Althouse: "I just didn’t see films when I was young. I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn’t have made films if I had seen lots of others..."

March 29, 2019

"I just didn’t see films when I was young. I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn’t have made films if I had seen lots of others..."

"... maybe it would have stopped me. I started totally free and crazy and innocent. Now I’ve seen many films, and many beautiful films. And I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don’t do commercials, I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing."

Said Agnès Varda, quoted in "Agnès Varda, Influential French New Wave Filmmaker, Dies at 90" (NYT).

May I recommend "Cleo from 5 to 7"?

12 comments:

rcocean said...: Lots of Good New Wave Film-makers. I'd recommend François Truffaut "The 400 Blows" and "Shoot the Piano Player". Also, Godard's "Breathless" and (not "new wave") - Rohmer's "My Night an Maude's" and "Claire's Knee"

The French had a lot of good filmmakers in the 50s, 60s, 70s.; 3/29/19, 5:24 PM
Kevin said...: I think a lot of educated people are pushed out of the arts because the more they learn the less they believe they’re worthy of producing something worthwhile.

They become critics instead. Angry, bitter, snarky critics, who compete on who can produce the most well-written and insightful criticisms.; 3/29/19, 5:24 PM
Charlie Currie said...: It looks like a fascinating film, but with my eyesight fading, I just can't read subtitles fast enough to stay interested.; 3/29/19, 5:33 PM
Jaq said...: I enjoy French films because I don't know how they end minutes after they start every single time.; 3/29/19, 5:38 PM
themightypuck said...: I'm gonna go with the hot take that Cleo was her only good movie. That said I'm a bit heterodox and didn't like a lot of pedigree shoveled to me in film school.; 3/29/19, 5:52 PM
rhhardin said...: set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman's life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama

Dilbert covers men's and women's movies
https://dilbert.com/strip/2010-12-10; 3/29/19, 7:14 PM
rhhardin said...: En Équilibre (2015) is a good French film (In Harmony). Two people help each other out.; 3/29/19, 7:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Cleo was wonderful, a real astonishment. But I'm going to agree with themightypuck in his overall assessment of Varda.; 3/29/19, 8:15 PM
stephen cooper said...: She seems nice.

I bet a 2 hour long movie about her having a good time when she was 25 or so could be a really good movie.

Sort of like the Tolkien movie that is coming out soon, but without the Battle of the Somme and without the trenches and without the male camaraderie.

Still, living to 90 and all ---- those last one or two decades must have been interesting, deprived of youthful pleasures as they probably were. Did she resist the indignities of old age, did she have lots of friends who were faithful to the end, did she spend long nights reading the Bible, rereading her favorite passages while she dreamed of those she loved when young?

I don't know, I just ask the question.; 3/29/19, 8:38 PM
grimson said...: "Vagabond" made a bigger impression on me than Cleo.

Unfortunately, unless the Criterion Channel has it when it starts up, it's going to be hard for people to find.; 3/29/19, 9:35 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Et tu New York Times? (The pretentious fake umlaut in the perfectly ordinary word naive?); 3/30/19, 12:54 AM
Saint Croix said...: Cleo From 5 to 7 is a fantastic movie. #52 on my all-time list. I've started to put my favorite films up over at Pinterest.

Varda's got another film I rate highly, Happiness (1965), which is strange and cool. Cleo is just pure cool, one of the best films from the French New Wave.

Varda was married to another interesting filmmaker, Jacques Demy, who made Umbrellas of Cherbourg (#233).

Nice article about Varda in The Guardian. She seems like one of those artists it would have been fun to know.

Rest in peace and God bless.; 3/31/19, 7:49 AM