Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda
Varda receiving an honour at the Guadalajara Film Festival
Born	(1928-05-30) 30 May 1928 (age 84) Brussels, Belgium
Occupation	director, screenwriter, editor, actor, producer, installation artist, photographer
Years active	1955 - present

Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School.^[1] 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) , andLa Pointe Courte contains many elements specific to that movement that make it famous. ^[2]

Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Christiane (née Pasquet) and Eugene Jean Varda, an engineer.^[3] 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.^[2] 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.^[4] 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.^[5]

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. ^[5]

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.^[6]
• In 2009 The Beaches of Agnès won the best documentary film of the César Award.^[7]
• On April 12, 2009, she was made Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.^[8]
• In May of 2010 Varda received Directors' Fortnight's 8th Carosse d'Or award for lifetime achievement at the Cannes Film Festival.^[9]
• September 22nd 2012 Varda received an honorary degree from Liège University Belgium.^[1]

Filmography

Agnès Varda speaking at a retrospective series at the Harvard Film Archive

Publications

• Les Plages d'Agnes Texte Illustre (2010)
• 4 by Agnès Varda: Essays (2007)
• Agnès Varda, l'île et elle, Actes sud (2006)
• Sans toit ni loi un film d'Agnès Varda (2003)
• La marginalité à l'écran(1999)
• Varda par Agnès (1994)
• La Côte d'Azur, d'azur, d'azur, d'azur (1961)

Further reading

• How Agnès Varda "invented" the New Wave by Ginette Vincendeau, Four by Agnes Varda, Criterion, 2008
• Smith, Alison. Agnès Varda Manchester University Press, 1998. Pg 3.
• Neupert, Richard. A History of the French New Wave Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin. 2007. Pg 57.

References

External links

• Agnès Varda Faculty Page @ European Graduate School Biography, bibliography, films and quotes.
• Agnès Varda at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography on newwavefilm.com
• Ciné-Tamaris
• Jonathan Romney, The Beaches of Agnès (Sight & Sound 'Film of the Month')
• "A Talk: Agnès Varda ," 2009, (Frieze Foundation Talks)
• Agnès Varda talks about cinema and her work