Temporal Articulation in La Jetée by Jason Gendler (UCLA)
Chris Marker's La Jetée presents a narrative occurring in three distinct time periods: the past, present, and future, depicted solely through static images. Each time period articulates the temporal relationship between adjacent images differently and through various means, including but not limited to the amount of perceived movement or change within the mise en scene from shot to shot (or the ellipsis between images in a sequence), and the amount and type of voiceover used in any given sequence. The audience's ability to comprehend narrative time remains relatively consistent throughout the film, but the means by which passing time is represented alters in each time period, depending upon the ways in which the above characteristics are manipulated.
On a strictly visual basis, the audience's perception of the passage of time becomes progressively retarded from past to present to future (fabula-wise), and this sensation is achieved through the manipulation of ellipsis between images in a sequence (a sequence being any uninterrupted slice of time occurring in the past, present, or future). Broadly, shot to shot differences in time go from determinate in the past, to less determinate in the present, to almost totally indeterminate in the future. In other words, it is easier to register the passage of time through the change within the image from shot to shot in sequences occurring in the past than it is in sequences occurring in the present, which in turn register the passage of time more explicitly than do the images from sequences occurring in the future.
For example, a sequence in the beginning of the film (occurring in the temporal present of the fabula) depicting of the results of the initial time travel experiments presents images that are of a relatively indeterminate temporal nature. There are a series of images of a staring, mustachioed man who has been driven insane by the experiments, as well as what could be a guard escorting him to his cell. These images could be interpreted as occurring in real-time (as in a typical continuous scene composed of moving images), or as occurring over the course of many disparate moments in time (as in a montage sequence), or a single moment in time (as in a freeze frame). As such, it is very difficult to determine the temporal relationship of one shot to another.
The indeterminate temporal nature of the above sequence and others like it is caused first by the shots existing as still images; individually, each shot contain absolutely no temporal articulation. Second, the indeterminate temporal nature of the above sequence is also caused by the nondescript shots presented; each shot is of an object or figure that exists in relative independence from the objects or figures in adjacent shots. At five minutes and twenty-four seconds, there is a close up of the insane man, followed by another more distantly-framed shot of the insane man in which he has the same vacant expression as in the preceding shot. The next shot is a close up of someone who is presumably a guard, followed by a shot of a wooden log, followed by a low-angle shot of the insane man, still with the same expression. Are these images that occur in immediate temporal succession, as distinctly separate moments continuously demarking the progress of objects though space (a facsimile of screen time equaling syuzhet time, like the images on a radar screen)? Or are they meant to represent the same instant in time (screen time is greater than syuzhet time)? Or are they each representative of distinct segments of time occurring far apart from one another, as in a montage sequence (screen time is less than syuzhet time)? One can only guess, as it is nearly impossible to tell (although, since all of the images are freeze frames in themselves, each shot's screen time by default is greater than the syuzhet time). Lighting cues help. The slight differences in how light falls on the insane man's face suggest that the images might be occurring in succession, but there is not enough consistency between shots for a determination to be made (nor, for that matter, is one necessary; the narrative is perfectly comprehensible no matter the interpretation of time, thanks largely to the voiceover).
Compare the above sequence from the present to any that takes place in the past. The past is much more determinate in depicting the progression of time. In the past, there is a much greater likelihood for there to be a succession of shots that allow the audience to reasonably guess how much time has passed between successive images. Take as an example a scene in the past that begins at 15:23, the time traveling man approaches the woman as she naps on a park bench. In successive shots he sits next to her, she wakes; they speak, and then walk through the park together. The duration of the sequence, while not exact, is determinable within a reasonable degree (especially since there are successive images with identical framing, in which only the characters move). It is determinably one scene. It is not a montage of many such walks in the park, nor is it a single moment divided into many successive images.
An even more powerful example of the determinate nature of time in the sequences of the past occurs during the bedroom sequence. The images dissolve on top of one another so precisely, one is able to chart the woman's tossing and turning in the bed moment by moment, culminating with the only actual moving image in the entire film, her opening her eyes. It is no coincidence that the only actual image motion that occurs in the film takes place in the past, as all that has come before this moment (as well as the museum sequence to follow) lends the past the next closest thing to movement, through the juxtaposition of shots in explicitly close temporal proximity to one another.
These differences in the temporal relationships between shots in the sequences of the past and present might be implicit, but are consistent across the film. Notice that when the very first images of the past begin to appear, they are very much like the temporally indeterminate images of the present and future: a pasture with grazing animals; a bedroom; a child; birds; a cat on a bed; graves; etc. All of the images are independent of one another, and could be from any moment in the past. Gradually, the images become more temporally determinate when they become images of the woman, and after a brief return to the present, the first sequence from the past is presented in which the images can be determined as from a series of specific moments in close temporal proximity to one another. The film eases into the past by first depicting it as just as temporally indeterminate as the present.
Notice also that the first scene at the start of the film takes place on the pier, when the time traveler is still a child. At this point in the syuzhet, this scene counts as a sequence from the present, since it is being narrated from the child's temporal perspective. Accordingly, the images are of relatively indeterminate temporal nature: an image of the boy and his family standing at the railing; images of planes; flight attendants, and the woman who will play a stronger role later in the syuzhet. However, when the syuzhet returns to this sequence at the end of the film, there is a noticeable change in the temporal relationships between shots. The child, who has grown into the time traveler, has traveled back through time to reach this moment, and when this scene is depicted again, the temporal relationships between shots are very determinate (almost the most determinate in the entire film, second only to the bedroom sequence. Although the shots of the bedroom sequence are joined by dissolves and the shots in this final pier sequence by cuts. Depending on how the editing is read, one could argue that this sequence at the film's end has the most clearly determinate shot to shot temporal relationship). In one shot the man is at the top of a small flight of stairs, while in the next, he is running at the bottom of the stairs; it is clear that the man traveled from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and that the shots occur in succession. In the next two shots, he is shown running away from the camera (he is farther away from the camera in the second shot). In two shots shortly thereafter, he is running toward it, trying to make his way toward the woman at the end of the pier. There are even three short shots of the man running (close ups where his head bobs up, down, up) that occur in such quick succession that when combined, almost appear as if they were another actual image in motion. Such temporally determinate images are of a totally different nature than the images of the pier sequence presented when it
took place in the present, and speak to the degree of consistency in the temporal relationships between shots in the film.
If the past tends toward the explicit in the temporal relationship of shots, and the present is more implicit in articulating those relationships, then future is almost completely indeterminate in visually expressing the temporal relationships between individual images. The sequence that takes place in the future is completely temporally incomprehensible. The only visible information lies in the halves of harshly lit faces that emerge from the darkness. There is so little change in mise-en-scene from shot to shot that most of the images of the time traveling man could be of the same instant. The only indication of the temporal relationships between the images in the sequence is derived from the voiceover, which states that "This was a brief encounter."
As indicated in the previous example, the voiceover often plays an important role in helping to determine the temporal relationships between individual images throughout La Jetée, and once again, there is a pattern to its use throughout the narrative; depending on whether a sequence takes place in the past, present or future, the voiceover has different levels of significance. The sequence taking place in the future is entirely dependent upon the voiceover narration for it to make any sense. Without the voiceover, the images would mostly just be those of non-expressive faces staring at one another (the time traveler is even wearing large, expression-obstructing sunglasses). It is only the voiceover that provides the images with indications to the amount of ellipsis between images.
The voiceover serves a similar function in the present, but to a lesser degree, which is in accordance with the notion of the present as containing images that are more easily temporally associated with one another than the images from the future. In the present, the voiceover sometimes indicates the passage of time, but other visual cues help in this regard. For example, the voiceover plays an important role in indicating an ellipsis that is otherwise unidentifiable, such as when the man first begins the time traveling experiments. The voiceover states "At first, nothing else but stripping out of the present… He suffers. They continue." The images that occur during this voiceover consist of the man lying in the time travel hammock, wearing the time travel visor, as well as shots of the experimenter. They do not indicate the passage of time as determinately as the voiceover statement (even though the voiceover itself in this case is relatively implicit in this regard). At other times the voiceover complements the edits in determining ellipses, such as when the man makes a breakthrough and first travels through time. As the image fades to black, the voice states, "On the tenth day, images begin to ooze like confessions." The fade to black serves a dual purpose here, in that it signifies the first transition from present to past, and it also serves an ellipsis from the start of the experiments to the tenth day.
Accordingly, the voiceover is hardly ever used to indicate the passage of time in the sequences that take place in the past; in these sequences, the images provide enough information for the temporal relationship between shots to be determined, and the voiceover need only describe the content of the conversation, or of the man's thoughts. Thus the voiceover's near-absence in the long museum sequence near the film's end. The progression of the man and the woman around the museum clearly takes place in a concentrated period of time, and no voiceover is need to describe the sequence as such, whereas the voiceover is needed in the present and future to describe conversation, action, and the temporal relationships between shots. Most of the other sequences in the past are similar to the museum sequence in this regard; the voiceover need not take pains to provide temporal indicators.
The amount of ellipsis between shots indicated by changes in mise en scene from shot to shot, as well as the amount of voiceover in any given sequence are by no means the only methods employed in articulating the flow of narrative time in La Jetée. The film also employs many different types of edits to join shots, both within sequences of a distinct time period and between time periods themselves. Interesting patterns emerge and are violated as the film progresses. For example, dissolves are used to indicate ellipses early in the film, but later, in the bedroom sequence, they indicate short ellipses that until that point in the film would have been articulated through simple cuts. A similar phenomenon occurs when the man approaches the woman as she naps on the park bench; she is shown sleeping in various temporally proximate images that are joined not through cuts but dissolves. The woman seems to disturb the established editing pattern in many different ways. Similarly, much more could be written about how the editing interacts with the voiceover and other elements to articulate the passage of time, as well as the use of lighting to differentiate between time periods (past = bright, present = dim, future = dark). However, these and other issues will be left to another longer, more comprehensive examination of the film. For now, it is enough to say that La Jetée is a wonderfully rich experiment in the manipulation of the perception of time; despite the complexities elaborated in this paper, the film presents a consistently comprehensible articulation of time, despite and because of an information-impeding stylistic device (still images as opposed to moving images) and a complex, circular narrative laden with potentially confusing time travel.
Notes
1) Only one pivotal shot in the film is not static.
2) Dissolves typically indicate an ellipsis, or a longer ellipsis than is usually indicated by a cut. Thus the dissolves of the woman sleeping in bed could be read as occurring over longer, more indeterminate periods of time in which she has moved very little.
Works Cited
Le Jetee. Dir. Chris Marker. Perf. Jean Negroni, Helene Chatelain, Danos Hanrich and Jacques Ledoux. Argos Films, 1962.