Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda (born May 30, 1928, Ixelles, Belgium—died March 29, 2019, Paris, France) was a French director and photographer whose first film, La Pointe Courte (1954), was a precursor of the French New Wave movies of the 1960s.

Varda was a student at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre and later became a photographer. As the official photographer of the Théatre National Populaire from 1951 to 1961, she discovered an interest in both theatre and film. Varda’s first film, La Pointe Courte, proved her to be an original artist. The drama, shot in a distinct visual style with a documentary feel, alternates between two narratives: a young couple examining their troubled marriage and a fishing village dealing with its collective problems. Varda’s second feature, Cleo de cinq à sept (1961; Cleo from 5 to 7), an introspective and intellectual film, displays the influence of the New Wave. It is an intimate account of a pop singer who sees the world around her with a new vision while she waits for the results of a medical examination that will tell her if she is suffering from a terminal illness. In 1962 Varda married director Jacques Demy, and they were together until his death in 1990.

In 1964 Varda directed Le Bonheur (Happiness), an abstract picture of happiness and fidelity that was to be her most controversial film. Les Creatures (The Creatures) was released in 1966, and her most popular films of the next two decades were L’Une chante, l’autre pas (1977; One Sings, the Other Doesn’t) and Sans toit ni loi (1985; Without Roof or Law, or Vagabond).

In the 1990s and into the beginning of the 21st century, Varda continued directing. Her most highly acclaimed films from this period were Jacquot de Nantes (1991), which was based on Demy’s childhood, and Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995; One Hundred and One Nights), about an old man with a love for movies. Many of her later credits were documentaries, notably Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000; The Gleaners and I), an intimate look at French country life; Les Plages d’Agnès (2008; The Beaches of Agnès), an account of her life; and the Academy Award-nominated Visages villages (2017; Faces Places), in which Varda and artist JR travel throughout France, photographing various people they encounter.