Agnes Varda

Agnès Varda (Ixelles, Belgium, May 30, 1928 - Paris, March 29, 2019) was a French director, actress, screenwriter and film artist, the great female voice of the Nouvelle vague and one of the pioneers of cinema made by women and feminist cinema. Her films, documentaries and video-installations of her keep a realistic and social character. All of her work features a distinctive experimental style. Throughout his career he received numerous awards, among them in 1985 with the film Sans toit ni loi (Without a roof or law) he won the Golden Lion of the Film Festival of Venice, and her biography documented in The beaches of Agnès the César Prize in 2009 or the René Clair Prize of the French Academy. In 2017 she received the Honorary Oscar for her career.

Biography

Agnès Varda was born Arlette Varda in Ixelles, a town in the capital region of Brussels, Belgium. Her father was from a family of Greek refugees from Asia Minor and her mother was French.

She studied Art History at the École du Louvre before landing a job as official photographer at the National Popular Theater (Théâtre National Populaire, TNP) in Paris. She liked photography, but she was more interested in film. After spending a few days filming the small French fishing town of Sète, in the La Pointe Courte neighborhood, for a terminally ill friend who couldn't visit on his own, Ella Varda decided to make a film. Thus she appears in her first film in 1954, La Pointe Courte , which told the story of a sad couple and their relationship in a small town. The film was the stylistic forerunner of the French "Nouvelle vague".

Varda pioneered the opening of film directing to women. «I suggested to the women that they study cinema. I told them: "Get out of the kitchens, out of your houses, get the tools to make movies.

Later, she would be definitively classified in this genre, thus resembling authors such as Chris Marker, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. This group was strongly linked to the literary current of the "Nouveau roman", politically positioned on the left.

Personal life

Varda was married twice, first to the actor and theater and opera director Antoine Boursellier, with whom in 1958 she had a daughter, Rosalie Varda, costume designer and artistic director; and in 1962 she married the film director Jacques Demy, whom she accompanied until his death in 1990. In the film Jacquot de Nantes (1991) Varda traces an account of Demy's childhood and his love for theater and cinema. She paid homage to him also in Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993) and L'Univers de Jacques Demy (1995). They had a common son, the actor Mathieu Demy, born in 1972.

Work

Handprints and signature of Varda in Cannes.

His work has had a markedly realistic and social character.

Varda directed about forty pieces including short films, documentaries and fiction features. Her previous training in photography allowed her to capture the small details of the reality that surrounded her. «The combination of the documentary texture with a narrative development (so used in current realistic cinema) may be the most characteristic feature of his extensive work, as well as the irruption of the author's subjectivity (through voice-over, of physical presence, of metalanguage) in the objective universe that is portrayed", points out the critic Sergio Fernández Pinilla.

His first film was La pointe courte, where the influence of Rosellini can be seen. His early works reflect the impact of French New Wave cinema, highlighting Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961).

The second phase of his work dates from May 1968, infected according to critics with the optimistic spirit of the time. Happiness (1965), The Creatures (1966) and Lion's Love (1969), question the rigidity of bourgeois society. She highlights One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977), with a jovial style transforming feminist struggles into a colorful kitsch dance.

One of her most notable works was No Roof or Law (1985), starring Sandrine Bonnaire, giving life to a homeless woman who survives subjected to chance. In the film, actors and local people coexisted, being the germ of a whole current of contemporary realist cinema, headed by the brothers Dardenne and Ken Loach. Black Panthers (1968), Daguerréotypes (1975), Murs, murs (1980), Jane B. par Agnès V. (1987), Cinévardaphoto (2004), not to mention The Gleaners and the Gleaner... and its sequel Two years later (2002), are considered by critics to be small masterpieces of the genre and historical testimonies and the passage of time.

In 2017 he presented his film, Faces and Places, made together with the artist JR, and in which he revisits the intersection between documentary, game and social exploration of his cinema. The film managed to finance itself through crowdfunding and the support of her daughter, who sought financing at MoMA, which bought a copy for its archival fund before filming began, and Cartier Foundation.

In 2019 Varda by Agnès is presented, a documentary that reflects her experience as a director, offering a personal vision of what she calls «film writing», traveling from the Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.

Feature films

Agnès Varda in 2010.

House of Agnès Varda on Rue Daguerre in Paris.

Short films

• L’ Opera Mouffe (1958)
• The cocotte d ́azur (1958)
• Or saison, or chateaux (1958)
• Du coté (1958)
• Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires) (1958)
• Elsa the rose (1966)
• Oncle Yanco (1967)
• Black Panthers (1967)
• Salut les Cubains (1963)
• Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe (1971)
• Pleasure of love in Iran (1976)
• Ulysse (1983)
• Les dites cariátides (1983)
• 7p., okay. From b, to saisir (1984)
• Histoire d ́une vieille Dame (1985)
• T'as de beaux escaliers, tu sais (1985)
• Le lion volatile (2002)
• Hommage a Zgougou (et salut a Sabine Mamou) (2002)
• Ydessa, les ours et etc. (2003)
• Viennale Walzer (2004) – for the Viennale
• Les dites cariátides bis (2004)
• Cléo from 5 to 7: souvenirs and anecdotes (2005)
• Vive les courts metrajes: Agnés Varda present les siens en DVD (2006)
• Les 3 boutons (2011)

Awards and distinctions

San Sebastian International Film Festival

Cannes International Film Festival

Venice International Film Festival

• Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor
• Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit
• Honorary Doctor, University of Liège

• Louis Delluc Prize (1964)

• César to the best documentary film (1984)

• Golden Lion (1985)

• Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film (1986)

• European Film Award for Best Documentary (2000)

• Konrad Wolf Prize (2001)

• Honorary César (2001)

• National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film (2001)

• Prix René-Clair (2002)

• César Award for Best Documentary Film (2009)

• National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film (2009)

• 2009, Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur.

• 2010, Las Playas de Agnès Public Award Film Festival 4+1.

• Carrosse d'or (2010)

• 2011, Las Playas de Agnès Award of the Association of Film Festivals of Argentina. Silver Condor Award as Best Foreign Film.

• Leopardo de Honor (2014)

• Palme d'honneur (fr) (2015)

• Max Beckmann Award (2016)

• November 2017 Honorary Oscar.

Posts

• La Côte d'Azur, d'azur, d'azur, d'azur, collection lieu dit, Les Éditions du Temps, 1961.
• Varda par Agnès, Éditions des Cahiers du Cinéma, Paris, 1994, réédition 2005 (ISBN 2-86642-440-9).
• Sara Cortellazzo et Michele Marangi, Agnès VardaEdizioni di Torino, 1990.
• Bernard Bastide, Les Cent et une nuits, chronique d'un tournagePierre Bordas et fils, 1995.
• Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French CinemaColumbia University Press, 1996.
• Alison Smith, Agnès VardaManchester University Press, 1998.
• Imma Merino, Agnès Varda. Spectator of realities and dreamsDonostia Kultura and Filmoteca Vasca, 2019.