With a huge body of work that spans decades, she is nicknamed the grandmother of 1960s French New Wave cinema and made a variety of films, including left-wing films like Far From Vietnam (1967) and Black Panthers, feminist films such as Cleo From 5 to 7 (1961), as well as the award-winning drama Vagabond (1985) and the acclaimed documentary Gleaners and I (2000).
Yet even at 76, she is not slowing her pace at all. During her first visit to Taipei this week, fans were immediately impressed by her gregarious style, her curiosity and her willingness to speak about her films.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Varda allowed the Taipei Times to follow her for an afternoon and let her share some ideas about her life and her work.
Taipei Times: What are the ideas behind the film, Cinevardaphoto ? When Photos Trigger Films?
Agnes Varda: I started as a photojournalist. I have been interested in photos for 50 years. This short film trilogy brings together my thoughts on photography and photographs. I wanted to explore the ways those photos can be interpreted.
TT: Why did you structure Cinevardaphoto with three short films?
Varda: For Ydessa, the Bears and ETC (the first segment of the film), it started with my visit to a museum in Munich. Two rooms were filled with 4,000 pictures of teddy bears taken between the 1920s and 1930s. I was surprised and immediately had the desire to make a film about it and about the curator of the project.
I filmed Ydessa, the extraordinary woman who is the collector of the photos and curator of the project. There was a shocking part to the project where there was a statue of Hitler on his knee in another room.
I was surprised at the impact of the Holocaust on Ydessa's childhood memories. Even when her parents (Holocaust survivors) walked out of the shadow of that trauma, the daughter still seems to be carrying those memories on her shoulders.
In [the second] short film [Ulysses] I revisited the characters of a photo I shot in 1954, in which there was a naked man, a child and a dead goat. I was surprised by the memory they still had of taking the photo.
The [third] film about Cubans is another approach. I called it a socialist Cha-cha-cha. I documented the fresh revolution atmosphere four years after Fidel Castro took power. There was an energy and hopeful feeling throughout the whole country. I wanted to capture them and keep the feeling in its time. So I brought back 1,800 photos and made animation with them, accompanied by lively Cuban music.
TT: Can you explain your current installation work Patatutopia at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum?
Varda: In [Gleaners and I ], I followed and documented people gleaning unwanted potatoes in the fields. And I came across heart-shaped potatoes, which are considered bad shapes. For me it's a sentimental shape. It gives meaning to my search and adds a human level to the film, about consumption, waste and the garbage problem. I watched the heart-shaped potatoes grow old, and germinate and I decided to discover more about potatoes. It's an homage to potatoes, such a modest and ordinary food.
For me it's not about meanings, it's my trip entering the world of potatoes.
TT: How do you feel when making feature films and documentaries?
Varda: I like making documentaries and shorts. They are like the tickets to enter the business of filmmaking. Every four or five years I feel I want to make a documentary. For me, documentaries are like the close-up of reality to make a small part of reality stand out. But a fiction film is a selection of reality that you put in your fantasy.
TT: You filmed her hand in Gleaners and I and in Patatutopia you flashed your face in the middle of the piece's film. Why did you choose this device?
Varda: I also do voice-over for my documentaries. I usually appear for one to two seconds in the films and hope they are not uncomfortable for the audience. For me it's just like the signatures of painters. It's not being arrogant or narcissistic. I just wanted to leave some mark of myself in the works.
TT: Where is the line between the personal and political in your films?
Varda: I don't make political films. My film Gleaners and I is more about social issues, about globalization, the gap between rich and poor, consumption and waste. Even in making a social film I try to use a human angle. I like to talk about the fragility of society, the fragility of human nature and the balance between good and evil.
I can never make a hero that is perfect and invinsible. I like to talk about people at the edge, like the character in my film Vagabond. I don't make films about rich people and I'm not good at making films about war and with special effects. I know such films are now popular in the world.
I know there are still a group of filmmakers trying to make films about the warmth of human beings. Reality usually disappoints us, but we need to remain optimistic.
FILM NOTE:
Cinevardaphoto ? When Photos Trigger Films
Running time: 90 minutes
Screening time and location:
Today, 6pm, Showtime Cinema
電影.娃達.照片
艾格妮娃達
法國
本片是由娃達的前作《依蝶莎的熊》、《尤里西斯》及《向古巴人致意》三部片所構成的最新紀錄片。《依蝶莎的熊》以娃達參觀藝術收藏家依蝶莎漢德列斯的展覽開始,展覽中的上百張泰迪熊相片促使娃達去探討漢德列斯小心翼翼收藏這些收藏品的背後用意。在《尤里西斯》裡,娃達重返她的回憶;《向古巴人致意》則以相片紀錄娃達的卡斯楚古巴之旅。這些影片提供了電影與攝影之間迷人的談話,也在這些看似獨立卻又不可分離的藝術型態中,闡述了娃達的影像創作。
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