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Agnès Varda |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Editor |
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1928 - |
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Born May 30,
Brussels, Belgium |
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Key
Production Country: France |
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Key Genres: Drama,
Documentary,
Essay Film |
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Key
Collaborators: Joanna Bruzdowicz
(Composer), Marie-Jo Audiard (Editor), Bodan Litnanski (Leading Player),
Frances Wertheimer (Leading Character Player), Michel Legrand (Composer/Leading Character Player), Stephane Krausz
(Cinematographer), Mathieu Demy (Leading Character Player), Jean Rabier
(Cinematographer), Janine Verneau
(Editor) |
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Highly Recommended:
Le Bonheur (1965), The Beaches of
Agnès (2008) |
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Recommended:
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961)*, Vagabond (1985)*, Jacquot de Nantes (1991), The Gleaners & I (2000)*^ |
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Worth a Look: La Pointe Courte (1954),
Du côté de la côte (1958), Ulysse (1982), Kung-fu
Master! (1987)**, The World of Jacques Demy (1995), The Gleaners & I: Two
Years Later (2002) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; ^
Listed in TSPDT's
21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films
section;
**
Listed in TSPDT's
Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB
] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Wikipedia ] [
Strictly
Film School ] [
Interview
Magazine
] [
Gerald
Peary Interview (1977) ] [
MUBI ] [
Close-Up Film
Interview (2007) ] [
Rouge Article (2006) ] [
At the
Movies Video Interview
] [
Sight & Sound
Article (2011)
] |
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Books:
[
Agnès
Varda (French Film Directors) ] |
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"Agnès Varda has been dubbed the
grandmother of the nouvelle vague. Her 1954 debut , La
pointe courte, was an iconoclastic synthesis of ragged
documentary and Bergmanesque fiction that ran counter to the
French tradition of quality cinema, controversially using
nonprofessional actors and real locations (as opposed to studio
sets)... She essayed a series of documentaries before Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961). Along with Le bonheur (1965), a
visually sensuous exploration of a love triangle, it
cemented Varda's reputation as one of the most important women
directors in the history of cinema." -
Lloyd Hughes (The Rough Guide to Film,
2007)
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"Agnès Varda is a
major force in the French New Wave who happily has remained true
to her vision as an independent and uncompromising artist, has
readily adapted to technological change in the cinema, and is
still active today as a digital filmmaker with a wide audience...
Varda is as up to date and modern as many of her younger
colleagues, and the grandmother of the New Wave continues to
inspire a new generation of filmmakers." -
Wheeler
Winston Dixon (501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the
Greatest Filmmakers, 2007) |
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"Agnès Varda
used the skills she honed early in her career as a photographer
to create some of the most nuanced, thought-provoking films of
the past fifty years. She is widely believed to have presaged
the French new wave with her first film, La Pointe Courte,
long before creating one of the movement’s benchmarks, Cléo
from 5 to 7. Later, with Le bonheur and
Vagabond, Varda further shook up art-house audiences,
challenging bourgeois codes with her inscrutable characters and
offering effortlessly beautiful compositions and editing. Now
working largely as a documentarian, Varda remains one of the
essential cinematic poets of our time and a true visionary." - The
Criterion Collection |
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"You know,
the boundaries between contemporary art and cinema are so rigid.
It's unbelievable. The film critics don't know my artwork and
the art world doesn't know my films." -
Agnès Varda |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Diary of a Pregnant Woman (1958), Fiances du pont mac Donald ou (1961), Salut les
cubains (1963), Elsa la rose (1965), Les Creatures (1966), Uncle Yanco
(1967), Black Panthers (1968), Lions Love (1969), Women Reply: Our
Bodies, Our Sex (1975), Daguerreotypes (1976), Plaisir d'amour en Iran
(1976), One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977), Documenteur (1981), Mur
Murs (1981), 7p., cuis., s. de b., ... a saisir (1984), The So-Called
Caryatids (1984), T'as de beaux escaliers tu sais (1986), Jane B. by
Afnes V. (1988), Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
(1993), One Hundred and One Nights (1995), The Vanishing Lion (2003),
Ydessa, the Bears and etc. (2004) and Quelques veuves de noirmoutier
(2006). |
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8- |
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"Agnès
Varda’s startlingly individualistic films have earned her
the title ‘‘grandmother of the New Wave’’ of French
filmmaking. Her statement that a filmmaker must exercise as
much freedom as a novelist became a mandate for New Wave
directors, especially
Chris Marker and
Alain
Resnais. Varda’s first film, La Pointe courte,
edited by
Resnais, is regarded, as Georges Sadoul affirms,
as "the first film of the French nouvelle vague. Its
interplay between conscience, emotions, and the real world
make it a direct antecedent of Hiroshima, mon amour"...
Varda’s reputation as a filmmaker dazzles and endures."
-
Louise Heck-Rabi (updated by Rob
Edelman), International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
| ●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Chantal Akerman |
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Catherine Breillat |
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Robert Bresson |
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Jacques
Demy |
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Marguerite Duras (external link) |
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Philippe Garrel |
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Jean-Luc Godard |
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Diane Kurys (external link) |
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Chris
Marker |
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Alain
Resnais |
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Jacques Rivette |
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Eric Rohmer |
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