A clip for anyone not yet familiar with the full masterpiece, which in referencing yesterday I realized not everyone has seen. See also this past post on modern day gleaning in France.

In case you haven’t heard, Mai Iskander’s film Garbage Dreams (about the Zabaleen people of Egypt and the challenges facing their trash picking community in this modern age) made the Oscar shortlist for documentaries. It is one of 15 films being considered for the honor. Among the 14 other films selected is The Beaches of Agnes by the legendary Agnès Varda who immortalized gleaners in her groundbreaking 2000 film Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse. That’s not one but two kick ass, trashy, female documentarians recognized in a single year. Not bad. Of course, since Varda’s current doc is about herself and not trash, per se, our allegiance lies with Iskander and the Zabaleen. Toes and fingers crossed…

Director: Agnès Varda

In “The Beaches of Agnès”, the 81-year-old grandmother of the French New Wave does something unthinkable: she creates a self portrait so thoroughly immersive that, for the two hours the film lasts, we may confuse her story with our own. The documentary a hymn to life, a beautiful foraging of eight decades of memories. Agnès Varda, with her iconic bowl cut still in tact, playfully whisks us through a lifetime of friends, lovers, places, and desires. It’s such a beautifully sentimental, rich film that her own self-reflections brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes.

Varda, for those unaware, is the filmmaker who arguably launched (and pre-dated) the French New Wave with “La pointe-courte” in 1955. She would go on to direct such iconic films as “Cleo from 5 to 7″ and “Vagabond”, and to this day she’s still churning out new efforts on an almost yearly basis. Her marriage with fellow filmmaker Jacques Demy  (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) was highly documented, although Demy would tragically die of AIDS in 1990. In 1995, Varda directed an ode to her lover entitled “The Universe of Jacques Demy”.

Introducing herself as a “little old lady, pleasantly plump”, Varda spends the film recreating memories, documenting her inspirations, and eloquently narrating a tremendously intimate autobiography. As the film begins, she places mirrors on the beach and films the reflections, and the reflections of the reflections. As she reflects on her own life, she quite literally walks backwards to demonstrate her life rewinding.

The film is full of whimsical flourishes, such as when Varda appears in the colorful belly of an enormous beached whale made of cloth. Later on, one of her dearest friends and a fellow filmmaker, Chris Marker, is represented by a cartoon cat because he’s camera-shy.

“The Beaches of Agnès” is tremendously anecdotal, meandering from scene to scene with seemingly no cohesive narrative structure. But such are memories. The film is truly subversive, an effort so endlessly involving that you imagine to inhabit each frame. For Varda’s uplifting and playful sensibilities, her insightful philosophies, and for the sheer visual splendors to be found throughout, “The Beaches of Agnès” is clearly one of the year’s best.

Cleo From 5 To 7 (1962)

Dir. Agnes Varda

From the incomparable Agnes Varda’s arguably greatest achievement, Cleo From 5 To 7, a French New Wave groundbreaker that somehow seems to feel just as fresh today as it ever was.  This scene is Varda’s mini-love letter to silent cinema, with friends Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina hamming it up for her camera.  Enjoy.

A propos de : Agnès VARDA, « Les plages d’Agnès », France 2008, durée 1h50 (dvd : Cinéart)

« Cette fois-ci pour parler de moi, j’ai pensé : si on m’ouvrait les jambes, on trouverait des paysages. Moi si on m’ouvrait on trouverait des plages. »

« Un peu de je, un peu de moi, et je déballe tout en vrac – et après je range un peu. »

Agnès Varda

C’est un film qui donne envie d’avoir vécu – non pas sans doute d’être déjà vieux, d’avoir avant l’heure autant d’années qu’Agnès Varda – mais un film qui, de cette maturité produit un tableau si généreux, si fécond, et à ce  point sans âge qu’il additionne tous ceux du passé pour ouvrir, loin de toute idée de dégradation, l’incommensurable espace mémoriel de l’imaginaire. Les plages sont là, de façon multiple et inventive, concrètes et métaphoriques, comme de larges étendues où se rejoignent des éléments de nature diverse, l’eau, le sable, la lumière et le vent, mais aussi béances dans lesquelles s’écoulent les pertes, les non-dits, les regrets, ou encore, mieux que des plages, des pages sur lesquelles la vie peut indéfiniment se rejouer, à tous les niveaux, se remettre à l’heure et se parodier, se contempler ou se ressentir. Sur cette plage plurielle, toujours recommencée, Agnès Varda  installe des miroirs :  ainsi se définit le cadre multidirectionnel de la rétrospective. Une installation ? Pas vraiment, on ne va pas rester en place, loin de là, Agnès Varda,  il faut la suivre,  son énergie est communicative ! On partira donc de Bruxelles, la ville natale, ensuite on descendra jusqu’à Sète sur un bateau plaine-de-jeux, après la guerre direction Paris, puis il y aura encore pèle-mêle de nombreux océans, des campagnes, l’Asie, les Amériques… La géographie n’est ni globale ni simplifiée : chaque ville, chaque lieu, chaque image se divisent encore en d’autres images qui elles-mêmes se divisent, s’associent, renvoient les unes aux autres – comment voulez-vous résumer cela ? Ça tombe bien : on l’aura compris, le résumé, Agnès Varda déteste. Réduire ? Ranger ? Oui, « un peu », à condition d’en faire quelque chose, de recréer, puisqu’il s’agit non pas de se souvenir mais de revivre – en mieux. Je crois qu’on peut revoir ces plages autant de fois qu’il faut pour en dénombrer les détails : à l’infini. Et je me garde de raconter l’une ou l’autre anecdote particulière, car il existe une structure propre à la mémoire affective qui fonctionne dans la fluidité, qui maintient ensemble des éléments étrangers entre eux ; cette cohérence est souple, lumineuse mais fragile : il faut la respecter. Par contre, la femme qui transparaît au travers de ce formidable périple scopique se révèle, finalement, très peu. C’est étrange parce que, face aux miroirs, avec tout ce que cela suppose de narcissisme et de coquetterie assumés (je me cache / je me montre, je fais des yeux de velours à la caméra, je mets beaucoup de jolies robes et des bijoux assortis, je me regarde et me dédouble dans ma jeunesse intacte), avec tout cela ses plages sont une arche, et sur cette arche le monde entier est invité, embrassé, aimé, car il ne s’agit pas de créer de la place en vrac pour fourrer tout le monde à l’intérieur, mais d’offrir à chacun un décors adapté à sa personne , une espace unique, une intimité. Ils sont nombreux, pourtant, les collaborateurs (dont une ex-collègue, Marjolaine Grandjean), la famille, les amis, les stars, les gens du quartier, les gens rencontrés par hasard, sans oublier les chats de la maison… En voyant cela, on s’extasie : c’est incroyable tout ce qu’on peut mettre dans une heure cinquante de cinéma ! Parce que je suis loin d’avoir fini mon énumération – et que pourrais-je écrire de mieux, pour rendre hommage à ce film, qu’une énumération de l’indénombrable ? L’événement politique n’en est pas absent, au même titre que l’événement privé, respectivement envisagés au travers de photos et de films, de peintures, de reconstitutions parfois comiques. Il convient de préciser que, avec sa voix égale, ronde et terrestre, avec son regard toujours mélancolique, Agnès Varda parle beaucoup mais elle se tait davantage – sur l’essentiel. Avec un tel parti-pris de pudeur et de retenue, il ne faut pas s’attendre à une mise en scène dramatique ou sensationnelle. A petits pas, à reculons, Agnès Varda circule sur ses plages, au centre et à la périphérie, comme le cœur et ses vaisseaux, paisiblement, figure pleine, entière, d’une femme qui ne se réduit pas à une seule personne, ni à un seul récit, mais qui, tant qu’elle sera en vie, continuera à se déployer, à étendre les cercles de la création, dans toutes les directions.

Les 80 balais d’Agnès Varda!

La maison de cinéma (en pellicule de film déroulée)

Les chats d’Agnès Varda (ses 2 dernières photos sont dédiées à mon ami Globe Glauber)

Tout ce qui concerne Agnès Varda, à la médiathèque.

… et l’univers de Jacques Demy.

Ao longo de 2010 o THE PORTFOLIO PROJECT e a Casa da Esquina apresentarão, durante 45 semanas, o ciclo de Cinema e Fotografia “5ª de imagens” que abordará as diferentes formas de interacção entre imagem fotográfica e cinematográfica no grande ecrã.
No primeiro trimestre do ano o ciclo revela quatro fotógrafos que também são cineastas – William Klein, Raymond Depardon, Agnès Varda e David LaChapelle – que constituirão o ponto de partida para a reflexão sobre a cumplicidade entre as duas práticas artísticas.
Nos meses seguintes a programação apresentará documentários sobre consagrados fotógrafos internacionais entre os quais Henri-Cartier Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Annie Leibovitz, Leni Riefenstahl, Nobuyoshi Araki e James Nachtwey bem como filmes de ficção em que o papel da fotografia ou do fotógrafo tenha um relevo especial.

O acesso à referida programação será totalmente gratuito para os membros do THE PORTFOLIO PROJECT e todas as projecções serão seguidas de uma conversa informal entre os espectadores.

As sessões terão lugar todas as 5ªs feiras, exceptuando durante o mês de Agosto, às 22 horas na Casa da Esquina, em Coimbra.

Janeiro 2010 | Ciclo William Klein (em versão original, não legendados)

Sobre William Klein |

Filmes | Sessões às 22h

dia 7 Janeiro | “Le Messie”

dia 14 Janeiro | “Muhammad Ali the Greatest”

dia 21Janeiro | “Grands soirs et petits Matins”

dia 28 Janeiro |  “The French”

Fevereiro 2010 | Ciclo Raymond Depardon (em versão original, não legendados)

Sobre Raymond Depardon |

Filmes | Sessões às 22h

dia 4 Fevereiro |  “La vie moderne”

dia 11 Fevereiro |  “San Clemente”

dia 18 Fevereiro | “Urgences”

dia 25 Fevereiro |  “Reporters”

Março 2010 | Sessões às 22h

Sobre David LaChapelle |

Filme | (em versão original, não legendado)

dia 4 - “Rize”

Sobre Agnès Varda |

Filmes | Ciclo Agnès Varda | Sessões às 22h

dia 11 Março | “Os respigadores e a respigadora”

dia 18 Março | “Varda Tous Courts” (Ydessa, les ours, et etc… | Ulysse | Salut les Cubains) | (filmes em versão original, não legendados)

dia 25 Março | “Daguerréotypes”  (versão original, não legendada)

CONTACTOS | Casa da Esquina

Morada: Rua Aires de Campos nº6, 3000-014 Coimbra (ao lado do Convento das Carmelitas)

Telefone: 239041397/ Telem:962732563

Mail: geral@casadaesquina.pt

autocarros: 103, 04, 06

7 p., cuis., s. de b. … a saisir

Agnès Varda directed this short in 1984. Sept pieces, cuisine, salle de bains …a saisir (Seven Rooms, Kitchen, Bathroom …a Bargain) is a film about a house. It’s an essay, in the erratic sense of the word, about time and space. The camera moves in the rooms like a visitor. Walls speak. Objects tell stories. And old woman is shown in all the dignity and beauty of her naked body (it rarely happens).

There should be more movies about houses.

Buy (here) or download (here) this incredible little film.

Agnès Varda’s films live here.

Les retrouvailles par hasard avec le travail d’AGNÈS VARDA m’ont fait revoir mon rêve et ma passion pour l’avenir.
 
A Paris en 2006, il y a eu une exposition de la réalisatrice AGNÈS VARDA sur le thème de L’ILE ET ELLE à la FONDATION CARTIER. Je me suis souvenue que cet été-là il faisait très chaud et de m’être sentie isolée. J’ai commencé la première année à l’école d’art dans l’espoir de déployer mon rêve à l’étranger. Je me suis mise à naviguer sur une mer nommée ART sans avoir peur. C’était un moment chaud, avec la force de l’idée profonde et la création, je me suis sentie traverser les hautes vagues. Mon premier pas n’étais pas facile. En naviguant sans en connaître la fin, j’étais remplie de peur et de la perte de confiance en moi. AGNÈS VARDA, son exposition m’a donné une nouvelle énergie et de l’esprit.

Il y avait des objets, des séries du photos et des vidéos… L’installation des objets quotidiens avec une couleur crue, une vidéo de la tombe d’un chien décorée avec des coquillages et des fleurs et une musique amusante en fond sonore. J’ai été intéressé par son humour sur la vie quotidienne. J’avais une nouvelle passion pour mon travail grâce à sa vision profonde mais son expression légère et son sentiment du comique.

J’ai trouvé par hasard ses oeuvres de L’ILE ET ELLE à la Sucrière. Quelle chance!! Pour les étudiant en art, il n’y a peut-être pas de plus grande joie que de voir une oeuvre de leur artiste préféré.
 
Malheureusement, à la Biennale de Lyon, il n’y avait que deux de ses oeuvres présentées. J’étais un peu déçue de trouver seulement deux installations. Et j’ai trouvé que l’ambiance dans l’espace était en désordre à cause du mélange avec des installations d’autres artistes. Quelle que soit la présentation de son travail, cette année, pas si calme qu’avant, revoir son oeuvre était comme une bouffée d’air pur pour moi qui voyage sur une mer d’ART depuis 5 ans.

Hee-Yeon KIM, étudiante coréenne, 5° année art

Já que nascemos é o terceiro documentário do casal Andréa Santana e Jean-Pierre Duret. Andréa estudou Arquitetura na Universidade do Ceará e Geografia na Universidade de São Paulo. Engenheiro de som em filmes de Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda e Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Duret assina seu primeiro documentário, Un beau jardin, par exemple, em 1986. A colaboração de Andréa com o marido começou com Romances de terre et d’eau, realizado em 2001.

Andréa e Duret podem agradecer aos céus por terem encontrado personagens tão impressionantes como Cocada e Nego. Os dois amigos moram no município de São Caetano, em Pernambuco, e passam o tempo de forma completamente diferente das outras crianças: trabalhando.

O expectador mais atento irá observar que o trabalho infantil é muito comum no Brasil e nos demais países do Terceiro Mundo – ou países em desenvolvimento para ser politicamente correto. A diferença aqui, e acreditem faz toda a diferença, é que Cocada e Nego precisam trabalhar. Eles não trabalham por dinheiro, não trabalham para ajudar a família, não trabalham obrigados pelos pais, eles simplesmente precisam trabalhar.

Cocada, quatorze anos, e Nego, treze, decidiram passar o dia trabalhando para fugir da sina que persegue os meninos pobres da região. Cocada sabe que a sedução das drogas e das armas é forte, o pai morreu em seus braços quando ele tinha dez anos. “Eu não penso em matar ninguém. Eu nunca vou entrar nisso, matar. E também não vou ser ladrão.”

Os dois vagueiam pelo posto de gasolina na beira da rodovia e fazem todo tipo de serviço: lavam carros, caminhões, ajudam o camelô aleijado a montar a mercadoria, encontram clientes para comprar os santinhos e até vendem no lugar do dono da barraca. E tudo isso sem salário, sem pagamento combinado, eles apenas fazem e quando aparece um real, é sempre bem-vindo.

Com o cair da noite, os caminhões são substituídos pelos ônibus de viagem e Nego pede alguns trocados aos passageiros. O amigo Cocada lhe dá uma bronca: “Não gosto de ver você pedindo esmola.” Eles iniciam mais uma conversa-confissão, algo comum entre os dois, e falam do futuro, do passado e do que irão ser quando crescerem. Cocada, por ser o mais velho, dá conselhos a Nego e lhe ensina a conseguir emprego, quando chegar a hora.

A desenvoltura dos meninos quase nos faz acreditar que estamos diante de uma obra de ficção, de um roteiro muito bem amarrado e de uma direção de atores impecável. Mas o que a lente da câmera registra é o retrato de dois jovens talentosos que estão condenados a viver o presente sem direito ao futuro.

Andréa e Jean-Pierre

Jean-Pierre Duret poderia ter caprichado mais no som do filme. Em alguns momentos é impossível compreender o que é dito, menos mal que a película tinha legendas em inglês. Mas esse defeito não deve incomodar os realizadores, afinal o destino de Já que nascemos é o mercado europeu.

O filme foi produzido, editado e finalizado por franceses em Paris. Será que eu estou sendo preconceituoso?

Os enquadramentos no tripé ou com a câmera estática são precisos, mas basta entrar em movimento para termos a sensação de que a direção queria tremer, queria dar uma idéia de precariedade, confusão. Algo absolutamente desnecessário nessa realidade. Nenhum grande fotógrafo seria capaz de eclipsar a presença daquele lugar ou a verdade que transborda dos dois amigos.

Andréa e Duret merecem crédito por terem encontrado os meninos e darem forma ao material, mas é inegável que a força de Já que nascemos vem do carisma e da inteligência de Cocada e da rebeldia ingênua de Nego. Um filme tipicamente brasileiro, mesmo que venha com selo de importação.

Já que nascemos (Puisque que nous sommes nés)

França/Brasil, 2008. 90 minutos.

Direção: Jean-Pierre Duret e Andréa Santana

Anna Karina, Godard’s muse – Another one of Godard’s iconic actresses, Karina was born Hanne Karen Blarke Bayer in Copenhagen and then emigrated to Paris at the age of 17. She began modeling, and then moved on to acting with many of cinema’s greatest talents – most notably in Jean-luc Godard’s films during the 60’s, but she’s also worked with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jacques Rivette, George Cukor, and Agnes Varda, among others. The video posted above is a great little piece on Karina, combining a few interviews with her and others, and even shot in a very nouvelle vague manner. If you’re suffering from those post-Halloween blues what better way to forget them than with Karina’s gorgeous mug?

BIG DANCE THEATRE’s production of ‘COMMES TOUJOURS Here I Stand’ intrigued me not for its dance or theatrical components but solely because they were using Agnes Varda’s 1961 film ‘Cleo from 5 to 7′ as a found object. I was really interested in how that would work.

Agnes Varda’s film ‘Cleo from 5 to 7′ follows through the streets of Paris a young chanteuse who fears she has cancer and is awaiting a biopsy result at 7pm. From the beginning of the film where she has her Tarot cards read, the only part shot in color, through to the end she encounters friends, colleagues and strangers and reflects on fate, mortality and herself.

Performed at New York’s THE KITCHEN, ‘COMMES TOUJOURS Here I Stand’ takes Varda’s film and uses a set of three swirling screens to catch and reflect video (some being recorded and projected live, other recorded before) while the actors bob and weave throughout their interpretation of the film. The set’s constant re-invention reflects the varying scenes from the film not in real time (as the film constructs itself) but abridged and adapted to fit in multiple costume changes, character switches, side stories and dance.

The choreography was demanding and exact; the actors flexible and fluid. The re-invention climaxed into a massive video screen of falls leaves with an almost empty stage, save for the heroine and the stranger walking towards her destiny.

Comme Toujours Here I Stand at The Kitchen from Big Dance Theater on Vimeo.

I look forward to future BIG DANCE THEATRE performances.

Posted by: Autumn.

So many fascinating write-ups about Tom Wolfe and This American Life (the made-for-TV version) last week, that I felt compelled to post a few extracts. What many of you noted was how a finished literary text — already compressed and, I think most of us agree, already perfect in its God-given form — can be compromised by images and sound.

One filmmaker in the class on how the image can destabilize a text:

I think any time images are added to a pre-existing text — a text that can stand alone — there is a risk of the image weakening the impact of the text. In the case of This American Life, I think it’s dangerous to see the subjects of some of these pieces. We have so many prejudices that can be exploited by the image… judgments about how people look, how and where they live, what the spaces they inhabit look like. The image clutters and overwhelms the message; the stories are given much more breathing room in pure audio form. The challenge, here, is to find images that are quiet enough, concise enough, to offer their own meaning without drowning out the text with accidental messages.

And another student, a nonfiction writer, on the superfluity of the image:

The [Tom Wolfe] passage is so dense and rich as it is — to pair images of a plane crash with it would kind of insult the intelligence of the viewer. I don’t know what Tom Wolfe would say about the video essay, but my instinct tells me that some writing might work too well as writing to justify video. We talked about how video and sound have a more direct impact than text — but when the text is as hard-hitting and intense as this passage, the other stuff becomes superfluous.

Another class member, a journalist, sees an opportunity in wedding images to text:

One of the main visual challenges of This American Life was that some of the ”acts” had already been aired on the radio. When I sat down to watch, I immediately recognized the story about Chance the bull. I wondered if the visuals would taint the original audio version, but they just made it better. I think this is because they captured moments that they may not even have anticipated — like the second time bull attack. The visuals enhanced the experience because I could see the denial in this man’s eyes. I felt so much more connected to the story…

And lastly, a German language student imagines Tom Wolfe so disgusted by the video essay genre that he (Wolfe) would, somewhat unaccountably, tear off his own clothing:

In my interaction with both of these works, I sharpened my feelings on what I see as a weakness of the video essay: the problem of superfluity. If I talked to Tom Wolfe about the video essay, I feel like he would spit all over me. “Pawn your video camera and spend the money on LSD!” he would shout. “I captured all that motion, that intensity, that fear and glory you apparently need an A/V crutch to pursue, and I did it with words!” Then he rips off his white suit in disgust and walks away.

All of these are great points. And if my interns weren’t on vacation, I’d have published them all en entière. Here’s my question, though: is this superfluity a weakness of the video essay form, necessarily, or merely a pitfall? And are we alert to this issue now mainly because we’re dealing with an adaptation, of sorts, in the form of TAL, which was (at times) retrofitted for the screen? Nobody brought this up after viewing Varda’s work. Would anybody rather simply read her screenplay and do away with the image of her heart-shaped potato? Her paper-like skin? The encroaching mold on her ceiling? How did she make the image and the language and the subject coexist seamlessly? If in fact she did.

LES PLAGES D’AGNES (ou Aventures d’un autoportrait)
Un documentaire d’Agnès Varda
Avec Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, Jim Morrison, Jean Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Harrison Ford, Gérard Depardieu, Philippe Noiret

Photo by Dana et Stephane Maitec