Renaissance (Walerian Borowczk, 1963)
Aurelia Steiner (Marguerite Duras, 1979)
Toute la mémoire du monde (Alain Resnais, 1956)
La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
Les Photos d'Alix (Jean Eustache, 1980)

In Renaissance (9 mins, B&W/Color), “objects, willingly terrorist, take the stage.” Walerian Borowczyk, master of object animation, evokes the void, the chaos of things in themselves, but also an extraordinary continuity. Toute la mémoire du monde (20 mins, B&W) is Alain Resnais in microcosm: time, space, and memory are the hidden subjects of a documentary on the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The camera follows long walkways, examines dusty corners, rides the elevators. One is reminded of de Chirico, of Cocteau's Orpheus, of Godard's Alphaville; of heaven and of hell. La Jetée (28 mins, B&W), Chris Marker's well-loved short work, is constructed from still photographs and frozen shots, belied by one luminous, life-affirming blink of the eye. Its sci-fi narrative explores memory, time-travel, and emotions in a post-scientific age. Marguerite Duras's Aurelia Steiner (28 mins, Color) marries images shot from a barge drifting along the Seine, to a soundtrack that is a monologue on pain and memories. Jean Eustache's Les Photos d'Alix (15 mins, Color) similarly questions the relationship of image to soundtrack as Alix, showing her photo album to a friend, little by little moves toward the description of something other than what we see. This “essay in the shape of a hoax” reflects on the way the director of The Mother and the Whore used both language and autobiography.