French New Wave luminary Agnes Varda, whose films include “Cléo From 5 to 7,” “Vagabond,” and “Faces Places,” has passed away. At 90 years old, she passed away. On Friday, Varda’s family reported that she passed away at her Paris home from breast cancer.
The family released a statement stating that Agnes Varda, a “joyful feminist” and “passionate artist,” passed away from cancer on the evening of March 29, 2019, at her home, with her loved ones by her side.
On Tuesday, the funeral is anticipated to be held in Paris. The short filmmaker just recently showed her newest feature, “Varda by Agnes,” at the Berlin Film Festival, where she was honored with the Berlinale Camera prize. She entered four films in the festival’s competitions, with 1965’s “Le Bonheur” taking home the Grand Jury Prize.
Unfortunately, Varda had to cancel her masterclass at the Qumra event in Doha, Qatar earlier this month due to the onset of illness that she had been experiencing over the past few weeks. Quickly following the announcement of her passing, tributes were paid to her courageous and inquisitive nature.
Agnes will remain here, even though Varda has left. The works of Agnès Varda are “as surprising as her intelligence, vitality, sweetness, spirituality, laughter, comedy, and unexpectedness,” as ex-president of the Cannes Film Festival Gilles Jacob put it in a tweet. The French spirit is a national asset.
Beginning with her feature début, “La Pointe Courte,” in 1955, Varda enjoyed widespread praise for decades. Peter DeBruge, a critic for Variety, praised Varda’s career and noted that her work had an undeniably personal touch. “In contrast to other filmmakers, Varda creates deeply personal artworks that expose aspects of her personality,” he remarked.
In 2017, she made history as the first female filmmaker to earn an honorary Oscar, the Governors Award. “A little queen at the outskirts of film,” Varda ironically modestly told a German interviewer. Although Varda’s parents were Greek and French, they relocated to a coastal area of southern France during World War II from Brussels, Belgium, where she was born.
A lifelong fascination with literature and photography that began in childhood for Agnes continued to shape her work as an artist. She feels that photography has always been a great teacher of filmmaking. She had supposedly seen the movies less than a dozen times before deciding to direct her first feature film, “La Pointe Courte,” therefore she had very little background in the industry.
Not everyone was fond of “La Pointe Courte,” an edited beach romance by Alain Resnais. According to Variety, the “main aspect of this film is that it was made for $20,000 by a 25-year-old girl.” This dismissal is as s*xist as it is abrupt.
François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard are two names that continue to reverberate today as French New Wave artists; yet, other critics were more captivated by that “girl” and her feisty independence and keen eye. Because of her gender, Varda stood out as an advocate for women’s rights and equality in the male-dominated film industry, even though she was the sole female member of the Nouvelle Vague.
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Because of her iconoclasm, she also used the camera, cuts and montages, and the blending of factual and fictional elements to boldly tackle taboo subjects like sex and death in her work. This work continues to shock because of its formal audacity. “Cléo From 5 to 7,” Varda’s most famous and financially successful film from 1962, follows a stunning singer about Paris practically in real time while she waits for the results of a cancer test.
The film eerily foreshadows Varda’s own death from the disease nearly 60 years later. “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” director Jacques Demy was a fellow filmmaker, and in 1962, Varda wed him. The pair settled in Los Angeles as a permanent residence around the decade’s conclusion, when Demy took a job making “Model Shop,” and they remained there for the rest of their lives.
In 1990, Demy passed away. There, Varda met artists like Andy Warhol and Dennis Hopper and captured footage of a Black Panther rally calling for Huey P. Newton’s release. She chose to forge her own way rather than work for Hollywood. “Faces Places” (2017) was her sole nomination for an Oscar; it was a traveling documentary she co-directed with French graffiti artist JR.
Similar to two of Varda’s earlier films, “The Gleaners and I” (2000) and “The Beaches of Agnes” (2008), the film chronicles the eccentric couple’s journey through France as they make art and meet locals, such as coal miners, truck drivers, and cheese makers. The message of the film, according to Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, “is simplicity itself: Everyone is who they are.“
With her pixie cut, harsh demeanor, and two-toned hair, she was just like Varda. At the Marrakech Film Festival in December, where she was given a career honor, she spoke movingly about how her films highlight marginalized individuals. She spoke about the multitude of people striving for survival, employment, good wages, dignity, and happiness, as well as the millions of individuals seeking shelter.
Critic Guy Lodge characterized her recent film, “Varda by Agnes,” which she screened at last month’s Berlinale, as a “blend of memoir and cinematic TED talk,” brimming with whimsical contemplation. It was actually Varda’s valediction, marking the end of a career that had thrilled, confused, and, most importantly, soared. Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy are the children who will carry on Varda’s legacy.
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