The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists ( (singular) , derived from ''bol'shinstvo'', "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903.

The Bolsheviks were the majority faction in a crucial vote, hence their name. They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which would later in 1922 become the chief constituent of the Soviet Union.

The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin, were by 1905 a mass organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism. Bolshevik revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky commonly used the terms "Bolshevism" and "Bolshevist" after his exile from the Soviet Union to differentiate between what he saw as true Leninism and the regime within the state and the party which arose under Stalin.

History of the split

In the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin and Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members "who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means and by personal participation in one of the party's organisations." Julius Martov suggested "by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party's organisations." Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a smaller core of active members, as opposed to "card carriers" who might only be active in party branches from time to time or not at all. This active base would develop the cadre, a core of "professional revolutionaries", consisting of loyal communists who would spend the majority of their time organising the party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution against the Tsarist autocracy.

The base of active and experienced members would be the recruiting ground for this professional core. Sympathizers would be left outside and the party would be organised based on the concept of democratic centralism. Martov, until then a close friend of Lenin, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers and other fellow travelers.

The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March-May 1903, but it was not until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split the party. Although at first the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts, for example, Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from ''Iskra'' or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed, the differences quickly grew and the split became irreparable.

Origins of the name

The two factions were originally known as "hard" (Lenin's supporters) and "soft" (Martov's supporters). Soon, however, the terminology changed to "Bolsheviks" and "Mensheviks", from the Russian "bolshinstvo" (majority) and "menshinstvo" (minority), based on the fact that Lenin's supporters narrowly defeated Martov's supporters on the question of party membership. Neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout the Congress as delegates left or switched sides. At the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions.

From 1907 on, English language articles sometimes used the term "Maximalist" for "Bolshevik" and "Minimalist" for "Menshevik", which proved confusing since there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1904–1906 (which after 1906 formed a separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists) and then again after 1917.

Composition of the party

The average party member was very young. In 1907, 22% of Bolsheviks were under 20, 37% were 20-24 and 16% were 25-29. By 1905, 62% of the members were industrial workers (3% of the population in 1897). 22% of Bolsheviks were gentry (1.7% of the total population), 38% were uprooted peasants, compared with 19% and 26% for the Mensheviks. In 1907 78.3% of the Bolsheviks were Russian and 10% were Jewish (34 and 20% for the Mensheviks). Total membership was 8,400 in 1905, 13,000 in 1906 and 46,100 by 1907 (8,400, 18,000, 38,200 respectively for the Mensheviks). By 1910 both factions together had fewer than 10,000 members.

Beginning of the 1905 Revolution (1903–1905)

The two factions were in a state of flux in 1903–1904 with many members changing sides. The founder of Russian Marxism, Georgy Plekhanov, who was at first allied with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, parted ways with them by 1904. Leon Trotsky at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat" until August 1917 when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks as their positions assembled and he came to believe that Lenin was right on the issue of the party.

All but one members of the Central Committee were arrested in Moscow in early 1905. The remaining member, with the power of appointing a new one, was won over by the Bolsheviks.

The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they called the Third Party Congress. The Mensheviks organised a rival conference and the split was thus formalised.

The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution, and were a minority in the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. The less significant Moscow Soviet, however, was dominated by the Bolsheviks. These soviets became the model for those formed in 1917.

The Mensheviks ("The minority") (1906–1907)

As the Russian Revolution of 1905 progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the Fourth (Unification) Congress of the RSDLP held at Folkets hus, Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, April 1906. When the Mensheviks struck an alliance with the Jewish Bund, the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority.

However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Center, the de-facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the Fifth Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other.

Split between Lenin and Bogdanov (1908–1909)

With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as the Third Duma. Lenin and his supporters Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev argued for participating in the Duma while Lenin's deputy philosopher Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled.

The latter became known as recallists ("otzovists" in Russian). A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP central committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as "ultimatists" and was generally allied with the recallists.

With a majority of Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909 he published a scathing book of criticism entitled ''Materialism and Empiriocriticism'' (1909), assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism. In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organised by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine ''Proletary'' and expelled from the Bolshevik faction.

Final attempt at party unity (1910)

With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by Tsarist repression, they were tempted to try to re-unite the party. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from "conciliator" Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin.

Lenin was firmly opposed to any re-unification, but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached a tentative agreement and one of its provisions made Trotsky's Vienna-based ''Pravda'' a party-financed 'central organ'. Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations.

Forming a separate party (1912)

The factions permanently broke off relations in January 1912 after the Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, called Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) - or RSDLP(b). Unofficially the Party has been referred to as the "Bolshevik Party". Throughout the century, the Party adopted a number of different names. In 1918, RSDLP(b) became (All-)Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) and remained so until 1925. From 1925-52 the name was All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), and from 1952-91 Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Although the Bolshevik leadership decided to form a separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies, Matvei Muranov, (another one, Roman Malinovsky, was later exposed as an Okhrana [Tsarist secret police] agent) voted to break away from the Menshevik faction within the Duma on 15 December 1912. The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed and the Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913.

Political philosophy

The Bolsheviks believed in organising a party in a centralised and disciplined fashion that sought to overthrow the Tsar through a mass workers' revolution. They believed and succeeded in creating a vanguard party, a mass revolutionary party composed of what they called "the most militant and class-conscious" workers capable of leading the masses of Russian workers.

Although the Bolsheviks were not monolithic, they were characterised by a rigid adherence to the leadership of the central committee, based on the principles of democratic centralism. The Mensheviks favored open party membership and espoused cooperation with the other socialist and some non-socialist groups in Russia. Bolsheviks generally refused to co-operate with liberal or radical parties, viewing them as "bourgeois" parties, or even eventually other socialist organisations, although Lenin sometimes made tactical alliances.

From Bolshevism to Communism

In 1952 at the XIX Party Congress Stalin declared: "There are no more Mensheviks. Why should we call ourselves Bolsheviks? We are not the majority, but the whole party." According to his suggestion, the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Since that time, the term Bolshevik has been regarded as obsolete, and relevant only to the pre-Revolutionary times, during the Russian Revolution itself and the Russian Civil War which followed.

Derogatory usage of "Bolshevik"

During the days of the Cold War in the United Kingdom, labour union leaders and other leftists were sometimes derisively described as "Bolshie". The usage is roughly equivalent to the term "Commie", "Red" or "pinko" in the United States during the same period. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and other Nazi leaders used it in reference to the worldwide revolutionary movement coordinated by the Soviet Union.

See also

Democratic centralism

Leninism

October Revolution

Old Bolshevik

Vladimir Lenin

Related ideologies

Jewish Bolshevism

Trotskyism

Non-Russian/Soviet groups having used the name "Bolshevik"

Bangladesh: Maoist Bolshevik Reorganisation Movement of the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party

India: Bolshevik Party of India

India/Sri Lanka: Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma

India: Revolutionary Socialist Party (Bolshevik)

Mexico: Bolshevik Communist Party

Senegal: Bolshevik Nuclei

Sri Lanka: Bolshevik Samasamaja Party

References

External links

Bolshevism, the Road to Revolution, by Alan Woods

Chronology of the Bolshevik Party World History Database

The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, by Maurice Brinton

by Bertrand Russell, November 1920

Twenty Years in Underground Russia: Memoirs of a Rank-and-File Bolshevik, by Cecilia Bobrovskaya

Category:Communist parties in Russia Category:Factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Category:History of Russia Category:Political parties established in 1903 Category:Political parties of the Russian Revolution Category:Russian loanwords Category:Soviet phraseology

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Antony Cyril Sutton (February 14, 1925 – June 17, 2002) was a British-born economist, historian, and writer.

Biography

Sutton studied at the universities of London, Goettingen and California and received his D.Sc. from the University of Southampton. He was an economics professor at California State University Los Angeles and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution from 1968 to 1973. During his time at the Hoover Institution he wrote the major study ''Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development'' (in three volumes), arguing that the West played a major role in developing the Soviet Union from its very beginnings up until the present time (1970). Sutton argued that the Soviet Union's technological and manufacturing base—which was then engaged in supplying the Viet Cong – was built by United States corporations and largely funded by US taxpayers. Steel and iron plants, the GAZ automobile factory – a Ford subsidiary, located in eastern Russia – and many other Soviet industrial enterprises were, according to Sutton, built with the help or technical assistance of the United States or U.S. corporations. He argued further that the Soviet Union's acquisition of MIRV technology was made possible by receiving (from U.S. sources) machining equipment for the manufacture of precision ball bearings, necessary to mass-produce MIRV-enabled missiles.

In 1973 Sutton published a popularized, condensed version of the three volumes called ''National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union'', and was thereby forced out of the Hoover Institution. His conclusion from his research on the issue was that the conflicts of the Cold War were "not fought to restrain communism", since the United States, through financing the Soviet Union "directly or indirectly armed both sides in at least Korea and Vietnam"; rather, these wars were organised in order "to generate multibillion-dollar armaments contracts". The update to this text, ''The Best Enemy Money Can Buy'', looked at the role of technology transfers up to the 1980s. Appendix B of that text contained the text of his 1972 testimony before Subcommittee VII of the Platform Committee of the Republican Party where he summarized the essential aspects of his overall research:

Sutton's next three major published books ''Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution'', ''Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler'' and ''Wall Street and FDR'' detailed Wall Street's involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution (in order to destroy Russia as an economic competitor and turn into "a captive market and a technical colony to be exploited by a few high-powered American financiers and the corporations under their control") as well as its decisive contributions to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose policies he assessed as being essentially the same, namely "corporate socialism" planned by the big corporations. Sutton concluded that this was all part of the economical power elites' "long-range program of nurturing collectivism" and fostering "corporate socialism" in order to ensure "monopoly acquisition of wealth", because it "would fade away if it were exposed to the activity of a free market". In his view, the only solution to prevent such abuse in the future was that "a majority of individuals declares or acts as if it wants nothing from government, declares it will look after its own welfare and interests", or specifically that "a majority finds the moral courage and the internal fortitude to reject the something-for-nothing con game and replace it by voluntary associations, voluntary communes, or local rule and decentralized societies". In Sutton's own words he was "persecuted but never prosecuted" for his research and subsequent publication of his findings.

In the early 1980s, Sutton used a combination of public-domain information on Skull and Bones, and previously unreleased documents sent to him by Charlotte Iserbyt, whose father was in the Order to infer that it played an important role in coordinating the political and economic relationships underlying the historical events he wrote of in his previous works. He published his findings as ''America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones'' – which, according to Sutton, was his most important work.

In his book, ''Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era'' (New York: Viking Press;1970), Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote: :''For impressive evidence of Western participation in the early phase of Soviet economic growth, see Antony C. Sutton's Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development: 1917–1930, which argues that 'Soviet economic development for 1917–1930 was essentially dependent on Western technological aid' (p.283), and that 'at least 95 per cent of the industrial structure received this assistance.' (p. 348).''

Professor Richard Pipes, of Harvard, said in his book, ''Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America's Future'' (Simon & Schuster;1984): :''In his three-volume detailed account of Soviet Purchases of Western Equipment and Technology ..." Sutton comes to conclusions that are uncomfortable for many businessmen and economists. For this reason his work tends to be either dismissed out of hand as 'extreme' or, more often, simply ignored.

Education

D.Sc. degree, University of Southampton, England

Employers

Economics Professor at California State University Los Angeles

Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution 1968 to 1973

Author Economy, history

Bibliography

''Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development: 1917–1930'' (1968)

''Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development: 1930–1945'' (1971)

''Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development: 1945–1965'' (1973)

''National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union'' (1973)

''What Is Libertarianism?'' (1973)

''Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution'' (1974, 1999) (Online version) (Online Russian version)

''Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler'' (1976, 1999) (Online version)

''Wall Street and FDR'' (1976, 1999) (Online version)

''The War on Gold: How to Profit from the Gold Crisis'' (1977)

''Energy: The Created Crisis'' (1979)

''The Diamond Connection: A manual for investors'' (1979)

''Trilaterals Over Washington – Volume I'' (1979; with Patrick M. Wood)

''Trilaterals Over Washington – Volume II'' (1980; with Patrick M. Wood)

''Gold vs Paper: A cartoon history of inflation'' (1981)

''Investing in Platinum Metals'' (1982)

''Technological Treason: A catalog of U.S. firms with Soviet contracts, 1917–1982'' (1982)

''America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones'' (1983, 1986, 2002) (Online version)Back up online

''How the Order Creates War and Revolution'' (1985) (Online Russian version)

''How the Order Controls Education'' (1985)

''The Best Enemy Money Can Buy'' (1986) (Online version)

''The Two Faces of George Bush'' (1988)

''The Federal Reserve Conspiracy'' (1995) (Online Russian version (as ''Vlast' dollara''))

''Trilaterals Over America'' (1995) (Online version) (Online Russian version)

''Cold Fusion: Secret Energy Revolution'' (1997)

''Gold For Survival'' (1999)

See also

Arms industry

Corporatism

Federal Reserve

Militarism

Military funding of science

Military–industrial–media complex

Military Keynesianism

Permanent war economy

Petrodollar warfare

Politico-media complex

Power elite

Prison–industrial complex

''The Power Elite'' by C. Wright Mills

External links

Anthony Sutton's official website

1999 e-mail interview with Sutton ()

''Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler: Stan Monteith interviews Anthony Sutton'' video

References

Category:American political scientists Category:American economists Category:American engineers Category:American historians Category:American political writers Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:Investigative journalists Category:American libertarians Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:American people of English descent Category:Stanford University people Category:California State University, Los Angeles faculty Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:Alumni of the University of Southampton Category:Alumni of the University of London Category:1925 births Category:2002 deaths

de:Antony C. Sutton es:Antony Sutton fr:Antony Cyril Sutton nl:Anthony Sutton pt:Antony Cyril Sutton ru:Саттон, Энтони tr:Antony Sutton

Chris Marker (born 29 July 1921) is a French writer, photographer, film director, multimedia artist and documentary maker.

His best known films are ''La jetée'' (1962), ''A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977), ''Sans Soleil'' (1983) and ''AK'' (1985), a documentary on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

Biography

Marker was born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, in Paris, France, 29 July 1921, yet other sources and himself claim that he was born in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. (The 1949 edition of ''Le Cœur Net'' specifies his birthday as 22 July.) In World War II he joined the Maquis (FTP). After the war he began to write and make films. He traveled to many socialist countries and documented what he saw in films and books. ''Statues Also Die'' (1953) which he codirected with Alain Resnais was one of the first anticolonial films. Anatole Dauman produced his earliest films of Chris Marker and two more later, ''Sunday in Peking'' and ''Letter from Siberia''.

He became known internationally for the short film ''La jetée'' (1962). It tells of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. ''La Jetée'' was the inspiration for Mamoru Oshii's 1987 debut live action feature ''The Red Spectacles'' (and, later for, parts of Oshii's 2001 film ''Avalon'' as well) and also inspired Terry Gilliam's ''12 Monkeys'' (1995). It also inspired many of director Mira Nair's shots for the 2003 film ''The Namesake''.

In 1982 Marker completed ''Sans Soleil'', stretching the limits of what could be called a documentary. It is an essay, a montage, mixing pieces of documentary with fiction and philosophical comments, creating an atmosphere of dream and science fiction. The main themes are Japan, Africa, memory and travel. A sequence in the middle of the film takes place in San Francisco, and heavily references Alfred Hitchcock's ''Vertigo''. Beginning with ''Sans Soleil'', he developed a deep interest in digital technology, which led to his film ''Level 5'' (1996) and ''Immemory'' (1998, 2008), an interactive multimedia CD-ROM, produced for the Centre Pompidou (French language version) and from Exact Change (English version). Marker created a 19 minute multimedia piece in 2005 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York titled ''Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men'' which was influenced by T. S. Eliot's poem.

Chris Marker lives in Paris and very rarely grants interviews. When asked for a picture of himself, he usually offers a photograph of a cat instead. (Marker was represented in Agnes Varda's 2008 documentary "The Beaches of Agnes" by a cartoon drawing of a cat, speaking in a technologically altered voice.) Marker's own cat is named Guillaume-en-egypte.

In the 2007 Criterion Collection release of ''La Jetée'' and ''Sans Soleil'', Marker included a short essay, "Working on a shoestring budget". He confessed to shooting all of ''Sans Soleil'' with a silent film camera and recording all the audio on a primitive audio cassette recorder. Marker also reminds the reader that only one short scene in ''La Jetée'' is of a moving image, as Marker could only borrow a movie camera for one afternoon while working on the film.

Complete filmography

''Olympia 52'' (1952)

''Statues Also Die'' (1953 with Alain Resnais)

''Dimanche à Pekin'' (1956)

''Lettre de Sibérie'' (1957)

''Les Astronautes'' (1959 with Walerian Borowczyk)

''Description d'un combat'' (1960)

''¡Cuba Sí!'' (1961)

''La jetée'' (1962)

''Le joli mai'' (1963, 2006 re-cut)

''Le Mystère Koumiko'' (1965)

''Si j'avais quatre dromadaires'' (1966)

''Loin du Vietnam'' (1967)

''Rhodiacéta'' (1967)

''La Sixième face du pentagone'' (1968 with Reichenbach)

''Cinétracts'' (1968)

''À bientôt, j'espère'' (1968 with Marret)

''On vous parle du Brésil: Tortures'' (1969)

''Jour de tournage'' (1969)

''Classe de lutte'' (1969)

''On vous parle de Paris: Maspero, les mots ont un sens'' (1970)

''On vous parle du Brésil: Carlos Marighela'' (1970)

''La Bataille des dix millions'' (1971)

''Le Train en marche'' (1971)

''On vous parle de Prague: le deuxième procès d'Artur London'' (1971)

''Vive la baleine'' (1972)

''L'Ambassade'' (1973)

''On vous parle du Chili: ce que disait Allende'' (1973 with Littin)

''Puisqu'on vous dit que c'est possible'' (1974)

''La Solitude du chanteur de fond'' (1974)

''La Spirale'' (1975)

''A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977)

''Quand le siècle a pris formes'' (1978)

''Junkopia'' (1981)

''Sans Soleil'' (1983)

''2084'' (1984)

''From Chris to Christo'' (1985)

''Matta'' (1985)

''A.K.'' (1985)

''Eclats'' (1986)

''Mémoires pour Simone'' (1986)

''Tokyo Days'' (1988)

''Spectre'' (1988)

''L'héritage de la chouette'' (1989)

''Bestiaire'' (three short video haiku) (1990)

*''Bestiaire 1. Chat écoutant la musique''

*''Bestiaire 2. An owl is An owl is an owl''

*''Bestiaire 3. Zoo Piece''

''Getting away with it'' (1990)

''Berlin 1990'' (1990)

''Détour Ceausescu'' (1991)

''Théorie des ensembles'' (1991)

''Coin fenètre'' (1992)

''Azulmoon'' (1992)

''Le Tombeau d'Alexandre'' aka ''The Last Bolshevik'' (1992)

''Le 20 heurs dans les camps'' (1993)

''SLON Tango'' (1993)

''Bullfight in Okinawa'' (1994)

''Eclipse'' (1994)

''Haiku'' (1994)

*''Haiku 1. Petite Ceinture''

*''Haiku 2. Chaika''

*''Haiku 3. Owl Gets in Your Eyes''

''Casque bleu'' (1995)

''Silent Movie'' (1995)

''Level Five'' (1997)

''Un maire au Kosovo'' (2000)

''One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich'' (2000)

''Le facteur sonne toujours cheval'' (2001)

''Avril inquiet'' (2001)

''Le souvenir d'un avenir'' (with Bellon 2003)

''Chats Perchés'' (2004) - a documentary about M. Chat street art

''Leila Attacks'' (2006)

Collaborations

''Nuit et Brouillard'' (Resnais 1955)

*Note: In a 1995 interview Resnais states that the final version of the commentary was a collaboration between Marker and Jean Cayrol (source: ''Film Comment'').

''Les hommes de la baleine'' (Ruspoli 1956)

*Note: under the pseudonym "Jacopo Berenizi" Marker wrote the commentary for this short about whale hunters in the Azores. The two would return to this topic in 1972's Vive la Baleine (''Film Comment'').

''Le mystere de l'atelier quinze'' (Resnais et Heinrich 1957)

*Note: Marker wrote the commentary for this fictional short (''Film Comment'').

''Le Siècle a soif'' (Vogel 1958)

*Note: Marker wrote and spoke all the commentary for this short film about fruit juice in Alexandrine verse (''Film Comment'').

''La Mer et les jours'' (Vogel et Kaminker 1958)

*Note: Marker present commentary for this "somber work about the daily lives of fishermen on Brittany's Île de Sein" (''Film Comment'').

''L'Amérique insolite'' (Reichenbach 1958)

*Note: Marker was eventually credited as a writer for this one, apparently, he wrote the dialogue (''Film Comment'').

''Django Reinhardt'' (Paviot 1959)

*Note: Marker narrated this one (''Film Comment'').

''Jouer à Paris'' (Varlin 1962)

*Note: This was edited by Marker - essentially, this film is a 27-minute postscript to ''Le Joli Mai'' assembled from leftover footage and organized around a new commentary (''Film Comment'').

''A Valparaiso'' (Ivens 1963)

*Note: This gem was written by Marker. It feels like a Marker film.

''Les Chemins de la fortune'' (Kassovitz 1964)

*Note: Marker apparently helped edit and organise this Venezuela travelogue (''Film Comment'').

''La Douceur du village'' (Reichenbach 1964)

*Note: Edited by Marker.

''La Brûlure de mille soleils'' (Kast 1964)

*Note: Marker edited this (mostly) animated science-fiction exstentialist short and (possibly) collaborated on the script (''Film Comment'').

''Le volcan interdit'' (Tazieff 1966)

*Note: Marker narrates this volcano documentary.

''Europort-Rotterdam'' (Ivens 1966)

*Note: Marker did the textual adaptation (Film Comment.

''On vous parle de Flins'' (Devart 1970)

*Note: Marker helped film and edit this short (Film Comment).

''L'Afrique express'' (Tessier et Lang 1970)

*Note: Marker wrote the introductory text for this film under the name "Boris Villeneuve" (''Film Comment'').

''Kashima Paradise'' (Le Masson et Deswarte 1974)

*Note: Marker collaborated on the commentary on this documentary about the destruction of Kashima and Narita (Film Comment).

''La Batalla de Chile'' (Guzman, 1975–1976)

*Note: Marker helped produce and contributed to the screenplay for this, perhaps the greatest of all documentary films (''Film Comment'').

''One Sister and Many Brothers'' (Makavejev 1994)

*Note: Marker tapes Makavejev circulating among the guests of a party in his honor as much jovial backslapping abounds (''Film comment'').

Bibliography (self-contained works by Marker)

''Le Cœur Net'' (1949, Editions du Seuil, Paris)

''Giraudoux Par Lui-Même'' (1952, Editions du Seuil, Paris)

''Commentaires I'' (1961, Editions du Seuil, Paris)

''Coréennes'' (1962, Editions du Seuil, Paris)

''Commentaires II'' (1967, Editions du Seuil, Paris)

''Le Dépays'' (1982, Editions Herscher, Paris)

''Silent Movie'' (1995, Ohio State University Press)

''La Jetée ciné-roman'' (1996 / 2nd printing 2008, MIT Press, Cambridge; designed by Bruce Mau)

''Staring Back'' (2007, MIT Press, Cambridge)

''Immemory'' (CDROM) (1997 / 2nd printing 2008, Exact Change, Cambridge)

References

External links

Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

Bibliography of books and articles about Marker via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center

Chris Marker: Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory Blog devoted to Chris Marker

Chris Marker's "Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men"

La jetée and Sans Soleil by Criterion Collection ">Description of the DVD release of La jetée and Sans Soleil by Criterion Collection

Staring Back ">Description of Marker's book of photographs and essays titled Staring Back

La jetée, based on the film of the same name.">Description of Marker's 'cine roman' titled La jetée, based on the film of the same name.

The Wexner Center's "Chris Marker Store"

Filmmaker As Socialist Anthologist by Williams Cole, ''The Brooklyn Rail'', May 2009 Issue

Literature on Chris Marker

Chris Marker and the Audiovisual Archive, Oliver Mayer, ''Scope'' 20

Category:Documentary film directors Category:French experimental filmmakers Category:French film directors Category:1921 births Category:Living people

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