The Complete Varda 25 – Wrap Up with Valeria Rotella

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Matt and Travis wrap up their Varda journey with a very special guest. Valeria Rotella produced the bible that was used throughout this season: The Complete Films of Agnès Varda from the Criterion Collection. We discuss her own relationship with Varda’s work, her job as a producer for home media, and the box itself – perhaps the best thing Criterion has released to date. We hope you enjoy the conversation and this season!

We’ll be back with a new director soon!

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The Complete Varda 24 – Varda by Agnès

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Varda’s final film is the summation of her career – literally. As with her penultimate work, this documentary was prompted by Varda’s daughter Rosalie, who suggested that Agnès tell her own story rather than have someone tell it for her. We discuss the relative structure of this autobiographical work with the earlier Beaches of Agnès, Varda’s evolving reputation as she moved into the final years of her life, and why you should display proper posture when sitting in the front row. We hope you have enjoyed this journey, and we will have a very special guest for the wrap up episode next month!

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The Complete Varda 23 – Faces Places

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Varda’s most well-known film from the last two decades of her life, Faces Places is a film collaboration with artist J.R. A warm both of a film, Faces Places is an exploration of the French countryside and the unexpected combination of two very different artists who are nevertheless united in their love of people. Matt and Travis discuss the film’s conventional style – and how unconventional of a description that is for an average Varda film. We also go off on quite a tangent! We hope you enjoy.

Referenced on the show: Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill

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The Complete Varda 22 – Agnès Varda: From Here to There

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A running theme with Varda’s 21st century work is the unusual nature of its conception and/or execution, and From Here to There plays right into this pattern. Created out of Varda’s own recordings of her travels and encounters with artists of all types throughout the world, this miniseries presents Varda as curious consumer and globe-trotting ambassador for the novel and bold. Matt and Travis discuss the unusual nature of the film and dive into the notion of modern art and Varda’s relationship with it.

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The Complete Varda 21 – The Beaches of Agnès

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For the 21st episode of season five, Matt and Travis cover one of the most extraordinary autobiographical documentaries in film history, The Beaches of Agnès. We discuss Varda’s love of beaches, her unusual and free-flowing structure, and her uncanny ability to piece it all together in a graceful and intellectually stimulating final package. This is one of Varda’s most complex and popular works, and it was great fun to unpack.

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The Complete Varda 20 – Some Widows of Noirmoutier

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Varda’s 20th feature is as unusual as her stitched-together 19th. Created as an installation piece and converted into a television special, Some Widows of Noirmoutier is a straightforward yet profoundly moving documentary. In this episode, Matt and Travis discuss this oft-overlooked Varda feature, along with her blossoming visual artist identity and the broader work Varda undertook in the third and final phase of her shifting career.

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The Complete Varda 19 – Cinévardaphoto

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Matt and Travis encounter an unusually constructed film: Cinévardaphoto, a set of three shorts stitched together to create a feature that could be shown in theaters and distributed on DVD. The first two of these films, Ulysse and Salut les Cubains, were previously created in the 1980s and 1960s, respectively. We covered these films in episodes 3 and 10, so here we focus on Ydessa. A profile of Ydessa Hendeles and her Teddy Bear exhibit that Varda encountered on a visit to Germany, the film is an interesting mix of profile and Varda’s own complex perspective on the work and the person. I’m not going to lie, we get a little silly here, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

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The Complete Varda 18 – The Gleaners and I

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The Complete Varda 18 – The Gleaners and I

Matt and Travis move into the 21st century with Varda’s pivotal The Gleaners and I. A massive success upon release in France, Varda’s first digital feature created a media frenzy and helped reenergize the aging filmmaker, catapulting her into the final two decades of her work that produced an extraordinarily productive run of films and art installations. We discuss the film’s merging of digital aesthetics and philosophy with a broader tradition of repurposing discarded food and artifacts, along with the rediscovery of Varda’s significance and reappraisal of her filmography which began in the late 90s and early 2000s.

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The Complete Varda 17 – One Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema

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Matt and Travis welcome friend of the pod William Remmers to the show to discuss Varda’s final narrative fictional feature, One Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema. Created in celebration of the French’s conveniently defined 100th birthday of film, Varda’s movie features an astonishing number of international stars and film references of every kind you can imagine. We discuss the film’s unmistakable imprint of the unique sensibilities of Varda along with the historical significance of the film paired with its modest idiosyncrasies.

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The Complete Varda 16 – The World of Jacques Demy

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Varda completed her trilogy of tributes to her husband with the most straightforward of the three: a documentary covering Demy’s career and his impact on cinema. As expected, however, Varda at her most straightforward is still a little off-kilter, so there are as many pleasurable detours as there are dry facts and clips in this loving documentary. We discuss the film’s balance of Varda and Demy and close out this miniseries with some thoughts on the couple and Varda’s relationship with her husband’s art.

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