Pour une archéologie cinématographique de la condition immersive: La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)

Abstract

Today we tend to emphasise the technological dimension of immersive devices, insisting on the notions of interactivity, virtual reality or augmented perception— all of which promise to intensify museum experience or the film experience. But it must be recognised that the principle of immersion is older than the more or less recent definitions of immersive devices or museography. Certain primordial forms of scenarisation, of staging and of dramatisation were able to play an immersive role very early on, foreshadowing the installation of the subject of perception in an attitude of adhesion, which can go as far as subjugation. Scripting, staging, psychic projection: if an archaeology of immersion is required, it must include an account of the role of cinema in the formation of the immersive condition. Our hypothesis is that an archaeology of immersion must pass through cinema: not only through its device, but primarily through its fictions, narratives, and figurations. In this perspective, we propose to examine the historical contribution of cinema to the formation of the immersive condition, through an analysis of Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962). If this unique film has often been studied, its capacity to stage different fundamental aspects of an immersive experience, involving at the same time the interplay of memory, aesthetic relation, and the psyche, has not been considered yet.