Science Fiction: A Ghetto

Science Fiction: A Ghetto

Science fiction as a genre gets little respect.

“What?” goes the cries. “With the Star Wars series, the Transformer series, the Jurassic Park series, and the Marvel Comics Universe raking in billions?”

Night and Fog (1955) - in tribute to Alain Resnais (1922 - 2014)

In tribute to Alain Resnais, 1922 -2014

I remember handing a work of literature about the Holocaust (Art Spiegelman's Maus) to my class, and after they had finished the book and passed the exams, having them watch Resnais' Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog, 1955). By then my students were wary (they knew me too well) and full of questions: will it be long? Will it be in black and white? Will it be boring? I replied: "No; kind of; see for yourself."

San Soleil (1983) - a belated tribute to Chris Marker (1921 - 2012)

A list of things that quicken our heart

A belated tribute to Chris Marker (1921 - 2012)

Watching Chris Marker's San Soleil leap from place to place, subject to subject, time to time, one can't help but think this is a familiar experience; and then one realizes what experience that might be--the film is very much like a streaming multiscreen webpage, with the cursor clicking on one hyperlink after another to dive deeper and deeper into the page, past text and images and video clips, in an endless discursive spiral. 

Chris Marker, 7/29/21 - 7/30/12

Chris Marker, 1921 - 2012

His La Jetee in its brief forty minutes encompasses the span of a man's life, in its static images the mystery of the man's soul and in its oblique and tersely told story the tragedy of the man's destiny. If this isn't one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made (it is, but say it isn't) it's definitely one of the most daring, most lyrical, most eloquent. 

Your work was loved, sir, and we will miss you.