Source: Wikipedia
Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style.
Life and career
The career of Agnès Varda is an important and often overlooked voice in the modern French cinema. Her career pre-dates the start of the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave), and La Pointe Courte contains many elements specific to that movement that make it famous.
Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Christiane (née Pasquet) and Eugene Jean Varda, an engineer. Her mother was French and her father's family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
Varda studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre before getting a job as the official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris. She liked photography but was interested in moving into film. After spending a few days filming the small French fishing town of La Pointe Courte for a terminally ill friend who could no longer visit on his own, Varda decided to shoot a feature film of her own. Thus in 1954, Varda's first film, La Pointe Courte, about an unhappy couple working through their relationship in a small fishing town, was released. The film is a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave. At the time, Varda was influenced by the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard, whom she once studied under at the Sorbonne. “She was particularly interested in his theory of ‘l’imagination des matières,’ in which certain personality traits were found to correspond to concrete elements in a kind of psychoanalysis of the material world”. This idea arrives in La Pointe Courte as the characters personality traits clash it is shown through the opposition of objects such as wood and steel. To further her interest in character abstraction Varda used two professional actors, Sylvia Montfort and Philippe Noiret combined with the residents of La Pointe Courte to provide a realistic element that lends itself to a documentary aesthetic, inspired by Neo-realism. Varda would continue to use this combination of fictional and documentary elements in her films.
Following La-Pointe Courte, Cleo from 5 to 7 follows a pop singer through 2 extraordinary hours in which she awaits the results of a recent biopsy. Superficially, the film is about a woman coming to terms with her relationships to those around her through self-awareness. On a deeper level, Cleo From 5 to 7 confronts the traditionally objectified woman by giving Cleo her own vision. She is unable to be constructed through gaze of others which is often represented through a motif of reflections and Cleo’s ability to strip her body of to-be-looked-at-ness attributes (clothing items, wigs, etc). Stylistically, Cleo From 5 to 7 borders documentary and fiction as La Pointe Courte had, which is regularly noticed as the film is to represent real time, between 5pm and 7pm.
Despite similarities to the French New Wave, films by Varda belonged more precisely to the complementary Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. The group was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature and politically was positioned to the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.
Varda was married to the film director Jacques Demy from 1962 until his death in 1990, with whom she had one child, actor Mathieu Demy. Jacques Demy also legally adopted Rosalie Varda, Agnes Varda's daughter from a previous union with actor Antoine Bourseiller, who starred in her early film Cléo from 5 to 7.
Varda was one of the five persons to attend Jim Morrison's burial in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
She was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and a member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1983.
Awards and accolades
▪ For the 1985 documentary-style feature film Vagabond/Without Roof or Rule she received the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival.
▪ 2002 Agnès Varda was the recipient of the prestigious French Academy prize, René Clair Award.
▪ In 2009 The Beaches of Agnès won the best documentary film of the César Award.
▪ On April 12, 2009, she was made Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.
▪ In May of 2010 Varda received Directors' Fortnight's 8th Carosse d'Or award for lifetime achievement at the Cannes Film Festival.
▪ September 22nd 2012 Varda received an honorary degree from Liège University Belgium.
Feature films
▪ 1955 : La Pointe courte
▪ 1962 : Cléo de 5 à 7
▪ 1965 : Le Bonheur
▪ 1966 : Les Créatures
▪ 1969 : Lions Love
▪ 1977 : L’Une chante, l’autre pas
▪ 1981 : Documenteur
▪ 1985 : Sans toit ni loi
▪ 1987 : Jane B. par Agnès V.
▪ 1987 : Kung-fu Master
▪ 1991 : Jacquot de Nantes
▪ 1995 : Les Cent et Une Nuits de Simon Cinéma
Documentaries
▪ 1958 : L’Opéra mouffe
▪ 1958 : Du côté de la côte
▪ 1966 : Elsa la rose
▪ 1967 : Loin du Vietnam (documentaire collectif avec Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch)
▪ 1968 : Black Panthers
▪ 1975 : Réponses de femmes
▪ 1975 : Daguerréotypes, commandé par la ZDF en co-production avec l'INA, diffusé en 1976 à la télévision française par TF1
▪ 1981 : Murs, murs
▪ 1984 : Les Dites cariatides
▪ 1993 : Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
▪ 1995 : L'Univers de Jacques Demy
▪ 2000 : Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse
▪ 2002 : Deux Ans après
▪ 2004 : Ydessa, les ours et etc.
▪ 2004 : Cinévardaphoto
▪ 2005 : Quelques veuves de Noirmoutier
▪ 2005 : La Rue Daguerre en 2005 (supplément DVD aux Daguerréotypes)
▪ 2008 : Les Plages d'Agnès
▪ 2011 : Agnès de ci de là Varda, mini-série documentaire télévisée, durée 225 minutes (5 épisodes de 45 minutes)
Short films
▪ 1957 : Ô saisons, ô châteaux
▪ 1961 : Les Fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires)
▪ 1963 : Salut les cubains
▪ 1967 : Oncle Yanco
▪ 1976 : Plaisir d’amour en Iran
▪ 1982 : Ulysse
▪ 1984 : 7 p., cuis., s. de b., … à saisir
▪ 1985 : Histoire d'une vieille dame
▪ 1986 : T’as de beaux escaliers tu sais
▪ 2003 : Le Lion volatil
▪ 2004 : Der Viennale '04-Trailer
Others
▪ 1970 : Nausicaa (TV)
▪ 1983 : Une minute pour une image (série TV)
Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style.
Life and career
The career of Agnès Varda is an important and often overlooked voice in the modern French cinema. Her career pre-dates the start of the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave), and La Pointe Courte contains many elements specific to that movement that make it famous.
Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Christiane (née Pasquet) and Eugene Jean Varda, an engineer. Her mother was French and her father's family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
Varda studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre before getting a job as the official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris. She liked photography but was interested in moving into film. After spending a few days filming the small French fishing town of La Pointe Courte for a terminally ill friend who could no longer visit on his own, Varda decided to shoot a feature film of her own. Thus in 1954, Varda's first film, La Pointe Courte, about an unhappy couple working through their relationship in a small fishing town, was released. The film is a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave. At the time, Varda was influenced by the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard, whom she once studied under at the Sorbonne. “She was particularly interested in his theory of ‘l’imagination des matières,’ in which certain personality traits were found to correspond to concrete elements in a kind of psychoanalysis of the material world”. This idea arrives in La Pointe Courte as the characters personality traits clash it is shown through the opposition of objects such as wood and steel. To further her interest in character abstraction Varda used two professional actors, Sylvia Montfort and Philippe Noiret combined with the residents of La Pointe Courte to provide a realistic element that lends itself to a documentary aesthetic, inspired by Neo-realism. Varda would continue to use this combination of fictional and documentary elements in her films.
Following La-Pointe Courte, Cleo from 5 to 7 follows a pop singer through 2 extraordinary hours in which she awaits the results of a recent biopsy. Superficially, the film is about a woman coming to terms with her relationships to those around her through self-awareness. On a deeper level, Cleo From 5 to 7 confronts the traditionally objectified woman by giving Cleo her own vision. She is unable to be constructed through gaze of others which is often represented through a motif of reflections and Cleo’s ability to strip her body of to-be-looked-at-ness attributes (clothing items, wigs, etc). Stylistically, Cleo From 5 to 7 borders documentary and fiction as La Pointe Courte had, which is regularly noticed as the film is to represent real time, between 5pm and 7pm.
Despite similarities to the French New Wave, films by Varda belonged more precisely to the complementary Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. The group was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature and politically was positioned to the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.
Varda was married to the film director Jacques Demy from 1962 until his death in 1990, with whom she had one child, actor Mathieu Demy. Jacques Demy also legally adopted Rosalie Varda, Agnes Varda's daughter from a previous union with actor Antoine Bourseiller, who starred in her early film Cléo from 5 to 7.
Varda was one of the five persons to attend Jim Morrison's burial in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
She was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and a member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1983.
Awards and accolades
▪ For the 1985 documentary-style feature film Vagabond/Without Roof or Rule she received the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival.
▪ 2002 Agnès Varda was the recipient of the prestigious French Academy prize, René Clair Award.
▪ In 2009 The Beaches of Agnès won the best documentary film of the César Award.
▪ On April 12, 2009, she was made Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.
▪ In May of 2010 Varda received Directors' Fortnight's 8th Carosse d'Or award for lifetime achievement at the Cannes Film Festival.
▪ September 22nd 2012 Varda received an honorary degree from Liège University Belgium.
Feature films
▪ 1955 : La Pointe courte
▪ 1962 : Cléo de 5 à 7
▪ 1965 : Le Bonheur
▪ 1966 : Les Créatures
▪ 1969 : Lions Love
▪ 1977 : L’Une chante, l’autre pas
▪ 1981 : Documenteur
▪ 1985 : Sans toit ni loi
▪ 1987 : Jane B. par Agnès V.
▪ 1987 : Kung-fu Master
▪ 1991 : Jacquot de Nantes
▪ 1995 : Les Cent et Une Nuits de Simon Cinéma
Documentaries
▪ 1958 : L’Opéra mouffe
▪ 1958 : Du côté de la côte
▪ 1966 : Elsa la rose
▪ 1967 : Loin du Vietnam (documentaire collectif avec Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch)
▪ 1968 : Black Panthers
▪ 1975 : Réponses de femmes
▪ 1975 : Daguerréotypes, commandé par la ZDF en co-production avec l'INA, diffusé en 1976 à la télévision française par TF1
▪ 1981 : Murs, murs
▪ 1984 : Les Dites cariatides
▪ 1993 : Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
▪ 1995 : L'Univers de Jacques Demy
▪ 2000 : Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse
▪ 2002 : Deux Ans après
▪ 2004 : Ydessa, les ours et etc.
▪ 2004 : Cinévardaphoto
▪ 2005 : Quelques veuves de Noirmoutier
▪ 2005 : La Rue Daguerre en 2005 (supplément DVD aux Daguerréotypes)
▪ 2008 : Les Plages d'Agnès
▪ 2011 : Agnès de ci de là Varda, mini-série documentaire télévisée, durée 225 minutes (5 épisodes de 45 minutes)
Short films
▪ 1957 : Ô saisons, ô châteaux
▪ 1961 : Les Fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires)
▪ 1963 : Salut les cubains
▪ 1967 : Oncle Yanco
▪ 1976 : Plaisir d’amour en Iran
▪ 1982 : Ulysse
▪ 1984 : 7 p., cuis., s. de b., … à saisir
▪ 1985 : Histoire d'une vieille dame
▪ 1986 : T’as de beaux escaliers tu sais
▪ 2003 : Le Lion volatil
▪ 2004 : Der Viennale '04-Trailer
Others
▪ 1970 : Nausicaa (TV)
▪ 1983 : Une minute pour une image (série TV)
Agnès Varda et le documentaire
Voici certains extraits de documentaires réalisés par Agnès Varda. Cela vous donnera une meilleure idée du travail d'expérimentation effectué par Varda sur l'image au cours de sa filmographie.
Voici certains extraits de documentaires réalisés par Agnès Varda. Cela vous donnera une meilleure idée du travail d'expérimentation effectué par Varda sur l'image au cours de sa filmographie.
L'Opéra-mouffe (1958): Il s'agit d'un documentaire sur le quartier de la rue Mouffetard à Paris. On y voit le marché, les habitants du quartiers, les ivrognes, etc.
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Murs murs (1980): Il s'agit d'un documentaire sur les murals de Los Angeles, les personnes qui les font, ceux qui les paient et ceux qui les regardent.
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Les Plages d'Agnès (2008): Dans ce documentaire autobiographique, Varda parle d'elle à travers les plages qui ont joué un rôle dans sa vie.
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