Marker lives amid a sea of rumors, some believable, some outrageous. Film encyclopedias report that Marker was a paratrooper during World War II. That his father was an American soldier. That he was born in Mongolia. That he is actually from another planet, or the future, "which," one writer wrote, "leads one to believe that the race of Earthlings will resemble Marker in a few centuries." That his real name isn't Chris Marker but Christian Francois Bouche-Villeneuve. Like all good legends, the boundaries between the facts of Marker's life and the fiction are blurred.

His work also defies definition. He is sometimes referred to as part of French New Wave cinema, but he is really more of a Wild Wave, standing apart from the likes of Truffaut and Godard both in age (he is older) and style.

His film career began in 1952 (with Olympia 52), but only following a prolific period as writer and poet. Some accounts say that Marker has authored well over a dozen books in French. More than 80 films have been credited to him as director, cameraman or writer. He is also credited with a number of video installations. But one should take all Marker credits with a grain of salt. Marker himself denies knowledge of at least one film that has been credited to him, All By Myself, featuring Alexandra Stewart and Florence Day.Marker often uses a cinema verite style, but his films are intensely personal and his viewpoint is clearly stated. Life just isn't allowed to "speak for itself." La Jetee is his only work of pure fiction, but Marker often explores the themes of memory and truth. In Lettre de Siberie (1958), for example, a simple scene shot at an intersection in a Russian city is shown three times, each time with a different voice-over: In one sequence the voice is intensely positive, in another the voice is highly critical and in the third, the voice is neutral and objective. "Where is the truth?" Marker asks.