Directed by Agnès Varda • 2000 • France
Starring Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda’s extraordinary late-career renaissance began with this wonderfully idiosyncratic, self-reflexive documentary in which the French cinema icon explores the world of modern-day gleaners: those living on the margins who survive by foraging for what society throws away. Embracing the intimacy and freedom of digital filmmaking, Varda posits herself as a kind of gleaner of images and ideas, one whose generous, expansive vision makes room for ruminations on everything from aging to the birth of cinema to the beauty of heart-shaped potatoes. By turns playful, philosophical, and subtly political, THE GLEANERS AND I is a warmly human reflection on the contradictions of our consumerist world from an artist who, like her subjects, finds unexpected richness where few think to look.
Up Next in Part 1: The Films
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The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later
Directed by Agnès Varda • 2002 • France
Starring Agnès VardaAgnès Varda’s charming follow-up to her acclaimed documentary THE GLEANERS AND I is a deceptively unassuming grace note that takes us deeper into the world of those who find purpose and beauty in the refuse of society. Revisiting many ...
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Le lion volatil
Directed by Agnès Varda • 2003 • France
Starring Julie Depardieu, David Deciron, Frédérick E. Grasser-HerméRom-com meets documentary in this charming hybrid that unfolds in the shadow of the regal Lion of Belfort, the sculptural mascot of Paris’s 14th arrondissement, where Agnès Varda lived mos...
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Ydessa, les ours et etc. . . .
Directed by Agnès Varda • 2004 • France
Starring Ydessa HendelesAgnès Varda’s lifelong interest in still portraiture informs this record of a provocative Munich exhibition by the artist Ydessa Hendeles that contemplates our need for nostalgia and comfort in a violent world through an assemblage...
