Chats perchés: Chris Marker's mimetic, comical and historical prophecy

A one-liner joke is a type of verbal joke, one that has it all in one line, just like the joke that Karl Valentin, a Bavarian comedian, once made and which points to the author's situation regarding Chris Marker: 'Everything was said already, but not from everyone.' A one-liner joke is said to be the better the shorter it is -- nevertheless its wit comes from the multiple meanings it entails. Marker's wit often unfolds between words and images, as in the following shots from his video-film Chats perches (2004). But the joke not only involves the fragile status of the material picture that has been taken and turns into an image of something totally immaterial. It also bends back towards language itself.