Agnès Varda by Kelley Conway (review)

Reviews 235 enclenche, si bien que la fin du film peut laisser le spectateur sur sa faim, d’autant que le symbolisme et l’iconographie dont elle est empreinte cèdent à l’excès. Villanova University (PA) François Massonnat Conway, Kelley. Agnès Varda. Urbana-Champaign: UP of Illinois, 2015. ISBN 9780 -252-08120-0. Pp. 208. $22. In a discussion of Les plages d’Agnès, Varda proclaims her love of landscape, an assertion that helps provide a focal point for Conway’s exploration of the artist’s life and work. Part biography, part critical analysis, Agnès Varda is the forty-fourth volume in the Contemporary Film Directors series (though only the fourth devoted to a woman). The bulk of the text, organized chronologically, consists of a seven-section monograph entitled “New Wave Cinéaste to Digital Gleaner: Change and Continuity in the Work of Agnès Varda.” This is followed by an insightful interview, a detailed filmography, a bibliography, and an index. The author is careful to delineate her project’s limits: it is not, for example, a feminist study, as that topic is amply treated elsewhere. Nor does it cover the whole of Varda’s œuvre, but rather focuses on a handful of works, including La pointe courte, Cléo de 5 à 7, Sans toit ni loi, Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, and Les plages d’Agnès, as well as a selection of early short films and later installations. Although one might suppose these were chosen for their renown, Conway actually made the selection based on the quality and quantity of documentation available. This is fitting criteria for a study that relies on in-depth scrutiny of the filmmaker’s archives and personal conversations with the artist to identify points of constancy and change throughout her long career. Among the former, we find Varda’s strong sense of and emphasis on place, her blend of formal experimentation and social commentary, her predilection for marginalized subjects, her resistance to hierarchy, her complete creative control, her mixing of the codes of documentary and fiction, her wit and sense of humor, and her preference for narratives that allow for digression within a clearly established frame. Attention is also paid to the influence of other art forms, especially literature, theater, and painting. As for elements that change, these consist in part of variations in format, genre, and medium, as Varda moves among shorts and features, documentaries and fiction, film and installation. Conway also explores the evolution in Varda’s working methods, such as the increasing role of improvisation in her creative process, her adoption of digital technology, and her experimentation with a variety of cinematic practices. In spite of the considerable ground covered, the text is well organized and clearly written, if a touch repetitive, and with a regrettable lack of citations in the original French. Some material may be familiar to those with extensive knowledge of Varda’s work, and the biographical element is occasionally distracting, for example in a passage on the filmmaker’s physical appearance. This last is rare, however; biography and critical analysis are for the most part cogently intertwined. Moreover, the meticulous archival research, the quality of the writing, and the author’s personal connection to her subject combine to make Agnès Varda an engaging, helpful read for scholars, students, and laypersons alike. University of the Cumberlands (KY) Laura Dennis Dion, Cyril, et Mélanie Laurent, réal. Demain. Move, 2015. Ce modèle de documentaire d’auteur assumant la vision de son réalisateur nous rappelle une évidence: l’humanité s’est mise en danger du fait de ses excès. Mais les auteurs nous invitent à dépasser le catastrophisme et à rencontrer des personnes, partout dans le monde, qui ont imaginé des stratégies à échelle humaine pour tenter de contrer les effets néfastes des multinationales et la politique des politiciens sur l’environnement. Le côté “feel-good”, “crowd-pleaser” de Demain, ses personnages hauts en couleur, aux accents sincères et pour la plupart insouciants et dotés d’un grand sens de l’humour, ainsi que sa photographie optimiste (il fait toujours beau!) en font un film facile...