Three Cheers for the Whale
A Film by Chris Marker & Mario Ruspoli (1972, France, 17 min)
If you’re in Chicago today (4/15/09), don’t miss Chris Marker’s documentary Three Cheers for the Whale, a 17 minute film that will preface Deborah Stratman’s O’er the Land.
Everyone is welcome, the event is free, and the seating it limited. Please pass the word to those who enjoy obscure documentary gems. Here is the viva doc event schedule for today:
5:15 Three Cheers for the Whale
5:45 O’er the Land (on 16mm!)
7:00 Open discussion with filmmaker Deborah Stratman (discussion may start 5-10 minutes earlier than expected)
“Whales, I love you.”
Synopsis: Three Cheers for a Whale, the 17 min. documentary from Chris Marker (Sans Solei, La Jetee), is a melancholy ode to the whale — part of Marker’s Bestiary series, the majority of Whale is driven by still images and mixed with sparse, but violent, live action footage of Whalers spearing whales.
Pondering the slaughter of this majestic giant is a female narrator whose voice resembles an NPR host on Mescaline; awash with meditative voiceover, metaphor, and abstractions — signature elements of a Chris Marker film — Three Cheers for the Whale recalls some of his best poetic moments in a film he would later make, Sans Solei (1982).