Agnès Varda

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nosy lena
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Re: Agnes Varda

#76 Post by nosy lena » Mon May 02, 2016 11:53 am

I somehow had missed this but Le Bonheur and Cléo de 5 à 7 on blu-ray this month in Japan,

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jbeall
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Re: Agnes Varda

#77 Post by jbeall » Fri Mar 23, 2018 7:58 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: Agnes Varda

#78 Post by domino harvey » Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:29 pm

It's not even remotely "lost"

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Agnes Varda

#79 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:31 pm

domino harvey wrote:It's not even remotely "lost"
But -- apparently -- not currently "see-able"...

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swo17
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Re: Agnes Varda

#80 Post by swo17 » Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:43 pm

Outside of the region-free English-friendly Arte set...

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Agnes Varda

#81 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:59 pm

swo17 wrote:Outside of the region-free English-friendly Arte set...
Doesn't seem to be available anymore at either Amazon.fr or FNAC....

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swo17
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Re: Agnes Varda

#82 Post by swo17 » Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:14 am

Well you can't have everything...

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zedz
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Re: Agnes Varda

#83 Post by zedz » Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:04 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:
swo17 wrote:Outside of the region-free English-friendly Arte set...
Doesn't seem to be available anymore at either Amazon.fr or FNAC....
Then buy it direct from Cine-Tamaris. When it comes to Varda, you can have everything, all in one charming box.

kubelkind
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Re: Agnes Varda

#84 Post by kubelkind » Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:54 am

Brody is going a bit over-the-top again. Creatures isn't available outside the Tout(e) Varda box not because of some shadowy conspiracy but because Varda doesn't like it much and she would seem to control the rights to all her own films. I recall an interview with Varda where she says she didn't make the film "nasty enough". Its actually one of my top Agnes picks, but there you go.
Of course the real "lost" Varda is Nausicaa, but even that appears in the box in unsubtitled workprint form, and magnificent it is too.
Would recommend the box if you can afford it or can find a second hand one as I was lucky enough to, its actually pretty good value for money, every disc is stuffed with extras.

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dda1996a
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Re: Agnes Varda

#85 Post by dda1996a » Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:27 am

I know it's frowned upon but it's available on back channels, and you don't have to search too hard

kubelkind
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Re: Agnes Varda

#86 Post by kubelkind » Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:09 am

subtitles for Nausicaa have also been made and distributed in this fashion, for which I am very grateful.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Agnès Varda

#87 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:57 pm

I finally got to see a (semi-subbed) version of Creatures, which I found exceedingly weird (and not "Varda-like" overall). The first thing I thought of when watching this was McGoohan's The Prisoner -- but this was apparently filmed the year before the Prisoner was made....

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ianthemovie
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Re: Agnès Varda

#88 Post by ianthemovie » Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:08 pm

I had no idea Les Creatures was so hard to see. It showed on Mubi last year. It definitely felt like an atypical Varda film, but then again her filmography is so eclectic that it's hard to say what would be typical. It almost resembles a piece of atonal music--chilly, ironic, off-putting. It deals with the theme of people being driven to irrational behavior, with the two main characters acting as godlike or puppet-master figures, controlling the actions of those around them via a chessboard-like apparatus.

Le Bonheur might be a useful point of comparison, in that both films (made back to back) examine somewhat brutally the notion of people as pieces in a game/system. In spite of her whimsical elfin persona Varda can be quite merciless when she wants to be...

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mfunk9786
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Re: Agnès Varda

#89 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:53 pm

Would like to bring another of LQ's fantastic (not just saying that because I'm married to her - you should see the course evaluations!) four week seminars to the attention of anyone in the main line/Philadelphia area. February 24th thru March 16th, at Bryn Mawr Film Institute she'll be teaching The Immortal Cinema of Agnès Varda, which is a course that's going to cut very close for dear LQ, so she's going to be pulling out all the stops compiling the most dense and informative 30 minute lectures possible on:

- Le Bonheur (1965) / “Elsa la Rose” (1966)
- One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977) / “The Pleasure of Love in Iran” (1976)
- Vagabond (1985) / “So-Called Caryatids” (1986)
- The Gleaners & I (2000) / “L’opéra-mouffe” (1958)

The four week course & discussion, along with all of the individual film screenings within are open to the public, so if you're interested... don't be shy about enrolling or picking up tickets. And I'm sure a PM to myself or LQ would yield plenty of additional information if you need it. Support an excellent non-profit theater and catch some restorations of Varda's finest films on the big screen.

*And no, LQ doesn't know I'm posting this, and will probably quietly reprimand me for doing so.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Agnès Varda

#90 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 02, 2020 9:09 pm

Sounds like it should be great...

bamwc2
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Re: Agnès Varda

#91 Post by bamwc2 » Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:39 pm

I just watched her L'opera mouffe on the Criterion Channel. The description of it on the site seemed to imply that Varda herself played the naked pregnant woman at the beginning of the film? Did I misread it? Was that really her?

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knives
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Re: Agnès Varda

#92 Post by knives » Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:45 pm

Yes, it is her.

bamwc2
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Re: Agnès Varda

#93 Post by bamwc2 » Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:05 pm

knives wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:45 pm
Yes, it is her.
Thanks. That was brave of her to do. When my wife was pregnant, she didn't want anyone looking at her with clothes on. I can only imagine the insecurity one might feel at directing their own nude scene in the third trimester.

fiendishthingy
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Re: Agnès Varda

#94 Post by fiendishthingy » Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:02 pm

I'm not sure if this is something that's available elsewhere online, but the Cinémathèque française posted a 138-minute(!) interview with Varda from 2017, when she received an honorary Oscar. English subtitles are available.

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lacritfan
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Re: Agnès Varda

#95 Post by lacritfan » Wed Dec 13, 2023 3:19 pm

Today's Google Doodle

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hearthesilence
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Re: Agnès Varda

#96 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jan 04, 2024 2:45 am

FYI, MoMA is screening a NEW restoration of Agnès Varda's Les Créatures (The Creatures). As Chris pointed out in his review, this film looks pretty abysmal on Criterion's 2020 Varda box set:
chris wrote:Les créatures ends up being a bit of a mess, despite it being one of the newest restorations (completed just this year!) Unfortunately, this seems to come down to the source print used...it appears that since the film fell so far into obscurity, decent source materials no longer exist for it and a theatrical print had to be used for the restoration. And oh boy, does it show. The image has a very dupey look to it, and any optical effect shots in it make it look significantly worse. It’s fuzzy, rarely sharp, blown out, and just generally muddled. Contrast is severely out of whack, with blacks that eat up everything and whites that can be so blown out they bleed everywhere. To be fair, the film is heavily stylized, with colour tinted scenes thrown in, so it’s possible the film is supposed to look this way, but all of the issues look to be more from a rough print.
These are the restoration notes on MoMA's website:

"4K digital restoration by Ciné-Tamaris and the CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, with the support of the CNC, SHE ECHOES, and CHANEL; courtesy Janus Films."

There are two screenings but only the first will be introduced by Rosalie Varda - if this is indeed an improvement, I imagine she'll explain why. (Better source material perhaps?)

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hearthesilence
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Re: Agnès Varda

#97 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Jan 12, 2024 11:43 pm

I originally thought I'd be out-of-town but thankfully my holiday schedule gave me a window and I made it to tonight's screening. It sounds like this was the North American premiere of the new restoration of Les Créatures (The Creatures) (Rosalie mentioned it already played at Cannes and Venice.)

First off, Josh Siegel gave an excellent introduction to Rosalie, pointing out that she's done an amazing job looking over her mother's legacy. It's been mentioned elsewhere, but I still remember how underrated and overlooked Agnès Varda's work had been before her steady rise in stature over the past decade and a half. It really is a credit to her supporters that she was able to experience the reception that she deserved in her later years.
kubelkind wrote:Creatures isn't available outside the Tout(e) Varda box not because of some shadowy conspiracy but because Varda doesn't like it much and she would seem to control the rights to all her own films. I recall an interview with Varda where she says she didn't make the film "nasty enough". Its actually one of my top Agnes picks, but there you go.
That is partially correct - according to Rosalie, her mother did indeed say she "didn't go far enough" with the film and should have made it bolder and "nastier" (and adding it's too late to change things, probably implying that she was never a believer in revising one's past work). However...
Matt wrote:an extreme rarity that Varda herself dislikes and has effectively suppressed for decades
...I didn't get the impression she wanted to keep it out of circulation, and this is where the new restoration comes in. Apparently the previous restoration (often dated "2020" but done while Varda was still alive) was never done to their satisfaction. It sounded like it was rushed out at the time, which they weren't very happy about but given the complete retrospective that was put together (for repertory theaters and for physical media) I'm guessing they decided it was more important to make sure her work was presented in complete fashion. As Chris mentioned in his review of the Criterion set, they didn't have the best elements to work with, and just as damaging was the lack of a reliable reference. When the previous restoration was done, Varda agreed to supervise the grading, but even she completely understood the problem with asking filmmakers to re-do the grading of a film they completed 50 years ago - by her own admission, she basically had to remember things she had long forgotten. So even after it was released, they continued their work, and as it's stated in the opening restoration credit, they did indeed find the original camera negative (and presumably the original sound elements), and you can see why Rosalie was enthusiastic to screen this new restoration because it is an immense improvement over what was available. There's no question it's deserving of a new standalone reissue, and if does have a theatrical run later this year (and I'm almost certain it will), definitely go see it. It actually plays one more time at MoMA before this month is over.
furbicide wrote:I watched Les créatures a couple of nights ago and also liked it, for the most part; I thought of it as basically a metaphor for the act of narrative creation, and the cruelty inherent in stealing people from everyday life and toying with them.
I thought this was a pretty spot-on reading. Rosalie also read an appreciation Olivier Assayas wrote specifically for this restoration, and I have to agree - it's an important work within Varda's filmography. It may not be her best film, and some here have argued that other filmmakers would've been more suited for this material, but the film's wholly her own invention, and even as it explores new territory, I think you can definitely see her in this film in terms of what she wants to say and how she views people.

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