As Ann & I finished up our coal oven pizza at Arturo’s I made it plain we had to hurry. “C’mon, we gotta hustle, the movie is gonna’ start soon. It’s about an old guy walking around Paris talking about what he sees. We don’t want to miss any of it.” For some reason, I absolutely love Chris Marker. I don’t wanna sound like a homo or anything, but I might just consider the guy a kindred spirit. Here’s a guy who likes to wander around the city, look at buildings and signs, listen to musicians in the subway, gets all kooky when he sees cats and has a fascination/vague affiliation with The Left. Go into the archives of this blog a little further and tell me what you see. Anyway, “The Case of the Grinning Cat” covers the 2001-today period inside Marker’s head. Starting with flash mobs and ending with a tabloid scandal that must’ve been a big deal in France, but I never heard of. Along the way is M. Chat.
Film Forum has programmed this “Case of the Grinning Cat” with five shorts they are calling Chris Marker’s Bestiary. Cats, Owls, Rhinos, Elephants. . .all on shoddy early video with bad sound. What more could you want?
As Time Magazine has pointed out, YouTube has made all of us media moguls. As time marches on there will be fewer and fewer opportunitites to see “film diarists'” work in a theater. (And, sigh, Marker has moved to video. Is Jonas Mekas still shooting on film?)
