Imitating La Jetée

Anne Deerness · Oct 21, 2016

Hello everyone,

I am in the curious process of recreating the looks of a few of my favourite photographs and films with the purpose of continuing to learn about processes and results.

I found myself very interested in the film "La Jetée" by Chris Marker. I found the photographs very beautiful and inspiring.
The information i could find about the production was scarce. I mainly found a Pentax camera was used for every single photo but even the model is in dispute.

I am more interested in knowing what kind of methods/film/developing process you guys would use to achieve this look.

I'll leave a few screenshots from the film here: http://imgur.com/a/4EuON

Thanks in advance!

tih · Oct 21, 2016

Fascinating! Can't help you, but am downloading the film now.

However, for what it's worth, the images you selected look like HP5 pushed a couple of stops...

Lachlan Young · Oct 21, 2016

It couldn't have been a Spotmatic as the first models were released in 1964 & the film came out in 1962. A reasonable guess might be something like an H3 (S3 in the USA) & the standard 55mm f1.8 lens

Film was probably Kodak Tri-X processed in D-76/ID-11 - probably around or slightly below box speed. I don't think any filters were used.

I'd start with Tri-X or HP5 in ID-11 1+1 and work from there - in many ways the 'process' such as it was, was little different from fairly standard photojournalistic practice of the era. It should be noted that with 50 years of technological change in the intervening time, the grain character may differ.

Gerald C Koch · Oct 21, 2016

Personally I would be more interested in creating an original photograph rather than duplicating someone else's idea.

Anne Deerness · Oct 21, 2016

tih said:
Fascinating! Can't help you, but am downloading the film now.

However, for what it's worth, the images you selected look like HP5 pushed a couple of stops...

It's one of my fave films! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Lachlan Young said:
It couldn't have been a Spotmatic as the first models were released in 1964 & the film came out in 1962. A reasonable guess might be something like an H3 (S3 in the USA) & the standard 55mm f1.8 lens

Film was probably Kodak Tri-X processed in D-76/ID-11 - probably around or slightly below box speed. I don't think any filters were used.

I'd start with Tri-X or HP5 in ID-11 1+1 and work from there - in many ways the 'process' such as it was, was little different from fairly standard photojournalistic practice of the era. It should be noted that with 50 years of technological change in the intervening time, the grain character may differ.

Thanks for that info! I do think I will be trying both of those films in probably D-76. The photos do seem to be a bit contrasty which might indicate the film was slightly underexposed and overdeveloped, however the highlights don't go all the way to white nor the shadows all the way to black. Do you happen to know how that occurs?

Gerald C Koch said:
Personally I would be more interested in creating an original photograph rather than duplicating someone else's idea.

I don't think that's an either-or situation but thanks for your input!

Lachlan Young · Oct 21, 2016

Anne Deerness said:
The photos do seem to be a bit contrasty which might indicate the film was slightly underexposed and overdeveloped, however the highlights don't go all the way to white nor the shadows all the way to black. Do you happen to know how that occurs?

Giving it a bit more thought, I'd not be totally surprised if the film was rated at 200, processed for the manufacturers indicated time, then decisions about printing down shadows, burning in highlights etc were taken when the images were being printed. Don't forget that Tri-X was officially a 200 speed film until 1960 when the ASA rating system changed.

Patrick Robert James · Oct 21, 2016

Keep in mind you are not seeing the original prints. What you are seeing is a reproduction of the prints onto film, then a transfer onto another film for the print. Then that it is transferred again so you can see it on your tv...... In other words, who knows what he started with.

It is also very difficult to make a print today look like a print from the 60s. The materials really are different.

My suggestion would be to give Fomapan 400 a try. That might be as close to that look as you can get. If you want to take it further, a glycin developer would help as well. Fomapan 400 in Edwal 10 is in the ballpark of the look in the jpegs you posted. If you don't want to/can't mix that up, it would probably be best to stick with D-76 or ID-11.

Hope that helps you.

bvy · Oct 21, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Personally I would be more interested in creating an original photograph rather than duplicating someone else's idea.

I didn't get the impression that the OP was trying to recreate the movie using today's materials -- rather, that she was inspired by what she saw and wanted to experiment in that style.

Lots of good ideas so far. It's hard to go wrong with Tri-X -- extremely versatile and it's been around forever. Certainly capable of getting close to the stills shown in the movie. (Great flick, by the way.)

Arklatexian · Oct 21, 2016

Lachlan Young said:
It couldn't have been a Spotmatic as the first models were released in 1964 & the film came out in 1962. A reasonable guess might be something like an H3 (S3 in the USA) & the standard 55mm f1.8 lens

Film was probably Kodak Tri-X processed in D-76/ID-11 - probably around or slightly below box speed. I don't think any filters were used.

I'd start with Tri-X or HP5 in ID-11 1+1 and work from there - in many ways the 'process' such as it was, was little different from fairly standard photojournalistic practice of the era. It should be noted that with 50 years of technological change in the intervening time, the grain character may differ.

Prior to 1962 I owned a Heiland Pentax H3 made by Asahi and imported into the USA by Heiland. I have a friend who bought his H3 at about the same time in South America and it was called an Asahi H3. He used his camera and the 1000mm lens, among others, that he bought at the same time as a hobbiest while working as a geologist in the Tierra del Fuego region of Argentina (I hope Tierra del Fuego is in Argentina and not Chile). When he was transferred to Africa, he sold the Pentax outfit and bought something smaller and easier to travel with. I kept mine until I traded it in on an Olympus OM2a....Regards!

Chris Livsey · Oct 22, 2016

The film credits the LTC French Lab with processing, presumably not just for the few seconds from the Arri so D96 developer would be the most likely suspect. (this will give lower contrast for duping
Modern Tri-X is of course far removed from the emulsion bearing that name from the period, XX 5222 from Kodak would at least be movie film.
http://motion.kodak.com/IN/en/motion/Products/Production/5222/default.htm

An interesting project.
Interesting what JGBallard had to say about the film.

M Carter · Oct 22, 2016

Just this morning I looked at some images that were HP5+ pushed to 1600. Very similar to the screen shots.

The "what camera used" is just a rabbit-hole to fall into. Nothing special about those shots as far as lens issues and so on, but 35mm will get you closer to the grain. Those images are examples of a good eye for composition, light, and "seeing" a photo when others might not. Don't get hung up on the gear unless you're after some over-arching "retro experience". (I do love my chunky old 1960's 35mm rangefinder - even when my plastic AF-era Nikon bodies deliver much more control and exposure accuracy - so nothing against the retro experience).

Craig75 · Oct 23, 2016

Basically you are shooting with a small depth of field (from those examples) and looking for quite grainy negatives. There's a few ways to skin that cat - use something like 16mm kodak xx in a subminiture camera and grain it through enlargement, shoot at boxspeed (or yr own ei) and overexpose 2 or 3 stops then print down or push the film to say 3x box speed.

I'd try HP5 in rodinol as a starting point as it should grain up quite easily.

(that advice could be garbage tho)

removed account4 · Oct 23, 2016

you might contact via PM michel, he
knows quite a bit about chris marker
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
and i remember him talking about la jettee in particular.
in addition you might see if you can contact chris marker personally
he might give you insights on what film and was used to make the film, seeing it is pretty much
done as a film strip/stills with moving sound rather than a moving picture with sound.
i love the film, but wish i could see it in a way that doesnt' involve me wearing headphones.
whenever i have watched the full version on you tube or other places, its been hard because so many of
the voices are low volume and almost like murmuring.
its remake ( 12 monkeys ) is pretty cool too ...

jlbruyelle · Oct 23, 2016

Unfortunately it will not be possible to contact Chris Marker, he passed away 4 years ago. Incidentally, 12 monkeys is not really a remake of La Jetée: besides many major differences in the scenario, Terry Gilliam says in the making of Twelves Monkeys that he never saw La Jetée and that he did not write the script although he did have the final cut. "Inspired by", as said in the credits, is a better description of the relationship between the two films.

As regards the camera, http://www.cadrage.net/entretiens/bonfanti.htm is an interview (in French, sorry) of Antoine Bonfanti who made the sound of La Jetée and says that Marker saw Bonfanti's camera, a Spotmatic bought in Hong Kong, and borrowed it. It is not clear from the interview whether or not La Jetée was shot with this camera, though, since the anecdote happened while shooting a different film (Le Joli mai), but since both film were made the same year this is totally possible. The same interview also gives interesting details on how the sound was made.

I haven't been able to find details of how photography was made in La Jetée, except that they were made by Chris Marker himself (although best known as a filmmaker, he also was a photographer) and possibly a reference to a "procédé Ledoux" in the credits that may or may not be related to the photographs (Jacques Ledoux, who plays the nazi-like character leading the experiments in the film, was also the curator of the Belgian royal cinematheque, but I am not aware that he invented a photographic process). Besides, I have never found them any different from the high-contrast, high-grain rendering which was typical of many 35 mm photo authors of that era, nor have I found any academic paper or art critic mentioning anything unusual about the photographic work in La Jetée. The most noted thing about them is the way that such a timeless medium as photography is used in conjunction with the soundtrack to give it a sense of duration, in a form of added value (one might say synergy) that Michel Chion called "Temporalization".

I have never had a problem hearing the sound of La Jetée, it is not particularly a high-dynamics soundtrack - remember it was made in the early 60's with conventional cinema sound equipment, so there is no Dolby involved. Also note that the whispered voices are the background, with the narrator being the one important element as far as language understanding goes, and this element is at a constant level. Quite often I have noticed that background noise is more disturbing when listening to a language that is not my mother tongue, it might be what you are experiencing.

jlbruyelle · Oct 23, 2016

Chris Livsey said:
The film credits the LTC French Lab with processing, presumably not just for the few seconds from the Arri so D96 developer would be the most likely suspect. (this will give lower contrast for duping

LTC is (well, was - they went out of business in 2011) a cinema-only laboratory with no activity in still photography. Remember that La Jetée, although almost exclusively composed of stills, is a movie, so all the shots (= stills transferred to movie), the final negative and the copies had to be processed in a cinema lab, hence LTC. I could not find any mention of who processed the photographs, or what film/developer/ paper was used to make them.

removed account4 · Oct 23, 2016

jlbruyelle said:
Unfortunately it will not be possible to contact Chris Marker, he passed away 4 years ago. Incidentally, 12 monkeys is not really a remake of La Jetée: besides many major differences in the scenario, Terry Gilliam says in the making of Twelves Monkeys that he never saw La Jetée and that he did not write the script although he did have the final cut. "Inspired by", as said in the credits, is a better description of the relationship between the two films.

As regards the camera, http://www.cadrage.net/entretiens/bonfanti.htm is an interview (in French, sorry) of Antoine Bonfanti who made the sound of La Jetée and says that Marker saw Bonfanti's camera, a Spotmatic bought in Hong Kong, and borrowed it. It is not clear from the interview whether or not La Jetée was shot with this camera, though, since the anecdote happened while shooting a different film (Le Joli mai), but since both film were made the same year this is totally possible. The same interview also gives interesting details on how the sound was made.

I haven't been able to find details of how photography was made in La Jetée, except that they were made by Chris Marker himself (although best known as a filmmaker, he also was a photographer) and possibly a reference to a "procédé Ledoux" in the credits that may or may not be related to the photographs (Jacques Ledoux, who plays the nazi-like character leading the experiments in the film, was also the curator of the Belgian royal cinematheque, but I am not aware that he invented a photographic process). Besides, I have never found them any different from the high-contrast, high-grain rendering which was typical of many 35 mm photo authors of that era, nor have I found any academic paper or art critic mentioning anything unusual about the photographic work in La Jetée. The most noted thing about them is the way that such a timeless medium as photography is used in conjunction with the soundtrack to give it a sense of duration, in a form of added value (one might say synergy) that Michel Chion called "Temporalization".

I have never had a problem hearing the sound of La Jetée, it is not particularly a high-dynamics soundtrack - remember it was made in the early 60's with conventional cinema sound equipment, so there is no Dolby involved. Also note that the whispered voices are the background, with the narrator being the one important element as far as language understanding goes, and this element is at a constant level. Quite often I have noticed that background noise is more disturbing when listening to a language that is not my mother tongue, it might be what you are experiencing.

thanks for your comments !

i didn't know mr marker had passed away, my bad ..
and i find it to be kind of strange that terry gilliam had never seen
or watched la jettee, whether it was inspired by or was a remake of
are kind of moot points, the gilliam film is very much related to the marker film
by coincodence ? i can't imaine that, but stranger things have happened so who knows ...

regarding the sound, i understand french, its not my mother tongue but i dont' really read the subtitles, to my bad hearing,
there is a lot of mumbling, but that's ok, i imagine when you time travel there is a lot of mumbling too

interesting other stuff you wrote !

mr marker, RIP

jlbruyelle · Oct 23, 2016

jnanian said:
thanks for your comments !

You are very welcome

jnanian said:
and i find it to be kind of strange that terry gilliam had never seen
or watched la jettee, whether it was inspired by or was a remake of
are kind of moot points, the gilliam film is very much related to the marker film
by coincodence ? i can't imaine that, but stranger things have happened so who knows ...

It is not a coincidence but he did not have the original idea of 12 Monkeys: the producers negociated the remake rights with Chris Marker and hired a screenwriter to write a script that they proposed to Terry Gilliam. As far as he was concerned, and brilliant though the result is, he was commissioned to make a movie. Well, presumably he saw it now, but at least while making 12 monkeys he did apparently not feel the need to see the film that had inspired it.

jnanian said:
regarding the sound, i understand french, its not my mother tongue but i dont' really read the subtitles, to my bad hearing,
there is a lot of mumbling, but that's ok, i imagine when you time travel there is a lot of mumbling too

The mumbling is mostly figures and data spoken in German, which does not help if you try to understand both. I'll try to pay more attention to it next time I go to the future

removed account4 · Oct 23, 2016

jlbruyelle said:
You are very welcome

It is not a coincidence but he did not have the original idea of 12 Monkeys: the producers negociated the remake rights with Chris Marker and hired a screenwriter to write a script that they proposed to Terry Gilliam. As far as he was concerned, and brilliant though the result is, he was commissioned to make a movie. Well, presumably he saw it now, but at least while making 12 monkeys he did apparently feel the need to see the film that had inspired it.

The mumbling is mostly figures and data spoken in German, which does not help if you try to understand both. I'll try to pay more attention to it next time I go to the future

ahh, i get it, others saw it, wrote the movie and he made it. yeah i can see that. i was ignorantly and wrongly under the impression that HE was involved
with the writing &c, makes perfect sense now, and you are right, not very strange !

i don't know german ! all i could hear was mumbling and i was always trying to understand what the heck they were saying LOL
now i know they are mumbling in german and i shouldn't worry about it

i might just stay up late tonight and watch it again !

best
john

Anne Deerness · Oct 25, 2016

Thanks everyone for your great help!

I got hold of both HP5 and Tri-X and decided I will try pushing them at various EIs and develop them in D-76, for starters.
And hopefully I'll get some good photos out of them in the process!

I'll let you all know the results.
You've all been very helpful.

Anne Deerness · Oct 26, 2016

I have found this information in this video very useful if anyone is interested:

As well as the first chapter of this book:
http://chrismarker.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chris-darke-la-jetee-ch1.pdf

It gives a glimpse on what kind of content might be in the rest of the book. I'm considering buying the entire book.

Chris Livsey · Oct 26, 2016

Anne Deerness said:
I have found this information in this video very useful if anyone is interested:
.

Well found indeed, reading the .pdf you link to I wonder if this comment; "Probably because it had rarely, if ever, been projected as a celluloid print, the high-definition digital transfer was pristine, with monochrome tones that glowed like silk." which begs the question of the OP as to the "look" he is after is it one overly influenced by the quality of the film prints on the web?

Thank you for the post.

pdeeh · Oct 26, 2016

"looks" are indeed a bit of a 'mare to judge.

despite all the banging on about prints in the hand being the final criterion, almost since the beginning of photography most people have seen photographs reproduced in a medium other than the original.

I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of people on apug have mostly seen Adams Weston Bresson or whoever's prints only as decent art-book repros, or even just as halftones.

in the end though. so long as your drive isn't one towards some sort of spurious "authenticity", I'd say it doesn't matter a hoot from where you take your inspiration for a "look".

(sits back to await a chorus of 'I've handled an ansel Adams print which proves you wrong')

Chris Livsey · Oct 26, 2016

pdeeh said:
(sits back to await a chorus of 'I've handled an ansel Adams print which proves you wrong')

Not handled but seen originals

Just bobbed back really to say the single review on Amazon UK of the BFI book is not overly complimentary but then again it's two or three rolls of film cost.

Imitating La Jetée

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