Surprised to hear the death of the French New Wave grandmother Varda, the person who contributed to the film for life has just come to the news, on the evening of March 29, local time, the French New Wave grandmother Agnès Varda (Agnès Varda) died at the age of 90. We have written about Varda's films and biographies many times before, see this article below, which is hereby republished to commemorate it. Miss her forever!

<h1>Just came the news, on the evening of March 29, local time, Agnès Varda, the grandmother of the French New Wave, died at the age of 90. </h1>

Her family said in a statement that director and artist Agnès Varda died of cancer at home Thursday night, and her family and loved ones accompanied her on her final days.

Last February, Agnès Varda's producer said she would "slow down" and "get ready to say goodbye" at the Berlin Film Festival.

A year later, the work arrived as promised, and Varda's last documentary, Varda par Agnès, premiered in Berlin.

△ Varda's last documentary "Agnès on Varda"

This work is a systematic review of Varda's lifelong creative experience, and it is completely an encyclopedic work created by himself. There are many very valuable director interpretations, and the understanding of many of her films has thus deepened.

Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1928, Varda visited China as an assistant to documentary master Chris Mark, leaving behind many precious pictures of China in the 1960s.

In 1954, she wrote and directed her first feature film, "Short Horn Love Affair", into the film circle, and she was a person who was really born for the film. Her husband, Jacques Demi, is also one of France's best-known directors, and her son Matthew starred in her films as a child, and later took on the mantle of director, producer and distributor.

What Chinese film fans miss her most should be that she awarded her works to domestic video platforms for free, without any master shelf.

<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > we have written about Varda's films and biographies many times before, see this article below, which is hereby republished to commemorate it. </h1>

<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > miss her forever! </h1>

Varda: "Thanks, I'm actually 6 years old."

Last May, Grandma Varda celebrated her ninetieth birthday.

For a long time, everyone called her "New Wave Grandmother", but she looked like she was still in the colorful summer of her life, not like a ninety-year-old lady.

At the end of "Face, Village", Godard let go of pigeons and was wronged

In addition to this cute mentality, Varda's summer girlishness is first reflected in her hairstyle and outfit.

Over the years, she has been topped with the iconic red mushroom wave head, although as the years go by, the newborn white hair makes the off-white circle above her head more and more conspicuous.

Aging should be frustrating, but this little grayish-white embellishment makes this hairstyle even more unique.

Varda was featured on the cover of the September 2018 reprint issue of Interview, and the cover of the inaugural issue of Interview that year was also chosen

She is always willing to wear the most vivid colors on her body, often wide purple and red pants, and also loves polka dots, dazzlingly marching among the somewhat grotesque trendsetters.

But speaking of which, Varda's most avant-garde outfit had to be counted on the fat potato suit at the 2003 Venice Duo Show.

At that moment, Varda walked around the exhibition hall dressed as a "talking potato"; if she was not present, she had to put her own avatar card on the potato set.

In the eyes of everyone's surprise, the fat potato is safe.

The adventure between Varda and the potato began with the documentary about the scavengers, The Gleaners and I (2000).

The Gleaner (2000)

In the movie, Varda stumbles upon a heart-shaped potato in a pile of potatoes on the farm, and she is very happy and immediately runs to the side to carefully shoot this miraculous potato.

At that time, she began to love a small digital video camera, with the excitement of talking about new toys with her children, and Varda praised the new and small things as a powerful tool for her random recording.

Especially in such moments, she can shoot potatoes with only one hand and still pull the other hand to see if there is more.

These potatoes, which had been discarded by the market simply because they were not the right size, Varda took a bunch, and when the treasure was collected, he made an exhibition, even though they were slowly crumpling, rotting, and sprouting.

But here in Varda, even potatoes are art.

When Varda was 80 years old, he made a documentary about himself, "The Beach of Agnès", as a birthday present for himself.

At the beginning of the film, Varda introduces himself,

I play a little old lady, short and chubby, who loves to talk and laugh, and I am here to tell you about her life.

Then, Varda busied herself on the seashore, placing many mirrors on the beach, washed by the waves, retracing and reflecting each other, creating fascinating illusions.

She walks around in front of the camera, hiding in the belly of a giant whale on the seashore and walking down the street in a wheelchair.

And when Varda pretended to be driving a cartoon cardboard car and tried to show the audience how she wasn't good at reversing, I felt in hilarity that I had established some kind of friendship with her.

And that's what Varda wanted: to connect with her audience, to build friendships or affection.

She once said,

I'm not a filmmaker who has had huge success at the box office, but I'm a very popular filmmaker.

That's right, we love you very much, Varda.

Varda is never shy about admitting that she is a minority and marginalized person in the film field, and she knows that her films actually have a small audience, but she is happy to be the "princess" in her own field.

She creates, shares, and in addition to something serious and meaningful, she will coldly share something else with you, such as her ceiling is broken, cabbage is really special, the truck on the road is cute, what kind of story she once heard.

In the game of movies, she speaks freely and makes friends with her audience.

If you open a person, you will find the scenery;

If you open me, you will find the beach.

Turning over Varda's life, the sea and the beach are undoubtedly the imagery that is most closely related to her.

Varda said the movie is as cute as a cat. She and her husband, Jacques Demi,000 kitten Zgougou, have long been working as a film company Cine-

Varda with her Zgougou

The name of Varda's own film company is Tamarias, which is actually the name of a beautiful plant by the sea.

In the documentary, she creates a beach in the street where members of Tamarias work on sand.

In 1940, to escape the war, Varda traveled with her parents from Brussels to live in the seaport city of Seth in the south of France, where she spent a comfortable childhood and girlhood.

This time marked Varda's life with blue, and since then, fishermen, dhows, waves, and seagulls have swirled in Varda's memories.

Varda's then-Technical School of Photography and Cinematography is now renamed the Louis Lumiere National College of Higher Education

After Varda came to Paris, he did not receive any film study and training.

At the Sorbonne and the Louvre Academy of Fine Arts she studied art history and at night school she studied photography.

Her first job was to repaint photos with watercolors and saliva.

Varda loves to paint, and painting is her most natural inspiration, which is why, in Varda's film works, we often find traces the origins of the history of painting art.

For example, in Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Cleo's constant concern about cancer and death is the inspiration Varda took from the work of the 16th-century German painter Hans Patong Green:

Beautiful and plump woman, the god of death whispering to her.

In the fifties, Varda became a very good photographer.

At that time, at the invitation of Premier Zhou Enlai, Varda traveled to China for more than two months with her Lulai 6X6 camera and Leica M3 camera.

From the rainforests of Yunnan to factories in the northeast, she took thousands of precious photos with a sense of novelty about the East.

China under Varda's lens

and Varda in China

In 2012, these photographs were exhibited at the CAFA Art Museum

Before the age of 25, Varda not only did not enter film school, but also did not even watch much movies, and the number of films read was about ten.

Varda and Godard have been friends for many years. Later, Varda made the short film "The Fiancée on the McDonald's Bridge" (1961), in which Godard and Ann took off their sunglasses

At that time, Varda made some actor friends as a photographer and met Godard under the introduction of Jacques Demi, who encouraged her to make low-budget black-and-white films.

In this way, by the sea in 1954, Varda shot his first film, La Pointe Courte (1954), at a very low cost, which deeply influenced the French New Wave that followed.

The distance and jerkiness of the film give Varda space to his imagination and create this eclectic work.

After all, for Varda, art, film, and her life are first and foremost about imagination.

Can I use my imagination in you?

This is a typical Varda problem.

Varda doesn't ask for anything else, just for meeting and communicating with people.

Therefore, she is gentle with those who appear in life, whether it is relatives and friends, or neighbors and strangers, she cherishes each other's circumstances, lives and history.

Ulysse (1982)

In the short film Ulysses, she introduces a photograph of a dead sheep in the lower right corner and the back of a naked man behind him named Ulysses.

This impressed Varda, all the people who looked at the sea, she called them Ulysses.

Years later, Varda went looking for the man and child Ulysses in the photograph and asked them to tell the memories of that day.

It's a book that goes back in time, bringing together my own mutilated memories, some clear information, and other people's memories.

Varda has his own philosophy of memory and time.

"My memories go back and forth like blind flies, and I wonder if I should remember them all."

Thanks to the images, she was able to restore and identify those shaky and blurry memories.

And as if the years of water flowed by, the boundary between the real and the unreal became more and more blurred, Varda admitted,

Reality means little to me, I don't know anything about life.

So she was cautious and humble, with love for people, inviting people into her image beach, and then she used the always warm and brisk voice to tell the audience about her life and art.

Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)

Varda makes films, often with her family, such as her son Matthew, Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gansbourg, Godard and Anna Carina... The figures of friends and family overlap each other, and Varda covers them with images of love.

And the most moving image is another representative of the New Wave, Jacques Demi.

Varda's favorite boy from Nantes, Jacques Demi.

All deaths make me think of Jacques Demi, every rose or begonia is given to Jacques Demi, who I cherish the most of all those who have passed away.

Since meeting at the Turing Film Festival in 1958, Varda and Demi have spent more than thirty years together, spending most of their time on the island of Nomuti, where they live and work with their cat, Zgougou.

Varda and Demi in family life, models of "soul mates"

This scene on the set can sweeten the skr people

Although Demi is bisexual, the love between them has nothing to do with it.

Demi died of AIDS in his later years, and Varda recorded the last days of his life with a camera, photographing his gray hair and spots, as well as his writing.

Demi wrote about his childhood memories, how the son of a car repairman got involved with the film.

Varda asked him, "Would you be happy if I made this movie about your childhood?"

Demi said, yes.

So there is this moving film love letter, Jacques Demi of Nantes, full of Varda's love for Demi, and their love for art and film.

A few months after the film was completed, Demi died.

At the end of the film, still by the sea, Jacques Demi sits slightly wearily, his eyes gentle, looking at the camera.

Far away The sea line has receded

You are like seaweed, blown by the wind

On the beach you fantasize softly

Demons and miracles

Breeze and tide

……

—Varda whispered to him.

The closer she got to her old age, the more Varda became like a child, and she did not stop her wandering in the world.

Faces, Places (2017)

I have to mention that it is a very cute documentary, "Face, Village".

Varda, a fifty-five-year-old artist JR (Jean Genet), drives a pickup truck, roaming the French countryside and roads, and during the trip, also in the studio.

Varda says it's her principle to work with laborers.

Peasants, workers, postmen, shepherds (and sheep)... Along the way, they took portraits of laborers of all stripes, pasting huge photographs on the building.

So surreal, like a dream.

Varda is also fascinated by her installation art, and her 21st-century identity is more of a trendy visual artist, most impressed by the small houses she "built" on film.

Varda made a small house from the 35mm film he had photographed, calling it "My Cabana of Failure."

The "failure" was due to the fact that the film Les Créatures (1966) was dismal at the box office at the time.

Varda's hut made of 35mm film

Movies are my home.

Staying in a small house is like living in a movie.

Natural light passes through the film, casting shadows and colors, which is nothing more than film.

There is more than one such small house. There's also a film film in Los Angeles that was filmed in Los Angeles that year, Lions Love... and Lies，1969）。

The most recent one was made in the film Le Bonheur's (1965), a small house full of sunflowers that echoed the flowers in the film.

The little house was also completed, and the arches were accumulated from film boxes

Varda makes films, engages in art, and does good things, always about human nature, and unremittingly shows and expresses the essential themes of the world.

Her art has the position of a woman, a wanderer, a scavenger, and is full of kindness and compassion for their Vardas.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Varda, who participated in the women's affirmative action movement, said, "I wanted to be a happy feminist, but I was indignant."

Today, Varda is still fighting sexism in the film industry in Cannes with Kate Blanchett, and in the #Metoo movement, she is pleased to see women speak and shout.

In his spare time, Varda also chooses to embrace the Internet, lovingly accepting the novelties of this world.

At JR's suggestion, Varda opened the ins number last year.

Varda complains, "I'm not used to changing this every day," but the old lady is really modest, she is still very good at playing.

For her ninetieth birthday, JR prepared chocolate cake for Varda

Head to Hollywood on the eve of an attempt to memorize a speech while sleeping

As for aging, wrinkles, spots, gray hair, slow movements and annoying eye diseases, they are a constant reminder of Varda's life.

This may be a limitation for her, but it is also the material for her observation and creation.

A counterattack from Varda, "Come out and mix, sooner or later you have to pay it back"

Varda seems to be always ready to be impressed by someone or something, and does not hesitate to use her inexhaustible imagination and curiosity on it, which she has always done and what she loves to do.

Like she said,

There are many difficult problems in the world, often divided, and we need to connect.

And to create things, to let people witness this connection, and it will not hurt anyone.

This is her art, but also her love and responsibility for the world.

Agnès Varda (1928-2019)

Author ✎ mersso

Edit ✎ the knife

This article was first published in the Adventure Movie: Cinematik