The French film director Agnès Varda visited University College Cork (UCC) today Monday 7 March 2011. She spoke to over 100 of the university's staff and students for about an hour and a half about her life and her movies.
The annual Cork French Film Festival is taking place at the moment and many of Varda's famous films are among the main attractions of the festival. When people hear her name, they instantly associate her with the Nouvelle Vague movement in cinema. She said that she was pleased to have been invited to Cork where three different areas of her work were being recognised: her work as a visual artist, a filmmaker and a photographer. "I don't want to represent French cinema, I want to represent myself", said Varda at the beginning of her talk.
She spoke about her introduction into the whole movie making business. The French theatre and film actor, Jean Vilar, had asked her to take some photographs on a movie set. This work with the camera inspired her and she went on to make her own movie, La Pointe Courte (1954). I've seen this and really liked it. It's a black and white film, set in a French fishing town and follows the lives and loves of some of the locals. It was filmed in Sète on the Mediterranean coast and looks lovely. She said it was very very hot during filming and that it was all done along co-operative lines - everyone was equal and they only had very basic facilities.
Varda mentioned Michel de Montaigne's essays as an inspiration to her in her work. She said that Montaigne created his essays in order to be remembered and that she is doing her film work so that she will be remembered and also that her family will know her. Another inspiration for Varda seems to be paintings. Firstly, she mentioned Rembrandt, who did a lot of self portraits, but she didn't think he was so much painting himself because he loved himself, but he painted himself because he wanted to be remembered and also to show the changes in his appearance over the years.
Another one of Varda's early films - Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962), tells the story of a beautiful young singer who fears death by cancer. Varda said that for this film she was inspired by a famous painting showing a blond nude woman surrounded by a skelatal figure (death). I didn't catch the name of the artist, but she said that his paintings are on show in Munich and Vienna.
A couple of years ago I saw Varda's film Daguerreotypes (1976) where she introduces the audience to the inhabitants of the rue Daguerre, where she lives in Paris. I liked the film.
It was very interesting to hear this legend speaking about herself and her work and I am happy that I went along to hear her.
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