In the distant past of April 2020, Chris and I dove deep into an episode of our podcast Cinema Dual on the films of French filmmaker Agnès Varda. Though technically not my first experience with Varda, that week of watching Varda’s movies was eye-opening, to such an extent that when Criterion announced they were going to release a Blu Ray box set of her complete filmography, I jumped at the chance to catch up on everything I had missed. Each post will cover 1 of the 15 discs in the set.

While this series has focused on the films of Agnès Varda, it’s reductive to describe her only as a filmmaker. Her career in photography predates her filmmaking career, and helps to inform her earliest film work, from the shots of the couple in La Pointe Courte to the contrasting images of a pregnant woman next to a pumpkin being hacked open in L’opéra-Mouffe. Likewise, her film work also informs her other artistic endeavors. In 2006, Varda reused film stock from Les Creatures, one of her less commercially successful films, to create the installation Ma Cabane de l’Échec (My Shack of Failure).  A cursory glance at Varda’s work will show a specific eye towards visual details, which while not always pre-planned, always end up becoming incorporated into the final product.

As a creator of art, Varda has her instincts. As an interpreter of art, those instincts change over time.

Continue reading “Varda by Jon – Part 13: Visual Artist”