[-empyre-] Research on Agnès Varda, Reina Shin

[Reina Shin]

Dear –empyre- subscribers,

My name is Reina Min Seo Shin, a first-year B.F.A student at Cornell
University. As an aspiring artist, my interests surround painting,
filmmaking, and semiotics; through my interest in evoking and exploring
multiple senses in art, I am drawn to attempting multidisciplinary
approaches in filmmaking, such as incorporating painting and drawing into
films. In order to develop my understanding of filmmaking, I am currently
enrolled in Professor Renate Ferro’s Introduction to Digital Media course.
Through Professor Renate’s introduction to –empyre-, I have the opportunity
to share my research online of Agnès Varda, one of my favorite filmmakers.
As a cinephile, I am grateful for this experience because I have always
wanted to be part of an online platform where I could discuss female
filmmakers and share my interest in the French New Wave.

Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French artist, film director, and a
photographer. In terms of her educational background, she received a
bachelor degree in literature and psychology from Sorbonne University and
studied photography at Vaugirard School of Photography. In her early
career, she studied art history at École du Louvre in order to become a
museum curator. However, as she began to develop her interest in
photography, she focused her career in becoming a photographer and later a
filmmaker. Varda is known as the grandmother of French cinema; as one of
the pioneering members of the French New Wave movement, she had 67 wins and
31 nominations from various renowned film festivals. Her active involvement
in the field should be noticed as she produced more than 20 films, working
as a director, editor, writer, cinematographer, actress, and producer. Her
notable films are Le Pointe Courte (1955), Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), Le
Bonheur (1965), Vagabond(1985), and The Gleaners and I (2000).

Learning the history of the French New Wave is crucial in understanding
many works of Varda; the French New Wave was an essential French film
movement during the late 1950s and 1960s. Notable pioneers of this movement
include Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Andre Bazin, and Claude
Chabrol. They were against the classical French film and Hollywood’s
classical state of filmmaking. Even though many French artists were
intrigued by American filmmakers, such as Alfred Hitchcock, they were
against the commercialized culture of Hollywood. French New Wave artists
advocated the practice of hyper experimentation to the form; they would
break conventional style by presenting jump cut, long shot, shooting on
location for a cheap budget, and developing a new caméra stylo. Auteur
Theory is one of the key elements of the movement, and this theory refers
to the camera as the pen of the director. In other words, the theory
suggests that the director should be the author of the film, where the
director has the freedom to present his or her unique style through the art
form. Within the movement, there were Right Bank and Left Bank Cinema
artists. Varda was part of the Left Bank; although these groups of artists
were not in opposition to each other, they had different preference in
terms of style and focus. For instance, the Left Bank artists were more
concentrated on finding the connection between cinema and other forms of
art, such as literature.

Many of Varda’s works revolved around themes, such as presenting the
inter-related connection between photography and film, capturing the
outsiders, and showing her local life. As a multidisciplinary artist, Varda
implemented photography in film and vice versa; this is clearly shown
through her Cuban Photography series and her film Salut les Cubains (1963).
When she was traveling to Cuba to produce a new film inspired by Chris
Marker’s La Jetée (1962), she attempted to work on a new photography series
that portrays the local culture of Cuba. Moreover, the artist often shed
light on the people, places, and cultures that are apart from the
mainstream culture. For instance, filming her travel to rural areas of
France in Faces Places(2017) accurately supports this theme. The artist
reminded the audience about the things we do not often easily recognize or
appreciate. Aside from this theme, many backgrounds of Varda’s works
located in France, where the artist narrated her local life. In order to
portray these themes, she effectively utilized documentary visuals and
diegetic sound. Also, there are vivid color schemes in multiple films,
where they are shown through the characters’ clothing.

One of my favorite works by Varda is Faces Places (2017); in this film, the
artist collaborated with another artist, JR. They traveled around the
countryside of France and documented people’s stories and their production
of murals in different villages. Inspired by the film, I plan to travel
through the villages of rural South Korea, interacting with the villagers
and the Korean traditional artists, and recording the challenges artists
face as female South Korean artists. Besides making a 30-minute
documentary, I want to form a network among these artists, so that we can
support each other and provide opportunities to display our work in Seoul.
Although Varda recently passed away due to cancer, her works, intellectual,
and artistic achievements will continue to impact numerous aspiring artists
around the globe.

Many thanks for allowing you all to share my research with you.

Best,

Reina Shin
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