AGNES VARDA, mother of the nouvelle vague

She met Castro, after several attempts – it was a last-minute affair at his favourite seaside restaurant. “He was good-looking, nice, calm,” Varda remembers. She made him stand before two huge boulders, so he appeared to have wings of stone. In her film, she noted: “He incarnates Cuba the way Gary Cooper incarnates the wild west.”

gag

The Moré photo is beautiful. Would watch a Varda doc on post-coup Cuba.

Really hope they restore Marker's Cuba Si someday (if someone hasn't done that already?) The Varda doc is so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb6EFdB1x1E

Lions Love is fantastic.

an Oscar

http://www.oscars.org/news/academy-honor-charles-burnett-owen-roizman-donald-sutherland-and-agnes-varda-oscars-2017

A.V. was on hand to introduce One Sings, the Other Doesn’t at NYFF yesterday. I liked the first hour fine, but the next 45 mins were a little heavy on mid-'70s feminist acoustic-guitar ballads extolling Engels and pregnancy.

It was a new DCP, apparently forthcoming on Criterion?

he next 45 mins were a little heavy on mid-'70s feminist acoustic-guitar ballads extolling Engels and pregnancy.

I initially read this as "mid-'70s feminist acoustic-guitar ballads extolling EAGLES and pregnancy.

only if she had stayed in L.A.

Don & Glenn From 5-7

What did they think of her work?

Loved One Sings, the Other Doesn't when i saw it last year - really liked the journey from of the two friends (in the context of so much talk of female friendship in fiction this slots right in), the Iranian journey (although Varda's Iranian work in the context of the Shah could be a troublesome aspect), as all r/ships, was v well done - one of her best films. The songs and their filming on unsuspecting punters was kinda funny and not cruel. Playful.

Yeah, I liked the punter reactions. The Iranian trip didn't make me think of Varda re the Shah but about Teheran on the eve of revolution.

I haven't watched this, is it just excerpts from OStOD?

http://bbook.com/film/watch-agnes-vardas-1976-short-film-plaisir-damour-en-iran/

I have seen that short a few years before OStOD and can't remember. In fact its what I was thinking of - lots of ppl got money off the Shah during that period, so...troublesome.

As a piece of cinema - divorcing the politics for now - it works.

well, when Orson Welles and tons of Hollywood productions shot in Spain in the '50s and '60s, they said you could get all the resources you wanted as long as Franco's minions got their money.

into the CC closet

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5000-agnes-varda-s-closet-picks

I still haven't seen An Angel at My Table but I'm inclined to wag my finger at her for championing Sweetie.

Criterion needs to do a sweepstakes surrounding this closet.

They'd have to cap the number of movies you could take. I'd have far less shame than the people they typically feature.

You'd have a tough time outdoing these clowns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSdxbBsShak

ugh i was just thinking about that, it looked like they took like 50 movies

I mean, I'd grab exactly 53 myself ... and then a few more DVD-to-BR upgrades to boot.)

Amoeba has a similar video series and I feel conflicted about watching them since I know that they're just trying to ease me into an acquisitive mindset.

Certainly putting the word "collection" in their brand didn't already serve the same purpose.

was afraid she'd died (sorry Agnes, you're probably immortal, I know)

anyway <3 that closet picks! :)

well holy shit I had no idea ELECTION was being added to the Collection! sweet list, Eric! gonna preorder that one ASAP, one of my favorite movies

A.V. was on hand to introduce One Sings, the Other Doesn’t at NYFF yesterday. I liked the first hour fine, but the next 45 mins were a little heavy on mid-'70s feminist acoustic-guitar ballads extolling Engels and pregnancy.

It was a new DCP, apparently forthcoming on Criterion?

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius)

Saw this screening also and had a similar reaction. Too many songs! And acting was inconsistent. Didn't realize the mother of "Pomme" was played by the mother of the actress.

Faces Places had its poignant moments but she's shot and made to act like an old little dear.

multi-critic debate I witnessed had one fiercely insisting this film is not "twee"

It's too brief and amiable to give offense, but the reviews I've read that praise her attention to the working class don't mention how touristic the approach

Twee's a moving target. A fresh from film school trust fund floppy haired boy? Twee. A French octogenarian who has frequently shared air with Chris Marker? She gets a pass.

how about a classic director having her Godard-aping co-star take photos of he bare feet while she gigges?

Split decision. I know nothing about this JR character, so he may torpedo the whole thing.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f8/ed/08/f8ed08666b34fd4c999c78c47afd1486--iced-tea-nuest-jr.jpg

well, she is an old little dear.

A fair amount of this was staged/written, no? like the Godard 'villainy' climax.

I was tired and almost nodded off a few times, but Agnes OTM in the cemetery.

I liked the tough union wives

hahaha

Varda on her honourary Oscar https://t.co/4fScxq2BdE: pic.twitter.com/zdJowFkyTc

— Women Film Directors (@women_direct) October 9, 2017

Agnès Varda! https://t.co/QUCMeXBVTL pic.twitter.com/2BF4JagBiw

— Jackson McHenry (@McHenryJD) January 23, 2018

Faces Places worked better on me the second time; it's about AV's mortality to a large degree, the Cartier-Bresson graveside scene being crucial

gotta be honest, this bump scared me

I haven't watched this yet because I get annoying Mr. Brainwash vibes from the co-director.

gotta be honest, this bump scared me

― flappy bird, 15. maj 2018 18:59 (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm :(

You don't have to love JR to like the film. I'd probably sleep with him, tho.

Jesus, I thought you dummies had killed her by bumping this, don't do that!

she's still working! what are we supposed to do?

turns 90 in a week or two

assorted retros going on, esp at MOMI in NY

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5707-agn-s-varda-on-the-cusp-of-ninety

This (Faces Places) was terrific, very moving.

I saw Kung-Fu Master! yesterday, where Jane Birkin falls for a 14-year-old boy (played by Mathieu Demy). Good, strange little film, oddly not protested by any snowflakes I could see.

Filmstruck had a large program of Varda films for six months and that was one of the few I missed. :(

First of all, VARDA STILL ALIVE.

Just got out of a DCP screening of One Sings... Really beautiful and still timely, albeit perhaps a tad too long?

Ohhh gotcha

Shirley Clarke otoh is magnetic, but she doesn't have enough scenes.

yeah iirc we're stuck with those fucking hippies for most of it

Uniquely irritating in a way that ruins the movie for me, just like Stranger Than Paradise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dySwfrzAEeI&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dySwfrzAEeI

This August, we're celebrating the boundless creative vision of Agnès Varda with a comprehensive collection of her genre-blurring, culture-shaping films, bringing together all thirty-nine of her features, shorts, and documentaries for the first time! 🧡💜💗https://t.co/qYMbWfwmus pic.twitter.com/7nMiXmPdqs

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) May 11, 2020

omg

And indeed, I now have that set, just arrived today. I look forward to exploring it in full steadily over time.

I'm seeing some reviews that some (but not all?) of the older color films have been piss filtered.

did she ever do another movie as dark and angry and formally cutting as Le Bonheur? not Vagabond, that's presented in a much less oblique way.

No, I don't think so.

So, "Les Creatures". Michel Piccoli goes berserk and attacks some children and an old man with a dead cat; has a conversation with a rabbit about his wife's pregnancy (the rabbit answers him btw); plays a weird chess game, using holograms of the other characters in the film, with an evil scientist. Catherine Deneuve is in it but is mute for almost the entire film. Varda considered it a failure and I'm inclined to agree with her. Definitely worth watching though!

Agreed. Nice showcase for FrancoScope, like watching a movie through a goddamn fishbowl.

Piccoli later compared the character he played in Les Creatures to the character he played in Dillinger is Dead, only one of Marco Ferreri's multiple masterpieces.

Did she do any lesser feature than Lions Love? Ragni, Rado and Viva seem like the 3 most annoying bohos in '68 LA.

The two guys are terrible but Viva is great, though I wish there'd been less of her doing her patented Warhol wack job routine and more bits like the straight-to-camera monologue she does at the end.

Never made it through that one

I barely made it through the first 10 minutes tbh.

Viva is good, I like her more in Cisco Pike though (where she has some direct addresses as well, iirc)

And they're all so old! Viva was 30 and the two Hair guys were even older, Jim Rado was born in 1932! I couldn't see past the wig he had on too.

I must have said this elsewhere but I'm slowly filling (the vast) holes in my film knowledge and am largely being led by what I read on here. I've watched a couple of Vardas in the last week (Gleaners and Cléo From 5 To 7) and it has been like discovering a new author in some ways. This may just be coming to understand film grammar, but there's something very literary about her use of symbolism and the authorial frame.

Varda makes things seem so simple, almost as if there were barely an editing process at all; both films in their way, particularly Gleaners, feel like dérives. I know the answer is 'wherever the rapid passage through varied ambiences takes you,' but where does one go next?

I searched for this image because *eyes on stalks*. Didn't even notice the angel wings at the time.

https://www.classicartfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Cleo-2.bmp

This image:

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/578e9611b3db2b81e152317e/1524608062137-B68ZLJLHM3V9791TGAH8/Film+-+Varda++cleo-de-5-a-7+D*.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg

I watched Le Bonheur last year, and I thought it was devastating... so pretty to look at, but such a dark outcome

Also: Vagabond holds up really well, such a good film

https://www.filmlinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Le-bonheur-1600x900-c-default.jpeg