Chris Marker Exhibition at Cinémathèque Française Questions How to Exhibit Cinema

Jacques Aumont's review of the exhibition "Chris Marker : les 7 vies d'un cinéaste" at the Cinémathèque française in Paris (May 3–July 29, 2018) reflects on the challenge of exhibiting cinema. Curated by Christine Van Assche, Raymond Bellour, and Jean-Michel Frodon, the show presents Marker as a filmmaker, photographer, writer, and bricoleur, displaying his diverse output including photos from May 1968, miniature images in matchboxes, and a horse head from Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. A key curatorial choice is screening three full films—Les Statues meurent aussi, La Jetée, and Le fond de l'air est rouge—in near-cinema conditions, forcing visitors to confront the temporal nature of film within an exhibition space. The review argues that the exhibition's structure mirrors Marker's own digressive, labyrinthine style, effectively placing the visitor inside Marker's mind.