It is impossible to classify Varda as a one-dimensional filmmaker. In 50 years of making films, she has alternated between short and feature films; fiction and documentary; for a total of 33 works. Her 1961 Cleo de 5 to 7 (Cleo from 5 to 7) and Vagabond are arguably two of her best-known fiction efforts.
Starting out as a still photographer, she primarily shot thespians and theatrical events. Some fascinating photos are worked into Beaches, such as her stills of Jean Vilar, an extraordinary theater actor and director who had organized the famed Festival d’Avignon, one of the world’s most highly regarded performing arts festivals.
Discovering that film was her true métier, Varda became an early member of the French New Wave and worked with such notables as Jean-Luc Godard (who became her good friend, playing a small role in one of her films), Jane Birkin, Michel Piccoli, the beautiful Catherine Deneuve, and Philippe Noiret. There is a funny clip of a young Harrison Ford, who blandly informs the camera that experts had told him that he had no future as an actor and should give it up.
Varda’s interests took her far and wide. There was a period spent in Los Angeles, which which she viewed as a city of contrasts and contradictions, yet “such an intense pleasure to live there.” While there, her husband made a film for a studio, while she shot documentaries. One subject was The Black Panthers. And of course the wonderful southern California beaches of Venice and Santa Monica.
She shows us, lovingly, the house in Paris, which provided a workplace, lifespace, and homebase for the entire family. She and Jacques had two children together, now grown, and of whom she is very proud. For the film, the house’s important courtyard was rebuilt on a set, to look as it did back in 1951.
The warm, intimate relationship Varda shared with Jacques Demy permeates the latter part of the film, imparting a bittersweet, poignant quality.
But Agnes Varda is without doubt the strong-willed but gentle protagonist of her own story. She figures in almost every scene, wearing her own wardrobe of usually colorful jackets and pants, except for a sequence where she is dressed as a potato, to publicize a particular event. Wherever she is, her eager, inquisitive face searches out other people’s thoughts and whatever information the specific surroundings have to offer.
It is obvious that Varda is passionate about cinema. She has said, “While I live, I remember.” And she remembers with the camera.
The Beaches of Agnes will screen at Film Forum for two weeks, from July 1 to 14, with five screenings daily. For show times, visit www.filforum.org.
Diana Barth writes about film and theatre for The Epoch Times and other publications.
