Why memory instead of teleology in Marker’s A Grin without a Cat?
Marker recollects fragments of footage from the events surrounding May 1968 in A Grin without a Cat for the purpose of proposing a memory and not teleology. His account of 1968 appears topsy-turvy like the grin of the Cheshire Cat, (fig. 1) a character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. If Marker had produced a Grin without a Cat according to a teleological representation of the events surrounding 1968, then such a film would imply a closure of the struggles therein. Exactly what happened remains open to question as a man with an English accent says in the film, “you can never tell what you might be filming.” Figure 1 Still from Alice in Wonderland, 1951 Walt Disney Studios Marker recollects fragments of the events surrounding 1968 via found footage, footage he took and voiceovers. The use of found footage allows Marker to produce an image of the struggles and conflicts surrounding May 1968 via metonym, using footage from locations such as Minamata, Japan; Santiago, Chile and the
