Tuesday, March 16, 2010

FRENCH CINEMA: CINÉ-FILS—Agnès Varda on Poetry

Agnès Varda could read to me out of the phone book and I would be enthralled with the cadence and expressiveness of her voice. In this wonderful interview with Ciné-Fils, Varda speaks on how mental images become film scenes, where film and poetry meet, and her surrealist influences. Ciné-Fils—named after a quote by Serge Daney: "I had to be a cinephile, ciné-fils, a child of the cinema, mythologically born in such and such a film"—is worth a lengthy perusal, especially for its essays (original language) and video interviews (graciously subtitled in English).



Of related interest: My transcript of
Varda's Q&A session following the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival screening of Les Plages d'Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès), which—I might add—is now available on Netflix Instant Play. A must-see!