AGNES VARDA, mother of the nouvelle vague

Beaches of Agnes is really great, it is both nostalgic and forward thinking and is so beautiful, it's one of my favorite films of hers

I remembered a moment from beaches of agnes the other day, when she's on the boardwalk at the card sale, she finds a flyer for Documenteur and says "Oh! my favorite"

she had such a generosity of spirit

the reminiscences of her many lives in Beaches of Agnes reminds me of all of the Varda films I still haven't seen

saw JR’s The Chronicles of San Francisco and revisited some of Agnes Varda’s documentaries recently, then this week rewatched Faces Places and was even more taken with it than I was the first time. I like the quote above about her films forming a bond with the viewer that feels like friendship

Varda tries to unmask JR’s identity, or at least get him to take off his sunglasses, even pressing his grandmother

“prepared to sit right inside their own hearts”. I liked the whole exploration about how much of ourselves we are willing to give to another

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

Lions Love is fantastic.

― aaaaaaaauuuuuuuuu (melting robot) (WilliamC), Monday, January 23, 2017

'splain!

lol, I have no memory of the film now. Obviously it make a strong impression at the time though!

Don’t think I made it to the end of that one

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

It's SET then, over a mere week, but I'm sure they cheated some. There was a billboard for The Odd Couple visible in one car scene that read "2 Academy Award Nominations," which had to be shot in early '69.

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