The Cinema of Agnès Varda: Resistance and Eclecticism by Delphine Bénézet

Abstract

Reviews 249 Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC). On this level, the book breaks significant new ground: we see, for example, how short stories drafted in one decade resurface in screenplays composed twenty or thirty years later, or how Rohmer conceived his role as a pedagogue in his Sorbonne University courses on mise-en-scène. Material is grouped thematically when appropriate: chapter 5, for example, broaches work done for French educational television in the 1960s, while chapter 7 looks at the German intermezzo of the 1970s when Rohmer wrote a doctoral thesis on Murnau, shot La marquise d’O..., and staged Catherine von Heilbronn. Elsewhere the coherence is provided by the cycles that afforded Rohmer international stardom, with excellent pages on the Contes moraux’s reception.Writing with acumen and stylistic consistency, Baecque and Herpe achieve in this scrupulously researched volume the paradoxical feat of writing the definitive biography of a pseudonymous subject, a director whose low-budget modus operandi remains one of the miracles of modern film production. Johns Hopkins University Derek Schilling Bénézet, Delphine. The Cinema of Agnès Varda: Resistance and Eclecticism. New York: Wallflower, 2014. ISBN 978-0-231-16975-2. Pp. 160. $25. From the beginning pages, the book establishes itself against existing research on Varda’s shorts, features, and artistic projects, and sets out to“redress gaps and absences in the scholarship, to revisit neglected portions of Varda’s production [...] to re-situate these within their cultural and political context,” and “to analyze Varda’s eclectic yet consistent conception of cinema”(4–5).It is composed of an introduction,five chapters, well-chosen screen shots, conclusion, filmography, bibliography and index. The introduction situates the book’s content and scope within Vardian studies and in relationship to the recent widespread availability of the director’s artistic works. While doing so, it encourages us to consider the director beyond her regular étiquette of auteur and to broaden our understanding of Varda’s artistic production and place in the international realm. The recent accessibility of shorts from France, beyond big-city festivals, has encouraged a growing scholarly interest in this cinematographic form and its history in the Hexagon. As part of pedagogical workshops subsidized by the French Government, DVD compilations (UniFrance), and ready-made short-film festivals for colleges and universities like Le festival international du court métrage de ClermontFerrand , shorts from France have found solid ground as a new terrain for scholarly inquiry and as part of a strategized promotion of France as cultural powerhouse. The Cinema of Agnès Varda entices the reader to explore the short within each director’s own filmmaking career, beyond exercices de style, to take on a more holistic approach when understanding Varda’s some sixty years of art. The book is a solid contribution to this field, though it could have benefited from an additional fifty pages to fully explore the themes evoked. More connections could have been made; for example, a paragraph on Varda’s 1984 Les dites cariatides would have been appreciated; that said, Bénézet is quite aware of the restrictions this type of publication demands and acknowledges such at several times throughout. Of particular interest was chapter three, which studies the recurring theme of marginalized groups by drawing out the extent to which Varda’s socially inclusive perspective, attention to others, and love of new encounters are communicated through her choices of characters, locations, and focus of study. Chapter four continues through the importance of dynamics between people and locations in Varda’s works. Bénézet’s inquiry into Baqué’s cinéma passeur (5), the stroller-historian, and cinema of sensations (100) are thought-provoking and insightful. Throughout, her arguments are informed and compelling, bringing new perspective to both familiar and often-slighted works. Bénézet’s work complements recent publications, such as Agnès Varda: le cinéma et au-delà (PU de Rennes, 2009) and T. Jefferson Kline’s Conversations with Filmmakers: Agnès Varda (UP of Mississippi , 2013). It is, nonetheless, unique in its precision and focus on the evolution of Varda’s continual embrace of upcoming artistic media, technological advances, and...