Marker emerged in the 1960s, along with Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda,
as part of the alternative 'Left Bank' group to the Cahiers-based
nouvelle vague directors. Politically engaged, acutely
intelligent, his films bear the mark of those headily ambitious times.
His breakthrough was the stunning science-fiction short, La Jetee.
Since then, he's abandoned fiction for the film essay, most famously in
Sans Soleil, an extended meditation on everything from computer games
to Japanese religion. The influence of his pioneering,
allusive/elusive style can be seen in the psycho-geographies of
directors like Patrick Keiller and Jem Cohen.
