If I Had Four Dromedaries
1966 · 49 MIN · IMDB 7.8 · 225 VOTES · DIR. Chris Marker
Overview
Composed entirely of still photographs shot by Marker himself over the course of his restless travel through twenty-six countries, If I Had Four Dromedaries stages a probing, at times agitated, search for the meanings of the photographic image, in the form of an extended voiceover conversation and debate between the "amateur photographer" credited with the images and two of his colleagues. Anticipating later writings by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag (who professed her admiration for the film) If I Had Four Dromedaries reveals Marker's instinctual understanding of the secret rapport between still and moving image.
Dialogue Timeline — 672 lines
A SAMPLE ACROSS THE RUNTIME — EVERY LINE IS SEARCHABLE
00:00:02 Subject: An amateur photographer and two of his friends
00:02:01 --of human faces. It's not true:
00:03:38 Six o'clock in the Forbidden City of Peking.
00:06:08 A soviet dog in Moscow
00:07:46 -The same history. -No, Nungesser and Gagarin weren't the same.
00:09:57 It was still better than the water pistols.
00:11:41 the Contemporary Art Expo.
00:14:01 There's a sculpture of a peasant.
00:15:36 He thinks: thaw, elevating the standard of living, liberalization
00:17:42 Since it's true that, apart from the monuments it's not a city that's very...
00:19:37 -Is this still Moscow?
00:21:29 He came from the islands.
00:23:19 One cites him, one copies him, one finds resemblances of him.
00:25:24 -They were happy.
00:27:33 -We shot ourselves in the feet with the law of the Jungle
00:29:37 Fine, understood, man is a family.
00:31:26 in the animated discussion of peasants on the curb
00:33:30 this tender expression...
00:35:17 --and which, ultimately, drew its grandeur from them.
00:36:56 ...Cremation."
00:38:11 --free moreover-- in the Stockholm gardens
00:40:20 ("TO THE HUMAN PERSON")
00:42:16 this upside down smile that one also sees on the heads of funerary urns.
00:46:38 "I love someone..."
Cast & Characters
Dialogue Record
Lines indexed672
Dialogue density13.7 lines / min
First line00:00:02
Final line00:46:38
Production Record
DirectorChris Marker
LanguageFrench
IMDb votes225