Agnès Varda by Kelley Conway (review)

Academic interest in the work of Agnès Varda has multiplied in the last decade, especially in anglophone countries. It is hardly surprising, given her status as a female—and explicitly a feminist—pioneer, as a constantly self-regenerating artist gifted with an inspiringly unconventional visual genius, and not least as an eighty-eight-year-old dynamo who accompanies her work on its worldwide travels and is unfailingly generous to her audiences whether they are found in academic conferences, small Parisian cinemas, or browsing in galleries. For Kelley Conway's short but dense new book on her work, she provided unlimited access to the Ciné-Tamaris archive, and the extended interview that concludes the book came in the course of a weekend stay at her retreat on the island of Noirmoutier, enlivened with a night of competitive Scrabble. The combination of warm accessibility and implicit challenge sums up a great deal of the appeal of her work. Given the limited space provided by the 'Contemporary Film Directors' series, Conway's essay necessarily had strict parameters. Her most important restrictive decision, and the one that determines the distinctiveness of this particular study, was to concentrate on exploiting to the utmost the insights into Varda's working methods afforded by the Ciné-Tamaris archive. Though certainly not neglecting the structure and content of the pieces that she discusses, Conway offers a particularly detailed look at the context of their making, including Varda's expressed artistic ambitions, the opportunities and problems that arose during preparation, and—in the case of Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961)—an analysis of early audience reception made possible by Varda's then extremely unusual decision to request feedback via a questionnaire. Unfortunately, it was also necessary to restrict the range of work discussed. Conway has sensibly opted to give fullest attention to the rich and relatively less analysed field of twenty-first-century Varda, from the well-received documentary Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2001) and its sequel two years later, to the autobiographical Les Plages d'Agnès (2008), via her installation work, principally L'Île et elle (Cartier Foundation, Paris, 2006). There is, however, considerable space given to some of the earlier works, notably La Pointe courte (1955), which introduced the young photographer to the difficult world of filmmaking, and Sans toit ni loi (1985), where Conway's detailed research into the project's development before and during shooting is particularly revealing. The much-studied Cléo is also given attention, owing to its questionnaire. Inevitably, the reader will have his or her particular regrets as regards the work covered in less detail: my own greatest disappointment was perhaps to find no mention at all of the mysterious Nausicaa project of the late 1960s, which admittedly, like several other ideas hatched in Varda's uniquely fertile mind over the years, never came to fruition. Perhaps Conway's unique access to the Tamaris record of works in progress may one day allow her to produce a piece on this shadow filmography of Varda's. But, of course, one can't have everything. In the meantime, this essay gives exceptional insight into the processes involved in creating original visual art in France, through the experience of an engaging, ever-curious artist.