Agnès
I'd abandoned this blog, as one does, because it is mine to abandon. I'd abandoned many a thing: half eaten oatmeal, lovers, cats, ideas for films, luggage here and there, promises and boxes of delicate negligibles in other people's basements. For someone who gathers and keeps (if only in her heart) people, beasts, pebbles, her grandfather's watch and illusions, the abandoning is a necessary function. I retract. I retrieve. I transit. I cradle the thought that if I could... I would have had I... Abandon comes with a side of undone capable of surviving minor tragedies.
Agnès Varda est morte. Long live Agnès Varda. I'd met her on the stairs of a venue I can't quite remember (the MaRs building or Isabelle Bader Theatre?), during Toronto Film Festival in 2004 when she was traveling with Cinévardaphoto, a three part reflection on photography. It must have been a press screening because there was a handful of us when she suggested we go outside. Accompanied by two polite young men, possibly of UniFrance provenance, she casually held a Q&A on the stairs while a warm breeze moved autumn leaves and strands of loose hair gently. It was as if she weren't the grand dame of French New Wave or cinema as a whole: she was Agnès Varda, cinéaste, curieuse. She took a couple of questions. I asked a simple one in the end: "When are you done with an image?" She was pleased with this question, so much so that, I found myself talking and walking with her to the subway station, our heads a lovely arch. At the corner I excused myself and she asked if I was not coming to the reception. I wasn't invited, instead I said I had plans. She held both my hands telling me it was very enjoyable talking to me, we kissed and off she went with the two gentlemen who were following shortly behind us. I walked on in a haze.
She was writing postcards years later at a hotel lobby (Courtyard Marriott? My life in Toronto seems lightyears away) when I stood beside her: "Bonjour Madame Varda." She looked up and smiled. "I'm writing postcards to my grandchildren." We walked over to the reception. "Wherever I go I make a point to send them postcards." I told her a few years back we had met not far from this hotel when she was in town for her three part essay film and she said it was eight years ago. I was shocked. Her mind was incredibly sharp. To me, it was only yesteryear. Agnès Varda gleaned time.
Long before these short encounters, I sat at a café in Rue Daguerre, eponymous with her name, where she had her home and studio for many years till her death. I had my super 8 camera 'to make experimental snippets'. Any aspiring film student enamoured with jumpcuts, quick wit and nonchalance of French New Wave could sit at a café nearby the home of a great filmmaker and shoot blurry close ups of napkins, elbows in action and empty cups posing as black holes or existential ennui. It was good times. I was young and clueless in the best way. My Eumig mini 3 camera was forgiving, I could harvest three minutes of footage of light and dark, poetic just because it was on film. I loved a man and wore a beautiful red coat in the streets of Paris. Agnès was my guide.
When Visages, Villages (2017) came out, I was visiting Paris by chance. Upon my arrival at my friend Dominique's house in PIace Edith Piaf, he handed me a black suitcase. "What is this?" I asked. He shrugged. "You left it here three years ago." We both looked at the dark object in silence. We had lunch. Then we went to see her film at MK2 Gambetta, with a few others in the cinema. The film was a road trip any admirer of hers would have liked to take with her. Alas, she took it with JR, an artist known for his giant photographic collages on buildings and his style of hat+sneakers+sunglasses combo. She was herself. Even though their collaboration felt forced at times, there she was, fully, beautifully herself. To hear her voice, follow her little commanding person, to have her lean against the window of a train with the sun engulfing her head; to see her mad at Godard, pleased on a windy beach... Such is the charm of the maker of Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961) or Jacquot de Nantes (1991).
Agnès Varda is a magnificent scarlet oak tree, nurturing us across time and space with the sweet abandon of wholly being oneself and loving life as only curious gamins could.
Agnès Varda est morte. Long live Agnès Varda. I'd met her on the stairs of a venue I can't quite remember (the MaRs building or Isabelle Bader Theatre?), during Toronto Film Festival in 2004 when she was traveling with Cinévardaphoto, a three part reflection on photography. It must have been a press screening because there was a handful of us when she suggested we go outside. Accompanied by two polite young men, possibly of UniFrance provenance, she casually held a Q&A on the stairs while a warm breeze moved autumn leaves and strands of loose hair gently. It was as if she weren't the grand dame of French New Wave or cinema as a whole: she was Agnès Varda, cinéaste, curieuse. She took a couple of questions. I asked a simple one in the end: "When are you done with an image?" She was pleased with this question, so much so that, I found myself talking and walking with her to the subway station, our heads a lovely arch. At the corner I excused myself and she asked if I was not coming to the reception. I wasn't invited, instead I said I had plans. She held both my hands telling me it was very enjoyable talking to me, we kissed and off she went with the two gentlemen who were following shortly behind us. I walked on in a haze.
She was writing postcards years later at a hotel lobby (Courtyard Marriott? My life in Toronto seems lightyears away) when I stood beside her: "Bonjour Madame Varda." She looked up and smiled. "I'm writing postcards to my grandchildren." We walked over to the reception. "Wherever I go I make a point to send them postcards." I told her a few years back we had met not far from this hotel when she was in town for her three part essay film and she said it was eight years ago. I was shocked. Her mind was incredibly sharp. To me, it was only yesteryear. Agnès Varda gleaned time.
Long before these short encounters, I sat at a café in Rue Daguerre, eponymous with her name, where she had her home and studio for many years till her death. I had my super 8 camera 'to make experimental snippets'. Any aspiring film student enamoured with jumpcuts, quick wit and nonchalance of French New Wave could sit at a café nearby the home of a great filmmaker and shoot blurry close ups of napkins, elbows in action and empty cups posing as black holes or existential ennui. It was good times. I was young and clueless in the best way. My Eumig mini 3 camera was forgiving, I could harvest three minutes of footage of light and dark, poetic just because it was on film. I loved a man and wore a beautiful red coat in the streets of Paris. Agnès was my guide.
When Visages, Villages (2017) came out, I was visiting Paris by chance. Upon my arrival at my friend Dominique's house in PIace Edith Piaf, he handed me a black suitcase. "What is this?" I asked. He shrugged. "You left it here three years ago." We both looked at the dark object in silence. We had lunch. Then we went to see her film at MK2 Gambetta, with a few others in the cinema. The film was a road trip any admirer of hers would have liked to take with her. Alas, she took it with JR, an artist known for his giant photographic collages on buildings and his style of hat+sneakers+sunglasses combo. She was herself. Even though their collaboration felt forced at times, there she was, fully, beautifully herself. To hear her voice, follow her little commanding person, to have her lean against the window of a train with the sun engulfing her head; to see her mad at Godard, pleased on a windy beach... Such is the charm of the maker of Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961) or Jacquot de Nantes (1991).
Agnès Varda is a magnificent scarlet oak tree, nurturing us across time and space with the sweet abandon of wholly being oneself and loving life as only curious gamins could.
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