THE OWL’S LEGACY: Chris Marker’s Immense & Long-Unavailable Series Released
It’s been a good month for dead auteurs, with Netflix’s release of Orson Welles’ long-unfinished The Other Side of the Wind, American Genre Film Archive’s release of Ed Wood’s long-lost Take It Out In Trade and Icarus Films’ release of Chris Marker’s long-unavailable The Owl’s Legacy. The last of which, a 13-episode docu-series on Greek culture, is finally available in a 2-DVD set after 30 years in the dark.
The French film essayist collects a handful of scholars, philosophers, theologians and filmmakers, such as the Greek master Theo Angelopoulos and Elia Kazan, over interviews and symposiums to record comments on various aspects of Greek culture and how it has and continues to influence, both positively and negatively, European identity. The 13 episodes are segmented based on topic, with titles like “Nostalgia,” “Mathematics,” “Amnesia” and “Misogyny,” and are approached both directly and obliquely, often relying on interesting second-source visuals, in the span of 26 minutes.
Out of the Dark
According to the International Documentary Association, Marker, in an editorial that accompanied the original release of the series, wrote of his intent to strike “a continual counterpoint between those who feel for the authentic imagery and for its degraded, often caricature-like form, which paradoxically sometimes returns to the wellspring of innocent vision. All this centering on one question: what is the role of Greece?”
Apparently, the funders of The Owl’s Legacy, the Onassis Foundation, weren’t too pleased with some of the answers the filmmaker came up with. During its debut on the European television station La Sept, as Jean-Michel Frodon notes in his accompanying essay, each episode was prefaced with a cardboard sign holding a statement that distanced the organization from the project. After its air, The Owl’s Legacy was vaulted, and it hasn’t been released until now.
Given that the time elapsed between now and 1989 is but a saint’s whisper next to the time between 1989 and Ancient Greece, you can imagine that the series’ content is still as relevant today as it was thirty years ago.
An Approachable Pedagogical Tool
In the abstract, The Owl’s Legacy may sound like dry pedagogy, but Marker, unsurprisingly, imbues the entire project with a playful wit and inquiry. As those familiar with the filmmaker will know, he’s obsessed with the owl, and this project, given the Athena owl, might showcase his most unabashed admiration. Each interview shot contains a funny overlay or insert of a different owl, and the program’s last segment, “Philosophy, or The Triumph of the Owl,” allows for his subjects to directly confront the winged animal’s place in Greek mythology. While many ideas are posed, one might lead to conjecture regarding Marker’s own infatuation: it resembles the wisdom of always asking why.
And The Owl’s Legacy does just that, never offering easy answers or revelations, but a constant exploration, which, along with its lack of condescension, pedantry or dehydrated tone, actually makes it an ideal pedagogical tool. Additionally, its segmented format will also be handy for teachers across many disciplines, be it classics, gender, European, mathematics or even filmmaking.
Marker in Today’s Docu-Series Landscape
As a piece of filmmaking craft, it’s interesting for something like The Owl’s Legacy to be released today. Contemporary series based on one dominant study are routinely, outside of Ken Burns’ longform documentaries, programmed for Netflix, and thus built for binge — flashy animation, easily digestible and sensational theories and recognizable talking heads.
Marker’s series offers a counter-programming; though it’s certainly approachable, it’s a dense, inquisitive work that will benefit from multiple viewings. When the Metrograph screened the series earlier this month, it was shown straight through with two intermissions, which seems like a fatiguing event. Though I had to watch it in mostly large chunks for the sake of reviewing, because of its density, I would recommend viewers space out their consumption of The Owl’s Legacy, luxuriously — one per day, or even week, will do just fine.
The Owl’s Legacy is available from Icarus Films via DVD and streaming.
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