time + again: critical contradictions in Chris Marker's La Jetée

This thesis is an investigation into the critical power of a work of art. This critical power is seen to be produced by paradoxes which are particular to it and which have the potential to infiltrate theoretical debates in the form of contradictions. The thesis takes the form of a case study of Chris Marker's 1962 film La Jetée. The main concern in the consideration of La Jetée is its critical relation to conceptions of time in different discursive contexts.

More specifically, La Jetée’s criticality is attributed to two particular paradoxes which are examined in two separate yet related parts of the thesis. Both parts are divided into three chapters which deal with the same paradox but under the aegis of different theoretical frameworks. In part one the paradoxical narrative scenario of the repetition of the protagonist's death at the beginning and at the end of the film is related to narratological (chapter 1), psychoanalytical (chapter 2) and philosophical (chapter 3) conceptions of time and death; conceptions which are in turn destabilised by the economies of contradiction produced by the notions of haunting, trauma and eschatological ethics. Part two considers the paradoxical status of the image in La Jetée between photography and cinema. The examination of the contradicting photographic and cinematic medium-specificities and their attendant temporalities (chapter 4) leads to a consideration of the temporality of the image independent from its alleged medium (chapter 5) and eventually to a new conception of the notion of medium and its temporality on the basis of qualitative pictorial powers rather than in terms of a quantifiable status (chapter 6).

The theoretical research which culminates in the thesis is supported by practice-based research which is presented as, and in, an art-work, Housed Memory, consisting of three parts which are shown as a multi-screen video-installation. This work is documented under separate cover. While the theoretical and practice-based research share many concerns and both, in a sense, take the form of a case study, their respective methodologies, however, are profoundly different. That is, they engage with and intervene in different ways in personal, historical, pictorial and philosophical notions of time, producing different kinds of critical paradoxes and contradictions.

Access to this thesis has been restricted by request of the author. Please contact UAL Research Online for more information.