Dear Agnes Varda. She is a great director and a beautiful, lovable and wise woman, through and through. It is not enough that she made some of the first films of the French New Wave. That she was the Muse for Jacques Demy. That she is a famed photographer and installation artist. That she directed the first appearances on film of Gerard Depardieu, Phillipe Noiret--and Harrison Ford! Or that after gaining distinction as a director of fiction, she showed herself equally gifted as a director of documentaries. And that she still lives, as she has since the 1950s, in the rooms opening off each side of a once-ruined Paris courtyard, each room a separate domain.
That is not enough, because her greatest triumph is her life itself. She comes walking toward us on the sand in the first shot of "The Beaches of Agnes," describing herself as "a little old lady, pleasantly plump." Well, she isn't tall. But somehow she isn't old. She made this film in her 80th year, and she looks remarkably similar to 1967, when she brought a film to the Chicago Film Festival. Or the night I had dinner with her, Jacques and Pauline Kael at Cannes 1976. Or when she was at Montreal 1988. Or the sun-blessed afternoon when we three had lunch in their courtyard in 1990. Or when she was on the jury at Cannes 2005.
Her face is still framed by a cap of shining hair. Her eyes are still merry and curious. She is still brimming with energy, and in "The Beaches of Agnes" you will see her setting up shots involving mirrors on the beach, or operating her own camera, or sailing a boat single-handedly down the Seine under the Pont Neuf, her favorite bridge. And she has given us the most poetic shot about the cinema I have ever seen, where two old fishermen, who were young when she first filmed them, watch themselves on a screen. Yes, and the screen and the 16mm projector itself are both mounted on an old market cart that they push through the nighttime streets of their village.If you are lucky you have seen her features like "Cleo from 5 to 7," or "Vagabond," or "Les Creatures," or "One Sings, the Other Doesn't" or "Kung Fu Master." Her documentaries like the one filmed all on her street, "Daguerreotypes," or her sympathetic look at scavengers in "The Gleaners and I." Or the lovely film of Demy's life that he wrote and she filmed, completing it 10 days before his death, "Jacquot."
Sailing on the Seine
But if you have not seen a single film by Agnes Varda, perhaps it is best if you start with "The Beaches of Agnes." You don't need to know anything about her work. She has a way of never explaining very much, and yet somehow making it all clear. She does this by not treating her life as a lesson in biography, but as the treasured memories of friends.
This is not an autobiography, although it is about her lifetime. She closes it by saying, "I am alive, and I remember." The film is her memories, evoked by footage from her films, and visits to the places and people she filmed. But that makes it sound too straightforward. The film is a poem, a song, a celebration. Although she is in robust good health, she accepts, as she must, that she is approaching the end, and je ne regrette rien. She expresses no thoughts about an afterlife, and only one great regret about this one: That Jacques and she could not complete the journey together, as they had planned. This is a great, loving, uplifting film. It provides an ideal of a life well-lived.
If she had only been a photographer, Varda would have been a great one, with her work in China, Cuba, Europe, America. As an installation artist, regard the "house of cinema" she constructed by hanging hundreds of long film strips from a framework so the sun shining through them would define the space inside. She stands within this space, the light playing on her, and says, "I have lived my life in the cinema." Or if that is too theoretical for you, consider her installation about potatoes, with Agnes herself as an advertisement, walking the sidewalk inside a big potato.
For "Jacques," Varda built a beach set on the rue Daguerre in front of their home. (All art clickable)
She doubts she had seen 10 films by the time she was 25, when she made her first film, "La Pointe-Courte" (1954). That's the one with the fishermen she went to visit again. "I thought if I added sound to photographs, that would be cinema," she says, adding that she had a lot to learn. She had no theory, and never desired any theory. She filmed as she felt, even in this first work that boldly brings together two story lines. Its visual compositions are compared to Bergman's in an enormously useful IMDb user comment. It starred the great actor Phillip Noiret in his first role. Coming before the first films of Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Demy, Rivette and Resnais (who was her editor) , it could have a claim to be the founding film of the New Wave, unless Jean-Pierre Melville should be considered. Perhaps that's why Varda is sometimes called the grandmother, not the mother, of the New Wave.
She made five short films between 1954 and 1961, before starting "Cleo from 5 to 7," the first feature that gained wide attention. Her friend Jean-Luc Godard had experienced enormous success with "Breathless," sometimes described as the first New Wave film. His producer asked him to recommend someone else "like him," who could make a low-budget black and white film that would tap the same market. He recommended Varda.
The film's title refers to the afternoon hours when French married people meet their lovers, but Cleo (Corinne Marchand) is not simply a lover. She is a singer who fears she's dying of cancer, and we follow her as she passes time waiting for the result of a biopsy. The film achieved much notice for the way it photographed Cleo on real streets and in real shops with real people; what is remarkable is that Varda achieved this not with a hand-held documentary look but with elegantly composed and edited shots that revealed her compositional background as a photographer.
Varda and Indian actress Nandita Das on the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005
I first became aware of her at my first Chicago Film Festival, in 1967, where she showed the documentary "Uncle Janco." It involved an uncle who was a painter and lived on a houseboat in San Francisco, and one reason I remember it so clearly is that she made Janco and his life so vividly human. He isn't seen as a character or an anecdote, but as a man who has built the life he wanted to, and lives within it.
I will not go through the Varda films I've seen one by one; but there are a few I must mention. "Daguerreotypes" (1976) is one she filmed literally outside her front door. She lives on rue Daguerre in Montparnasse. Let me describe her home, office, work space and headquarters. A big double gate opens from the street. Inside is a former alleyway, still wide enough for a small car, with two-story rooms on either side. I'm not sure what it was once used for--flats above, perhaps, and small shops below. There's a scene showing the space as Varda first saw it, no water, no heat, no toilets, the courtyard jammed with junk. Each two-story unit was separate, and Varda and Demy mostly kept them that way. You have to go outside to get from one to another.
One unit was Varda's, one Demy's, one theirs together, one for their daughter Rosalie, one for their son Mathieu, offices for Demy and Varda, art studios, darkrooms, editing rooms, and so on. Confined yet spacious. Spartan luxury. You can open a window and call out to another room. The spaces are filled with art and fabrics of bright colors, the courtyard lined with trees and flowers. There is a family-sized table for outdoor meals in good weather. You will see the home in the film, but she doesn't give you a tour and you may not be able to tell how original and comfortable it us. In this home every notable figure in the world of French film, and countless from elsewhere, and many not notable figures, and countless new friends, have come calling for more than 60 years. Not too far away is La Coupole, the famous restaurant where French painters paid for their supper in the late 1920s by painting the interior columns. If Varda and Demy had established a similar policy, the rue Daguerre film collection would not rival the Cinematheque Francais, but it would make the Museum of Modern Art green with envy.
Agnes, her children and her grandchildren dancing on the beach in 2008
To make her charming and compassionate documentary, Varda simply filmed her neighbors. In the 1970s, they were small shopkeepers and trades people. Today, I fear, it is tres chic,and the film preserves an earlier time in Paris. There was the baker and his wife. A butcher, expertly slicing steaks "not too thick" for one customer, "not too thin" for another. An accordion player, a laundress and, most memorable of all, a very old couple who ran a shop selling perfumes and buttons. Buttons and perfume? Yes, the old man says. He mixes the perfumes himself. And, should a customer also happen to require a button--voila!
In "The Beaches of Agnes," Varda explains that she promised the neighbors to use her own electricity to power her camera and lights. This she did by stringing a 90m cable through her mail slot. That was her umbilical. Everyone she filmed was less than 90 metres away. She still has the cable. There is a shot of it being pulled back through the mail slot at night. Doesn't your knowledge of that cable (never mentioned in "Daguerreotypes") make it almost necessary for you to see the film?
For Varda, film has been a family business. Demy of course is most famous for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," the all-singing musical which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Varda's "Vagabond" won the Golden Lion at Venice. They supported each other when needed, but kept a "respectful" distance from each other's work. Their great collaboration came at the end, when Demy started to write down memories of his youth in Nantes, and Agnes said, "Jacques, do you want me to make a film of these?" Jacques said he did, and Agnes began immediately, that very day.
Agnes and Jacques
Calling on friends and collaborators, she started to film with Demy at her side and everyone aware that he was dying. It was a period piece, with actors playing young Demy and the others. "Jacques" was finished with a few days to spare. She must have had a personal agenda for beginning work so quickly; right to the end of his life, Demy was needed. There is no use in waiting passively to die. There could be no better demonstration of Werner Herzog's vow that if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, he would begin another film.
Varda has worked frequently with her children. Rosalie has been an actress and costume designer for her mother. Mathieu is an actor who has appeared in 46 films, but his first significant role was in "Kung Fu Master!" (1988), Varda's daring balancing act about a tentative romance between a 14 year old boy and the mother (Jane Birkin) of two of his friends. This story, written by Birkin and Varda, sounds undoable. It is surprisingly gentle, sweet--and funny. Kind of a miracle.
In "The Beaches of Agnes," there is a sequence in which all of her children and grandchildren, dressed in white, perform a slow ballet on the beach, and Varda dances behind them, dressed all in black. And that's all I need to say about that. Many times when we see her in the film, she is walking backwards, as the film itself walks backwards through her life, and as she perhaps sees herself receding from our view. But her films will not recede, and neither will Varda. There is absolutely no hint to suggest this is her last film.
At Illinois I had a class that made a great impression on me, taught by the famous critic Sherman Paul, about the organic tradition in literature. As models he held up such as Emerson, Thoreau, Louis Sullivan, Edmund Wilson, William Carlos Williams. These men, he said, created as a part of their lives, not as a separate cerebral activity. My professor would have approved of Varda. She never studied film. She never moved in circles with Sartre, Beauvoir and other cafe philosophers who measured out their lives with coffee spoons. She simply went to work, doing what felt right to her, filming, photographing and designing what came to hand. For her there is no distinction between fiction and documentary, for they are both ways of observing and feeling.
The film most central to her life in many ways is "The Gleaners and I," where she ennobles a trade she traces back to the middle ages: The trade of moving through the places of Man and rescuing those things that can usefully be used again. When I see men moving down our alley with grocery carts, searching garbage bins for items of value, I do not think of the words homeless, mendicants, vagrants. Having been taught by Varda, I think gleaners. They have a life to live and a living to make, and are of greater actual use to society than some who make millions a year.
In that way all of Varda's films have been gleanings. Although she is happy when one of them is successful ("Vagabond" was a big hit," she recalls cheerfully), I don't believe a single one was made because of its commercial prospects. They were made out of love of the art form, and constructed by what fell to hand and seemed good to her. And now at 80 she can walk backwards with more serenity than most of us, because she will not stumble.
"The Beaches of Agnes" is rated "four stars." It is playing at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1 and 6 p.m. Thursday, March 5 at the Gene Siskel Film Center. The film, with Varda sometimes introducing it, will be playing in many North American cities, including Berkeley, Minneapolis, New York and Cambridge; for information, here is the Google search.
[Monday, March 2: The French Union of Film Critics has chosen chose "The Beaches of Agnes" as best French film of the year. Foreign went to "There Will be Blood" which was a 2008 release in France. Last Friday night, the Varda film won "Best Documentary" from the Academy des Cesars (the "French Oscars").
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From "The Beaches of Agnes," including her overview of her films:
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Cleo wanders the Paris streets:
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Varda's Keatonesque 1961 silent short subject "Les Fiances du Pont Mac Donald,"
starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina:
Is this film in theatrical release or on DVD. After seeing Sita sings the Blues last night, I am definitely interested in following your recommendations. The only film by Varda that I have seen is One sings, the other doesn't, but now I'm very curious to see the rest. She sounds like a remarkable woman who has led a fascinating life.
Last January, I saw and loved Vagabond. I originally sought that film because I'm going through Sandrine Bonnaire phase. The first establishing shot of the grapevine fields and the dead trees blowing in the wind was so thoughtfully composed. It came as no surprise to me that Varda was a professional photographer.
What struck me most about Vagabond was the relation of space with characters in the frame. Most notable are the moments when the camera tracks the doomed Bonnaire character and passes her by as though the frame abandoned her. The camera's (re: the filmmakers') indifference demonstrates just how easily she could slip right through the cracks and never be seen again.
Vagabond made such an impression on me that I have been seeking out more of Varda's work. A few weeks ago, I was also enamored by Cléo from 5 to 7. It won't be long before my library delivers a reserved copy of Le Bonheur.
Hopefully, The Beaches of Agnes will be released in Vancouver soon. I have to see that cable to believe it.
This sounds fascinating. I've only seen "Kung Fu Master" of Varda's, and that was at university, so maybe I should try to dig this up somewhere.
Oh, I could kiss you! You’ve written a journal entry about an ARTIST!
Which isn’t to say that you haven’t in the past of course, but this is different; Agnès is an artist in a way so many aren’t anymore because… how can I explain?
C'est la sensibilité.
Note: my mom was French so I know a smattering of it. :)
And why I get it. “It’s a sensibility”. A way of being in the world and allowing the art to rise up from the truth of one’s own experiences, often revealing in the process the hidden beauty so many overlook or discard, the sublime beauty underneath it all. And I’m a gleaner too. So is my friend Diane, the one who lives on a small Island off the West Coast where I’d buried my kitty. She’s also finding treasures and turning them into art – to fill her home or garden, to make pieces like this:
http://www3.telus.net/thiliasspace/Marie/jpegs/bigbug.jpg
I’ve been to Paris three times. And found it was still possible “to” find Paris – you just had to venture off the beaten track and explore all the less touted parts of it. At the very least it’s alive and well with the dead over at Pere Lachaise. Ooo, I found a place where they sold antique perfume bottles not far from there. And I shot people celebrating Bastille Day and drinking wine while standing in fountains, and watched the street cleaners wash the streets down in the morning. I did the same in Venice; I used to take photographs of Venetians just doing their jobs, fixing a broken window or lamp, high up on a ladder and performing a balancing act. I love the world when it’s unvarished – for everything you can see when it’s not wrapped in plastic to make it look prettier so it’ll sell. I love photojournalism. I love B/W. I love the Left.
I love Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, and German photographer Karl Blossfeldt! OMG… Blossfeldt… plants were like scultures in wrought-iron…
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/EDF/677795~Curcubita-Pumpkin-Tendril-Posters.jpg
http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/files/cccda6b86c9acd1077c25c066601ac80.large.jpg
And I love Agnès Varda. Some artists are born and others learn to be one and the difference is where the work is coming from - and when it comes from nothing more than the desire to express and share it while not being afraid to experiment… I think you get closer to God for being able to see him more clearly. I wish I’d been able to see more of her films – although that’s changed now (before, you had to wait for an Art House or whatever to show them) so you’ve inspired me now to track some titles down. Starting with La Pointe Courte – the precursor to French New Wave.
See what you’ve started?! It’s 4 o’clock in the morning! I have to go to bed – Chuckle! And I was going to earlier - but then I saw your new journal entry and well, screw it. I was grabbing all my books off the shelf and looking at everything again and now my contact lenses are all itchy and my eyes are droopy and… so it’s time to bid you good night. But I’ll be back!
"Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse" was such a wonderful film - Long live Agnes Varda! Thanks Roger for introducing the world to her films......!
To answer your question of whether the 90 meter cable makes it necessary for me to see the film, the answer is a definitive YES!
But of course they don't have Daguerrotypes on Netflix, and the only place I could find it online has it in French with Spanish subtitles. Rats! But at least some of the others will freshen up the queue. Thanks Roger.
> She does this by not treating her life as a
> lesson in biography, but as the treasured
> memories of friends.
... and this echoes so clearly in your life, in your writing. You have so many friends, whose qualities fascinate and amaze you. You are so good at perceiving them, and at communicating those perceptions. You are a conduit of inspiration, and, as such, you are a direct source of inspiration.
Reading your description of Agnes, I thought, "This must be the woman that Werner Herzog walked in a straight line all the way from Germany to Paris, to get to." A little Googling revealed that she wasn't, but no matter -- she may as well have been. Clearly Werner, Agnes, and you are all cut from the same cloth. Elevation via networking.
I stumbled onto Cleo from 5 to 7 as I was looking for 1960s French films with female lead characters, and immediately fell in love with Varda--and finally began to love (not merely "appreciate") the non-Truffaut New Wave. And just last summer I got around to The Gleaners and I, and discovered the joy of a "personalized" documentary. Vagabond is hiding somewhere in the Queue.
Thanks, Roger; this is a lot more fun than Not-So-Intelligent Design and Snarker-Hunting.
After having had the great pleasure of seeing "Les Plages D'Agnes" at the Toronto International Film Festival, I wrote that it was probably a good thing Varda didn't make the screening for a Q&A - the crowd would have tried to give her a big group hug.
What a lovely life-affirming film this is. It's so much more than just a documentary of her own life or a series of musings about memory (how to transmit your own memories and whether they are even accurate) because it's so crammed with new ideas that it shows Varda still has a great deal more to give. Her restless creativity is actually quite inspiring.
I love the moments she recalls Demy - each one still filled with sweetness and sadness. There's that great moment when she comes across those cinema cards in the open market and finds individual ones about her, Demy and Godard.
The whole film had me smiling and I've been meaning to dive deeper into her work (having loved "Vagabond", "Cleo" and "A Hundred And One Nights"). Thanks for the reminder...
Wikipedia tells me...The name Hebe comes from the Greek word meaning "youth" or "prime of life". So I wonder if she named that little boat herself. It must be so.
Here we have that beautiful French joie de vivre on full display. What a blessing to look at life so artistically. She reminds me of that line in Cyrano. Why must we slack our thirst sipping distilled sentiments from old fashioned cups? Let us lie down in the river bed and drink the flood as it passes over us.
She certainly seems like a woman who is used to drinking deeply of life.
On the beach front, one of my favorites of Varda's is her early documentary travelogue "Du côté de la côte" (1958)--a half-hour short that mixes stunning color photography with voiceover that is at somehow bitingly wistful, a tone one doesn't come across too often.
Roger,
What an enchanting billet-doux to a lively artist and loving wife who can honestly claim the title, Mother of the New Wave. Along with Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog Varda is a filmmaker whose documentaries are as compeling as her feature films. Her shimmering portraits of pregnancy, cancer scares, feminist activists, a woman who seduces a teenager and a distaff drifter took on taboos few other fimmakers would touch. Je vous salue, Agnes, je vous salue, Roger.
Roger,
You mentioned that Varda directed Harrison Ford in his first big-screen performance. What film was that? I always thought that Ford's first movie of note was Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation".
Ebert: That's not quite what I wrote. Actually, it was in a screen test, and you can see it in the first of the YouTube clips.
Roger,
Thanks for this wonderful tribute to a remarkable woman. In the DVD set "The Gleaners and I", there is a small accompanying film called "Two Years Later". In it, a woman on street says of Varda's film,
"It just makes you want to be a better human being". I think that is the best comment anyone can make about an artist.
I'm also very surprised to learn that she is eighty years old. I saw her a couple of nights ago at the Cesar awards on French TV and she looks as youthful as ever, winning the award for best feature documentary, and receiving a long standing ovation.
It makes me smile to see French New Wavers like Varda, Eric Rohmer, Chabrol, and others ,(all in their '80's)to still be filled with life and energy. I saw an interview with Rohmer made about 2 or 3 years ago, when he was well into his '80's speaking of youth and love and with more energy and vibrancy than a 15 year old talking about Twilight's Robert Pattinson. I think their life's work, their view of humanity and their refusal dwell on the past has imbued in them this spirit that old age can never take away.
You've captured Varda and her work so perfectly. I think she's going to be incredibly thrilled when she sees this. I've met her a few times over the years, and I think of her as an ageless pixie who brings great passion to every conversation (and I love that she loves cats, and shamelessly works them into every film.) Thanks, Roger,for your affectionate insight into the work of a unique artist. Your piece is a great introduction to her films for anyone who has never seen one, and a finely-tuned recollection of her work for the longtime fan.
Ebert: Doesn't your knowledge of that cable (never mentioned in "Daguerreotypes") make it almost necessary for you to see the film?
In short, yes it does.
I love it when you talk about directors that don't always get mentioned in popularity contests (Point in case: on IMDb recently, there was a poll suggesting Judd Apatow was one of the top 25 active directors...a list without Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Varda, and others). I've been able to stumble upon some great directors I would have never heard of, or at least not without some searching, were it not for your reviews (Ozu, Lumet, and Herzog, to name a few). Every time I hear you speak highly of a director, I can't help but look for at least one movie by them to see. My list of movies to see is endless, but I have no problem adding another potential great to the list. Hopefully I'll be able to find some of Varda's movies to enjoy (looks like 5 are on Blockbuster online, but most have a long wait).
Ebert: In that way all of Varda's films have been gleanings. Although she is happy when one of them is successful...I don't believe a single one was made because of its commercial prospects. They were made out of love of the art form, and constructed by what fell to hand and seemed good to her.
Those are the best possible types of films. So many films are made simply because they are sure to make a few dollars. Unfortunately, these often forget (or don't even know how) to be good. It's great to watch a movie where the director knows what they want to do and does it well on all levels. Thanks for another great entry and another great director to discover.
Ebert: Here's another one for you: Paul Cox. "A Woman's Tale," "Man of Flowers," "Innocence," "Vincent," anything...
Roger,
I am enchanted by this lovely entry. The clips are stunning and make me long to stroll the streets of Paris.
THANK YOU! You continue to be a guide and mentor into the soul of films.
JUDITH
Merci Monsieur Ebert for such a poetic entry about Agnes Varda. And thank you for your gift of cinema knowledge, film reviews and now your journal. You have guided my movie choices for nearly 30 years and I love being able to tap your archives to rely on an informed opinion. I first heard your name mentioned by a friend of mine in Chicago in the late 70's. She was from Germany and I from France. She had selected a particular movie for us to see "because Roger Ebert had written that it was quite good". And this is how I discovered "Days of Heaven" on the big screen. From then on, I knew that this Roger Ebert person knew about movies.
I read your blog energy and watched the clips greedily. Yes, to organic artists and yes, in particular, to women organic artists. I think the fear for women is always that in the words of an Indigo Girls song, "I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own... all I've sown is a song and maybe that was wrong."
Or, that somehow to really pursue art would require "pulling an Emily Dickinson." Yes, to make art in and with a community and along side a husband and with a family. Again I find in this blog inspiration to plod on ahead. Although, I am getting to that point in life that you realize that you might be as talented as you would like, as smart, as ambitious, as balanced, as brave.
Ebert: That is a very fine point to be at.
The titles on "Les Fiances du Pont Mac Donald" are identical to Wes Anderson movies. Do other French or European films of the 60's have this same design?
Straight from bed I hasten to discharge this belated comment before proceeding to mundane matters....my first watching of the Oscars proceedings( thanks Net) was thoroughly absorbing....the range of celebrity behaviour at a climactic moment, the personas behind the many masks....Rahman seemed god like....as for the almost three hours invested, as a self confessed and "openly" addicted to films, it was a necessary education and je ne regrette rien....after all, for one contemplaing suicide, drowning in the net is a viable and cost effective alternative to drinking oneself to death...
Ebert: I trust you are not contemplating either. We need you here. You are the serene neighborhood philosopher.
Just had to share a treasured memory. I was at a screening of her late husband's Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro Theatre (in 1996 I think). I don't think anyone knew she was there, and during the Q&A, she stood up in the audience to supplement or correct one of the exchanges, and I'll never forget her voice booming throughout the theatre, "I am Agnes Varda."
Ebert: She certainly is. Think how many times she must have seen that film. She loved that man.
If in the present entry you were thinking of serenity and ageing....one could write a whole lot comparing youth and age....wine too ages preciously.....winter and spring have their own muses like spring....life is too precious (....no life?....) for regrets...Herzog's resolution is very apt..
"In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!"
Ebert: Here's another one for you: Paul Cox. "A Woman's Tale," "Man of Flowers," "Innocence," "Vincent," anything...
"Man of Flowers" and "Innocence" are in the queue...thanks again!
Ebert: Not at all. I thank you. My review of "Innocence:"
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010907/REVIEWS/109070301/1023
From my point of view I would say "My life without me" is a better film than "Innocence". Ebert's review is merciless on the former and too easy on the latter, despite similar themes involving adultery and imminent death. I am not sure I understand the motivation of the protagonist either and yet I don't need to. I forgive her and I was touched.
Ebert: The situations in the two films are not, it seems to me, comparable.
Dear ER,
Who says biography can't be written without writing a whole book.
I believe your blography on Agnes Varda has taken the shape of a holy book.
Would you like to disagree? Then state reasons.
Ebert: It should be many times longer!
Dear ER,
If quantity defines the holiness of a scripture (which I strongly disagree), then let me subsitute "book" with "testament". The lyrical mood while portraying Agnes Varda with the rarest vision of deep insight of yours is so expicit in your blography. Now, do you agree?
Roger,
I echo the sentiment of those who are thankful for the opportunity to discover a new director that has gone mostly overlooked in the canons of film interest. The hoover library reports the presence of one film (in the whole annals of the jefferson county library system) being 'Les glaneurs et la glaneuse'. It reports being checked out. Due date? 3-21-09. Apparently someone else in Hoover has already read your journal entry and checked it out. It would seem like the inevitable conclusion. So the gleaners will have to wait. I can add the remainders on the netflix list. I'll start with La Pointe Courte. 'Ordet' is in the mail. So, should I bump off my next #1 'After Hours' to begin my Varda journey?
Ebert: Suit thyself. There's a four-film Varda boxed set from Criterion. But "Gleaners" is a great place to start.
Your website over the past two weeks has been a delightful recap of the best month in my life! In 2005, I took a French film class in Paris with Kelley Conway from UW-Madison. During the class, we had the sheer delight of meeting both Lisa Nesselson and Agnes Varda! Mme Varda invited us to her home on rue Daguerre and served us cafe and bisquit, and shared her memories of filming Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I. It is one the best memories of my entire life.
Coincidently, another highlight was meeting you when you introduced Laura at the WI film festival!
Ebert: If Jeanne Moreau had dropped in, you would have had the three most charming women in Paris.
Dear Roger, this has nothing to do with Agnes Varda, but I felt like sharing it.
Every so often, I go to the store and purchase a film I know little to nothing about. A simple recommendation like yes or no, or perhaps I see it listed in your Great Movies. I see it as a personal quest to discover something I might otherwise never have seen.
A few weeks ago, I brought along a long list of french films that I wanted to see in the hopes of expanding my french cinema experience beyond Breathless and The 400 Blows. Godard, Truffaut, Tati, you know. As I checked off what wasn't available, I get to the very end of the list:
Three Colors: Blue, White, and Red by Krzysztof Kieslowski.
It wasn't my first choice, but what the hey? As I watched each film, I became completely enamored and fascinated and I knew I must explore more films by Kieslowski. So about a week ago, I ordered The Double Life of Veronique and The Decalogue. As I waited, what do I see? You had added The Double Life of Veronique to your Great Movies! The film arrived today, and as I watched it, I couldn't help but feel that Kieslowski continues to work his magic 15 years since he died, and these little serendipitous moments give me the same feelings of spirituality present in his work.
It just occurred to me: One of the films from that list earlier was Band of Outsiders, which I did manage to obtain later. And one of the features on the Criterion disc is a short film called Les Fiances du Pont Mac Donald... by Agnes Varda!
Ebert: And "The Decalogue" is also in the Great Movies collection. We are in synch.
Merci, merci,merci.
I love Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 almost as much as I love Demy's gorgeous Umbrellas of Cherbourg. They are often a double feature in my house on cold winter's days.
"All we know about the real Frost and the real Nixon is almost beside the point. It all comes down to those two men in that room while the cameras are rolling".....Ebert on Frost/Nixon
An engrossing drama about power, dominance, morality, and the spirit of adventure which spurs people to exceptional achievement like the projected intreview series. Inspiring and thought provoking. Nixon seems an example of greatness which aborts because it lacks an ideal -----talent and capability becoming an end in itself rather than a means. A colossal film which deserves more!
I discovered Varda by seeing Cleo from 5 to 7 recently on IFC, and enjoyed the film immensely. Horrified that I'd never heard of this film before (being so immersed in seeking out great foreign films from all countries and eras), or of Varda, I sought out more info from Wikipedia, and was greatly disappointed. Your journal, once again, comes to the rescue.
Ebert: In choosing a Great Movie by Varda, it's down to Cleo, the Vagabond, and the Gleaners...
Ebert: "I trust you are not contemplating either."Refers 8.41PM on March 1 above.
Thanks for your concern, Roger. But nothing could be farther from my thoughts. Even though I may be having a few problems like everybody, I would be reborn with the same unhappiness unless I change my unhappiness here while I am around.
To quote SGI President Daisaku Ikeda
"Our life from past to present to future is like going for a drive. From birth to death, in lifetime after lifetime, we travel upon the great earth of life. But even though birth and death are repeated by everyone, there is a great difference between struggling across a dangerous swamp in an old rattletrap and speeding along a freeway in one of the latest models. The former is the result of living your life with the idea that everything ends with death, and the latter the result of a life lived with a knowledge of the essential reality of birth and death."
As I sit here on hold, trying to get my prior year's AGI from the IRS to finish my taxes, I read your review of 'Innocence.' Even more intriguing, now that I know a little more specific information on the film.
Ebert: There's a four-film Varda boxed set from Criterion.
I wish I could own every movie Criterion has put out. I should be getting a decent return from the aforementioned government agency, but it seems I'm in a trap at the moment when spending money on movies. Somehow my wife trapped me into agreeing that, whenever I spend money on a few movies for myself, she would be eligible for a pair of shoes as well. Admittedly, I do have about 10 movies in my collection of 200 that I haven't watched yet, but that's no reason to not buy more. Does that seem fair, or should I try to push for a pair of shoes every 10 movies?
And, on a closing note, I watched the first movie in your 'Great Movies' collection that I didn't particularly enjoy last night: 'Mephisto.'
Ebert: The problem with that deal is, if you're a passionate mover lover, she'll end up with more shoes than Mrs. Marcos.
Sorry about "Mephisto." I think the performance is amazing.
"
******Our life from past to present to future is like going for a drive. From birth to death, in lifetime after lifetime, we travel upon the great earth of life. But even though birth and death are repeated by everyone, there is a great difference between struggling across a dangerous swamp in an old rattletrap and speeding along a freeway in one of the latest models. The former is the result of living your life with the idea that everything ends with death, and the latter the result of a life lived with a knowledge of the essential reality of birth and death."*******
Okay, but might not the trip through the swamp in rattletrap be just as fun just as life affirming. There is something to the beauty that Steinbeck can find in an old rattletrap on route 66, or on Cannery Row. Or in those that glean amongst the wastelands of capitalism.. I guess I am having trouble identifying the good life with a fast ride in a sports car. Oh, I suppose I am just an American moralist... :) But, I guess I tend to valorize those who withdraw to swamps to suck all the marrow out of life, or to the city to be with the poor,
Of course I have heard of Agnes Varda, her relationship to Jacques Demy (who made one of my all-time favorite films THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG), and her many accomplishments: CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, VAGABOND, THE GLEANDERS AND I, KUNG-FU MASTER!, etc. I have gotten many a recommendation of her and her work and will shoot her up to the top of my must-see list after this. Thanks!
Ebert: Sorry about "Mephisto." I think the performance is amazing.
It's a funny thing, really. Usually I enjoy a movie like that, where I can just enjoy a performance taking over a movie. I'll admit that I started a 2+ hour movie at 11:30pm, but I just didn't ever quite get into it. Not sure why, but the editing and the pacing just didn't quite bring me into it. But hey, I guess if everyone liked every movie the exact same amount, it wouldn't really mean much in terms of having individual tastes. Perhaps I'll come back to it sometime down the road, when I'm more prepared for that type of movie.
To Jodie on March 3, 2009 12:13 PM
"Rattletrap,swamp" and"latest model, freeway" in the quote I quoted refer to ones state of mind rather than external objects. Life is in either case characterised by the unavoidable universal realities of sickness, old age and death. Driving in the latest model implies an attitude of hope, optimism , challenge and even joy in the midst of even the harshest circumstances----which well name psychiatrist whose name is eluding me spoke of the butterflies which some holocaust victims would draw on the walls as they confronted the end? Driving in a rattletrap symbolises a state characterised by defeat, complaints, grudges and regret. The images of Harvey Milk and Citizen Kane spring to mind as examples of two contrasting "life conditions". Death being the most fundamental aspect of life, one's stance towards the same significantly determines the way one addresses pain, loss and deprivation.
Perhaps the life of the author of the quote is the best example of it's correctness. As Gandhi would have said, "my life is my message".
To quote Daisaku Ikeda again
"Death is an issue of the greatest importance for all people without exception. No one can honestly say that death is of no concern......It is said that there are two things people cannot gaze at directly: the sun and death.......The French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) decried people's tendency to avoid thinking of their own mortality: "This negligence in a matter where they themselves, their eternity, their all are at stake, fills me more with irritation than pity; it astounds and appalls me." His dismay at people's irrational indifference toward death drove him to use such strong words......What is death? What becomes of us after we die? Failing to pursue these questions is like spending our student years without ever considering what to do after graduating...........In his Essays, the French Renaissance philosopher Montaigne ( 15 33-92) introduces the following episode about a king of ancient Greece who was planning to conquer Italy:When King Pyrrhus [of Epirus, 319-272 BCE.] was undertaking his expedition into Italy, Cyneas, his wise counselor, wanting to make him feel the vanity of his ambition, asked him: "Well, Sire, to what purpose are you setting up this great enterprise?" "To make myself master of Italy," he immediately replied. "And then," continued Cyneas, "when that is done?" "I shall pass over into Gaul and Spain," said the other. "And after that?" "I shall go and subdue Africa; and finally, when I have brought the world under my subjugation, I shall rest and live content and at my ease." ...Cyneas then retorted, "tell me what keeps you from being in that condition right now, if that is what you want. Why don't you settle down at this very moment in the state you say you aspire to, and spare yourself all the intervening toil and risks?" .....The point is that people find contemplating their lives and facing mortality so distasteful that they instead look for one thing after another in which to absorb themselves. ......Tolstoy wrote: Death is more certain than the morrow, than night following day, than winter following summer. Why is it then that we prepare for the night and for the winter time, but do not prepare for death. We must prepare for death. But there is only one way to prepare for death --- and that is to live well. "To live well" means to develop, cultivate and elevate our lives. Socrates called this "attending to one's soul." His famous words to the effect that "philosophy is practice for dying" carry the same meaning."
Through sheer force of will, I have caused the collective aspect of the Internet to manifest inside this glass here on the desk. Because I needed to give it a big kiss.
Read your essay on Varda...I'd never heard of her before and as intended, the piece made me want to see some of her movies.
Well whaddya know? It's not just her movies coming to Cambridge...but Varda herself! Presenting what appears to be the whole lot. Here's the link:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2009marapr/varda.html
I am in the process of raising a posse to go see one of these events. If I can only see one, which should it be, d'ya think?
Ebert: Maybe Gleaners, Daguerrotypes, Vagabond, Kung Fu Master! or Cleo...you can't go wrong.
Ebert: Sorry about "Mephisto." I think the performance is amazing.
Indeed. Klaus Maria Brandauer gives the sort of performance that so naturally becomes German theatre actors. Think Klaus Kinski, Bruno Ganz, Ulrich Muehe... I tell you it's all that Brecht -- it makes natural expressionists out of the actors.
Ebert: In choosing a Great Movie by Varda, it's down to Cleo, the Vagabond, and the Gleaners...
That's just it! Now that I've read this blog, I want to see all of her films...but I'll take this as a nice jumping off point. Thanks.
Is there anything more exciting than a creative and accomplished woman?
Tyler D. above mentions that he'd love to own all the Criterion films. Amen, brother. Unfortunately, they issue them much faster than I can afford them. When I was a kid, my dad would let me buy a Carl Banks Donald Duck comic every payday. Now I try to do the same with Criterion discs. And just when you start feeling proud of your collection, they introduce Blu-Ray versions of earlier releases, and you realize the sisyphean burden all collectors face.
Good news though - they are soon issuing The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a movie I have never seen, but for years Roger's review of it was a perennial favorite in older editions of his video guide. 20 years of anticipation - it can only disappoint.
You write about Varda as part of the "organic" tradition, an artist who creates as a part of her life: "She never studied film. She never moved in circles with Sartre, Beauvoir and other cafe philosophers who measured out their lives with coffee spoons. She simply went to work, doing what felt right to her, filming, photographing and designing what came to hand. For her there is no distinction between fiction and documentary, for they are both ways of observing and feeling."
This may be the key to the affection I feel for her work--and for her. While the other great New Wave filmmakers also share this "organic" quality, Varda is not so much cerebral as expressive/impressionistic. There is a "hand-made" quality to her work that conveys a sympathy for her characters and even joy that I do not see as much in other New Wave-ers--aside from perhaps Truffaut. In short, she is out of Sartre's circle--and we're the luckier for it.
".......And it sends you soaring."....Chop Shop
Me too. It's like returning to voluptuous reality from the crafted dreamworld of film. The sound of metal, drone of machinery, heave and sigh of traffic and the train recurrent like a sundial, the sound track is nothing short of symphonic-----it bursts with hope life and courage-----Walt Whitman might have loved it but as you mention it is too specific and authentic to be compared or categorised.
I don't know if my comment was lost or just not posted due to irrelevance on the last posting, but there are two more films available on Cinemania that are not online, both by director Nicolas Roeg:
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Bad Timing
Ebert: I appreciate this info.
I've never seen Mephisto, but I read the book by Klaus Mann, and it has the most memorable and appropriate epigraph I have ever read:
"All men's failings, I forgive in actors; no actor's failings will I forgive in men". - Goethe, "Wilhelm Meister"
Earlier comment:
Roger,
You mentioned that Varda directed Harrison Ford in his first big-screen performance. What film was that? I always thought that Ford's first movie of note was Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation".
Ebert: That's not quite what I wrote. Actually, it was in a screen test, and you can see it in the first of the YouTube clips.
Jonathan again:
Ahh, very interesting. Thanks Roger, another interesting piece of information that I otherwise wouldn't have discovered if I didn't read your terrific blog!
Comes a time when films and reading starts looking like homework?
Ebert: You'll be the first to know.
Debauchery means excess and the season around Oscartime is when the feast is spread out.
The Man Who Fell To Earth is seven kinds of brilliant. I love it almost as much as I do Don't Look Now.
So great to see this piece. She's always been at the top of my short list of favorite directors, yet it seems like people always overlook her. She's one of very few French New Wave directors that made films worth watching at all post-1970s, and the only one to still be making films now that are every bit as good as her earlier work ("The Gleaners and I" and the Holocaust/Teddy Bear film from "Cinevardaphoto" are as good as anything she's ever done, in my opinion). I think the Herzog comparisons raised by other posters are particularly apt. Like Herzog, all of her films share a deep love of humanity coupled with an incredibly inquisitive and creative mind, without ever delving into the cynicism of some of her fellow new wave filmmakers.
It kind of sucks that her stuff isn't as available in America, but if anyone's interested there was a really great 2 disc DVD collection of 17 of her short documentaries (including all of the films from "Cinevardaphoto") released in France a couple years ago called "Varda Tous Courts." It's in PAL Region 2 format so it won't work on most American TVs, but it'll work on basically any computer with a DVD drive and the proper software. Plus they all have English subtitles!
You can order it from her distributor's website http://www.cine-tamaris.com -Or just check ebay.
a link to a youtube posting by the European Graduate School
Agnes Varda, in 2004, gives a lecture about "The Gleaners and I" and goes further into "..making and directing movies and films for television, theatre and cinema, and working as an artist, director, documentary filmmaker, a voice for the people featured in her videos."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaWNV-JiOMk&feature=PlayList&p=331EAC90B247FF2C&index=0&playnext=1
Of course I adore Varda's films, but do you think it is right to extract her so dramatically from the milieu from which she emerged? Her sensibility is a shared one, as Resnais and Marker and to some extent Godard have it too-- the so-called "Right Bank" directors of the Nouvelle Vague.
There is something that occurs in the cinema of these directors, in which film style is utterly fragmented and defamiliarized, and then reconstituted in a new form that it is somehow still possible to follow and even be moved by. "Poetic" is an easy adjective to describe this aesthetic, but only because that term usually stands in for complex or abstruse style or content.
My favorite sequence in her films is the stunning simplicity of a sequence in "The Gleaners and I," when with her handheld digital video camera she is able to film "one hand, and then the other"-- and is then transfixed by her own wrinkles, her creeping mortality. It is as though for an instant the passage of the film's time coincides with that of her body, only to bifurcate a moment later.
Well I can say that I have lived a full life now that I have seen Mme Varda walk around in a giant potato costume.
As someone who attended school on the Rue Daguerre, the "beach" picture cracks me up. I can't wait to look into her movies.
Roger,
Netflix is still holding on Agnes' first film to send me, but 'The Gleaners and I' got checked back in at the library so I got to watch it. Wow! Thank you so much for tipping me off to Agnes Varda. I have really been waiting to find someone with her style. I've only seen one, but I am definitely hooked. I can't think of a director who has shown as much love for people. She is so intensely concerned with these people, yet also deeply fascinated and enthralled. She finds her subjects beautiful. I also just love her childlike approach to life, her embrace of everything, her charming 'self portraits'. She just has a level of class and sophistication mixed with an all encompassing love of life and people. Such warmth! Thank You.
Ebert: I began to look at scavengers in a new light.
Thank you for painting (in words) such a vivid and intimate portrait of Agnès Varda's body of works. I thank you, thank you, and thank you.
Best regards,
Haeyong Moon
It will be interesting to see the new Agnes Varda film- she is a legend and a fascinating filmmaker. When I watched her film The Gleaners and I, it was the first time I really thought about the environmental impact of food. And thought more about what it meant to be in the world in general with "things". (You can find out about that one here: http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=gleanersandi). And she has such an amazing cinematic history. Thanks.
Just came home from the theater. What a robust, steamy, colorful and beautiful life. She's playful and somber, frenetic and calm and the cool grandmother I wish I had.
I've never seen any of her films, but I am definitely going to.
I loved your review and what a gift to have shared a table with such a person. How cool!
Oh, I just realized this review is from months ago. I'm late to the party. What are you gonna do?
Cheers!
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