The Time Travel Movie That Doesn't Move

SOURCES

MUSIC (via Epidemic Sound)

"Everywhere except Right Here", Hanna Lindgren
"Trapped", They Dream By Day
"Entanglement", Luba Hilman

[LunarPitStop]

I remember watching La Jetée in a film class, and that one motion shot ended up basically acting as a jump scare for us lol. That startling effect on something we take for granted in every other film was one of my biggest takeaways from it.

[johnornelas]

it's so interesting to me that this movie still seems to be taught in film school and basically nobody else other than film students have seen it. it's so good.

[mfield]

The part where you explained the brief moment of motion in the movie caught me by surprise. Made me think of how I will remember those I love. Thank you for this.

[summitupman]

Almost cried. Over a 5 minute video. About a movie I've never seen. So powerful

[Tarunsharmafilms]

The gold standard of YouTube essays, the video on transcending time was my first nerd writer video and time appears to be a loop indeed. Beautiful.

[twigcollins]

The moment in twelve monkeys when she's looking for the young him because he's told her the memory and so she knows he's there somewhere, she knows the whole world's going to end and she knows he's dead and alive and that she's the moment he remembers above all else and she finds him and smiles - it just kills me. I remember seeing it in the theater and when it was over nobody moved and nobody spoke.

Also, if you're into thinking about the concept of time as deterministic, Jacob Geller's Nothing Ever Stops Existing is great.

[joeyreid]

La jetee is a also a retelling of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with heavy themes of obsession and memory radiating through both films. But it’s most evident in the scene with the dissected tree and in the flower shop, which are basically wholly lifted from Vertigo

[AlaskaSkidood]

Wow. Maybe it's just where I'm at in life, maybe it's excellent film making, but that clip leading up to and including the 1 second of 24fps brought involuntary tears.
It felt like going from vague memory to reliving a moment. From remembering a lover to connecting with a soulmate. From watching a story to living a life. Powerful.

[dj__alien]

One of my favorite films I watched in film school. I Love how the movement of film represents the freedom he tries to escape to, but in the end he is forever trapped in space and time within the still frames. Such a niche and avant-garde way to use photographs and film to tell a narrative.

[scenariogamer]

Realizing 12 Monkeys was based on La Jetée happened to be a pivotal moment in my film school experience.

[noodleify]

I was obsessed with this film in college. It's so brilliant and original, a style of independent cinema that seems to have been lost to time (like Maya Deren's 'Meshes of the Afternoon')

[hcyt]

Time and time again, you create such beautiful work.

It’s amazing that you can take such profound works of art, and then later on it an artful piece through your own video essays.

Thank you.

[BariumCobaltNitrogn]

This was one of the gems from film school, in French of course. Also Chien Andalou, Stranger Than Paradise, These Hands, Sheltering Sky and the mise-en-scene of Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway was an architect).

[SauravCH]

I've been following this channel for almost a decade now, slowly expanding my knowledge of cinema since I subscribed. I'm happy to say today's the first time I already know what movie you're talking about from only the title. 🎉

[anthromark]

I have a theory for the inspiration of La Jetee, wanna here it? I'll keep it really short. Chris Marker hung out the French New Wave pack. La Jetee is based on one of the best lines in cinema: from Goddard's "Breathless" - when Patricia goes to the Orly airport and out on the pier (location connection) and asks the poet, Parvalesco, his grand ambition. He eventually answers "To become immortal, then die." Such a great line. I think Marker took it as a challenge to make that line come to life - how would that be even possible? We see the answer in La Jetee - two years after the success of Breathless.

[Kalo_]

"Looking for possibility, they instead find fate." You're the best, Nerdwriter.

[bobhume]

I'd never made the connection between this film and 12M's. (Humbling!)

But I'm super grateful for the lesson in humility that Evan's provided here (again!)

This channel and Like Stories of Old have the market cornered on thoughtful, cerebral, insightful interrogations of meaning.

Thanks, Evan, for years of profound explorations, and congrats on another one that will stick with me forever.

(I just shared 'How Fincher Hijacks Your Eyes' with a high school student who's super interested in Fight Club and film this week.)

[TDar]

Oh god
When I was studying animation our Basics of Photography professor played La Jetee in class and fell asleep 15 minutes in
He woke up a few moments after the film was done, turned around to look at us, realised what just happened, got up, fixed his jacket and said "So... yeah. Beautiful film. That's all for today, class dismissed."
We had like an hour left of the lecture according to the schedule

[obibon]

Hey Evan,

I was really overjoyed to pre-order your book, Escape into Meaning, as I find myself always wanting to give back to you somehow. All of your video essays (and physical book essays) move me and give me a new perspective.

With Call Me By Your Name it was when you expected someone to hassle them for their relationship, their parents, society, but nobody ever did, and you said that it was revelatory, which for me was revelatory, because it was a kind of acceptance that I never had most of my life.

In this video the sense of time traveling to the future to understand or change the past is deeply personal. It can come from being frozen in time at a young age through childhood abuse, then something in the future causes you to recognize or remember what happened, and this way the future changes the past-- and you may come to find that indeed, you were the one that died in that forgotten fragment of a memory. Maybe through art you come alive again, perhaps by making a film like this one.

Anyway, thank you Evan. I hope to run into you in Portland at your next book signing, or the Evan is Awesome Parade-- which if any town is nutty enough to put one on it's Portland. I know a place for the best most memorable slices. :D

[finophile]

a fascinating and deftly handled analysis, of the many things written about this movie I don't think I've seen this angle presented before. However I wanted to offer something about the use of movement in another movie; in this case it was a still that suddenly and briefly transformed into fluidity by changing from being a photograph being examined to a fleeting glimpse of a memory. It was of course in Blade Runner and it was the scene where the "young Rachel" is seated beside her mother and ever so briefly (maybe 5 frames) it turned into a moving picture.
Thanks for your great discussion on this topic