Page "Chris Marker" Paragraph 14

While making La Jetee, Marker was simultaneously making the 150-minute documentary essay-film Le joli mai, released in 1963.

Beginning in the Spring of 1962, Marker and his camera operator Pierre Lhomme shot 55 hours of footage interviewing random people on the streets of Paris.

The questions, asked by the unseen Marker, range from their personal lives, as well as social and political issues of relevance at that time.

Like he had with montages of landscapes and indigenous art, Marker created a film essay that contrasts and juxtaposes a variety of lives with his signature commentary ( spoken by Marker's friends, singer-actor Yves Montand in the French version and Simone Signoret in the English version ).

The film has been compared to the Cinéma vérité films of Jean Rouch, and criticized by its practitioners at the time.

It was shown in competition at the 1963 Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for Best First Work.

It also won the Golden Dove Award at the Leipzig DOK Festival.