he co-directed with Alain Resnais, Marker has never flinched from voicing his views on the twin subjects that fascinate him: popular social movements and the art of filmmaking.
Both of these obsessions are eloquently presented here, with screenings of The Last Bolshevik (about disgraced and largely forgotten Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin) and One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (about the films of Andrei Tarkovsky).
'Using the first person in films tends to be an act of humility - what I only have to offer is myself,' Marker once wrote. And in a career that has produced some of the most innovative and provocative cinematic moments of the past century, Marker has certainly revealed to the world his political convictions.
Some might remember Marker's futuristic 'film-novel' La Jetee - a 28-minute piece strung together from a stream of photographs, a post-apocalyptic tale about time-travel that Terry Gilliam adapted into 1995's Twelve Monkeys starring Bruce Willis - but his career is defined more by epic film essays that force viewers to contemplate a wide variety of cultural and social issues.