the essential
Pierre-Henri Gibert, author of the documentary “Viva Varda!” screened last night at the Château Comtal, actor Jean-Claude Dreyfus (sponsor of these Meetings) and director Anna Medveczky look back on what Agnès Varda (who died in 2019) embodies in their eyes, and on her legacy to the cinematographic world.
Not everyone necessarily knows her filmography like the back of their hand, but her name and her figure immediately resonate in the collective unconscious. A major filmmaker of the French 7th Art recognized throughout the world, Agnès Varda fully deserved a documentary focusing on both her career and her singularities. It was Pierre-Henri Gibert who took the risk: his Long live Varda! was screened yesterday evening at the Château Comtal, as part of the second evening of the Carcassonne Documentary Meetings.
“Cinema remains mainly a land of men, but this little woman did not ask herself the question of her gendersays the director. She went straight in, without asking anyone.”. However, this was not enough for Pierre-Henri Gibert, who wanted to find a new angle.Agnès Varda was also her own biographer, and I didn’t see the point in going back over things that she had already told better than I would have done.”. The person concerned will however discover a more “complex” than in appearance, allowing her to show other facets of the filmmaker.
“Eternal youth”
“There was a conflict with her father, a big industrialist, not very interested in the arts. Agnès Varda’s entire approach was formed in response to this paternal figure”. Conversely, there was the discovery in the United States of this resolutely hippie uncle, artist and iconoclast, who found much more favor in his eyes. In many ways, Agnès Varda was not afraid to break the codes: non-conformist at the time, avant-garde seen today.
“His cinema is very inventive”attests the actor Jean-Claude Dreyfus, sponsor of these Documentary Meetings. “She didn’t hesitate to test techniques or tools that were not common at that time”. Logical, in short, if his achievements still speak to younger generations of filmmakers. “I discovered it when I was little No shelter, no law, that I really liked”says director Anna Medevcki. “I rewatched Cléo de 5 à 7 not long ago, and for the production of Knit’s Island, a feature-length documentary of which I am an associate producer taking place inside a video game, I had as a reference The gleaners and the gleaner : with the directors, we were also looking for “potatoes”, the guiding theme of the film! Indeed, we thought a lot about Varda”.
In view of this continuing influence, Jean-Claude Dreyfus does not hesitate to speak of a work enjoying a “eternal youth”. A work which nevertheless deserves to be explored in all its diversity: “Agnès Varda has made short films, documentaries, exhibitionslists Pierre-Henri Gibert. To only watch his feature-length fiction films is to miss 70% of his work.”.
