I'm playing the role of a little old lady,
pleasantly plump and talkative,
telling her life story.
And yet it's others I'm interested in, others I like to film.
Others who intrigue me, motivate me,
make me ask questions,
disconcert me, fascinate me.
This time, to talk about myself, I thought:
If we opened people up, we'd find landscapes.
If we opened me up, we'd find beaches.
Put it there, just beyond the mark.
Just beyond.
Facing the sea. No, facing the sea.
Turn it around.
Parallel to the sea. Closer to me, Céline.
Over here.
Lift it up.
That's the idea.
There. Is it stable?
The north wind will hold it up.
I think I'm doing this scarf thing on purpose.
I'm hoping it'll blow over,
and you'll film me like this.
That's how I want the portrait.
That's my idea.
Film me in old spotty mirrors
and behind scarves.
This reminds me of the furniture in my parents' bedroom
in Brussels.
The bed was like this, and Mom's wardrobe.
But it doesn't make the creaking noise I liked when she opened it.
We had a hand-cranked record player.
On Sundays Dad listened to Tino Rossi and Rina Ketty.
On weekdays Mom sometimes listened to Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony".
That was the only classical music I heard as a kid.
I liked the title.
THE BEACHES OF AGNES
I'm adding some living, spoken credits
to thank the young people who carried the mirrors.
Emilien...
Nicolas... See the camera?
Sarah?
Marjolaine?
Céline?
- Jérôme? - Yeah, I see it.
Too bad there's no portrait of Alain, who filmed,
or Didier, my partner. Didier Rouget, my friend.
There are all these people willing to enter a reverie,
something imaginary, I don't even know what it is.
And they don't even ask.
I want them moving all the time.
Good.
Go that way.
The North Sea and its sand is the start for me...
of what I more or less know of myself.
These Belgian beaches were all I knew.
All my childhood vacations.
When I hear Knokke le Zoute, Blankenberg,
Ostende, Mariakerke, Middelkerke,
La Panne and Zeebrugge...
the sounds are music to my ears.
I was conceived in the city of Arles, so they called me Arlette.
I changed my name when I was 18. I chose Agnès
and had it officially changed.
- Are you nostalgic for your childhood? - Not at all.
But I like looking at the pictures.
There were five of us kids,
but I especially remember being the youngest of the first three.
Then I was the eldest of the last two.
I felt independent in the middle.
Everyone says childhood is a foundation...
provides a structure, I don't know.
I don't feel a strong link to my childhood.
It's not a reference in my thought processes,
it's not an inspiration.
Well, I don't know.
I'd love to see a little girl in this striped bathing suit
and another in the one with the big straps.
I'll buy this one. How much?
Three handfuls.
I don't know.
I don't know what it means to recreate
a scene like this.
Do we relive the moment?
For me it's cinema, it's a game.
Did you imagine that 70 years later
you'd do an installation with flowers and shells?
Must you remind me how old I am?
When the installation I made for Zgougou's tomb was exposed,
long before this return to Belgium,
I realized where it came from.
Imagining oneself as a child is like running backwards.
Imagining oneself ancient is funny,
like a dirty joke.
I always like bringing in old people,
very old people, senior citizens and beyond,
like in "7 Rooms, Kitchen and Bath" or like this.
And we also came here for the casino.
I asked Jane Birkin to be the dealer.
17 black, odd, manque.
And I was the player.
No more bets.
32 red, pair, passe.
Père like father Manque like loss.
Oh my, can you afford to lose so much?
I lost my father in this casino.
Eugène-Jean Varda.
He played... he lost...
he fell down... and he died.
- Are you Eugène Varda's daughter? - Yes, I am.
- I sei Coritu Vienou Varda? - Yes.
Scene A, take 2
- I sei Coritu to Varda, to Vienou? - Yes.
Are you the daughter...
Are you...
Eugène never spoke of his family. He forgot he was Greek.
The family tree.
- Jean, the doctor... - My grandfather.
had Lucien, Georges and Eugène, your father.
Dad had five children:
Hélène, Lucien, me, Jean and Sylvie.
I have a photo of the whole family. Only one.
Taken in the courtyard of the Brussels house.
As a kid I didn't know my father was Greek.
Of Greek ancestry, naturalized.
He never offered to take us to Greece.
We were raised as French children in Brussels.
Some time ago,
I received a letter from a doctor.
It said:
I live in your childhood home and I'm planning to sell.
Would you like to see it again?
So I went to Brussels,
Rue de l'Aurore,
with my little camera.
Headed for my childhood home.
I said, "Let's start with the garden. "
It was the same, but overgrown.
With its brick walls painted white.
I know the shape of the basins by heart.
Especially the pear-shaped one,
and we had a little cement bridge.
The garden is here, but emotion is absent.
No memories of playing here, nor of tears.
I know some things,
the ones Mom told me about.
Here she is in her Sunday finest, near the bridge.
At the Brussels flea market yesterday,
I bought two rusty knives
like the ones Mom sent us outside to clean.
She'd say, "Do it top to bottom. "
I had Yolande Moreau tell it
in an imaginary kitchen.
That's life.
When I was little, in the Ardennes countryside,
Mother would send us out to clean the knives.
We'd push the blade into the ground, like this,
and rub it from top to bottom.
From the bottom to the top,
I rediscovered things that spoke to me.
At this window, I remember Mom crying when Queen Astrid died.
She collected photos of Astrid.
With her husband King Léopold III...
Wearing an evening gown...
Dressed for a visit to the poor...
Or holding a colonized child from The Belgian Congo.
Astrid was the Lady Di of the 30s.
She met the same tragic end.
She died in a car accident
at the height of her youth and beauty.
I asked if I could go up to my room
on the second floor.
The girls' bedroom became their living room,
and our terrace was still there.
I did a lousy job of filming!
You could still see Cambre Abby
and the garden from above.
I wanted to locate where the three sisters' beds were.
He wanted to show me his miniature train collection.
I bought only Swiss trains.
Can you tell if they're in original condition or repainted?
Absolutely. Like a car expert can tell right away
if the used car he's buying is the original color or not.
The most expensive one
cost me 15,000 Belgian francs in the early 1980s.
It's a brass piece.
It's worth 80,000 Belgian francs in Switzerland today.
There were only 150 of them made.
- And that one? - A car from the Orient Express.
3,000 francs.
We bought it on the train itself.
You were married recently. When?
Two years ago August.
Couldn't he sell a car and buy you a diamond?
Actually, he is starting to sell them.
It's an investment.
The collection is currently worth 2 million Belgian francs.
Two million?
It's a real passion!
We call ourselves "insane for trains".
But the real term for a train buff,
whether he's into toy trains or real trains,
is "trainopath".
Trainopath!
It was an amusing encounter.
It was also an unusual one.
I was taken in by this couple and the train collection.
The "childhood home" part was a flop.
But the house and I were separated by the war anyway.
After the war I rarely returned to the Ixelles ponds
at the end of Rue de l'Aurore.
One time was really nice.
I'm 27 years old,
it's the first screening of my first film in a giant theatre.
It's also my first stay in a luxury hotel.
I owe these royal pleasures to Jacques Ledoux,
director of the Royal Belgian Cinematheque,
who paid the bill.
His face is familiar because Chris Marker cast him in "La Jetée"
as a perverted inventor,
a mad scientist.
We became friends.
We'd talk about films.
We'd go to the flea market.
He'd look for old books and I'd look for old images,
old photographs of anonymous families.
Our own family photos escaped the flea market
as Mom took them when we left Brussels on May 10, 1940.
In the rumbling of the bombs and ambulances
we sped off.
Dad at the wheel, Mom and the 5 kids
tightly packed in the car
on the exodus throughout France
alongside people in carriages and on foot.
With my childhood friends the dolphins
Along this shore Where the sand is so fine
On the beach they call La Corniche
The exodus brought us to Sète.
Sète, with its whale-shaped hill,
its fishing harbor,
its famous jousters
and its vast beach.
I return to this beach today,
heading backwards,
backwards, like this film.
Now I'm rowing backwards to the quay where we used to live.
Not on the quay, but beside the quay.
On a stationary sailboat in the harbor.
Traffic was controlled by the bridges
and we were linked to town
by a water pipe,
an electricity cable
and a footbridge facing the Palais Consulaire.
In school two things were mandatory:
Vichy pinafores,
and singing for old Marshal Pétain.
Marshal, here we stand
Before you, Who saved our Land
We, your boys, We swear to you...
"We, your boys... " That's right, we sang that.
And we played hopscotch.
Another game, near the boats: fishing for gobies.
Any bites, girls?
Think you're gonna catch a shark?
Gobies are no good for eating. We threw them back.
I remember this quay well.
It was our playground.
There was a little recurring scene.
We paid him no mind,
and Mom, across from the Palais,
was too busy washing six sets of sheets to notice.
She never saw anything.
As soon as we came back home from school...
well, on the boat,
we had to put on our lifejackets.
We wore them like corsets,
and Mom wore a girdle called "Scandale".
She was worried, with her husband away,
and mourning a brother lost in the war.
Europe was ablaze and embattled.
Sète was still a free zone, but there was little to eat.
We were piled on the boat.
She adapted, but knew nothing of boats.
She was no seawoman, she couldn't swim,
and she fretted.
But we kids had fun during the war.
We had such fun on that boat!
Mom was scared we'd fall overboard.
The lifejackets came in handy.
Every other Thursday someone fell in.
I liked to chorus
with a group of girl scouts.
Little nightingale of the woods Little wild nightingale
We'd go camping in the woods.
The only trips allowed at the time.
We'd go to the Alps, and I remember
sometimes the group would split up.
As I learned much later,
some den mothers were escorting to Switzerland
young Jewish girls.
I had no idea they were Jewish.
Fifty years later I made a short film
about the horrors inflicted upon the Jews.
And about the people known as The Righteous,
because they saved thousands of children.
They were farmers, pastors and priests,
schoolmarms... ordinary people.
I exposed their photos, and anonymous ones,
on the floor, under several screens...
depicting the vile spectacle
of French military police arresting Jewish children...
pushing them toward the concentration camps.
Saying it, and filming it, even in fiction,
sends chills down the spine.
Time has passed,
and passes, except on the beaches, which are timeless.
On the beach of my teens,
I remember not the swimming but the fishing and fishnets.
The ones on the docks...
The ones at the Pointe Courte where I hung out.
I took pictures
and discovered that special neighborhood.
I listened to people's stories,
especially the old folks.
I wanted to do something with it, make a film.
I seemed to be preparing a documentary,
but part of the film was about a couple.
Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret (in his first film)
generously participated in my cinema experiment.
I had in mind a particular structure for the film.
It would be two films in one,
with alternating chapters,
like a Faulkner novel I'd read.
"The Wild Palms."
So I'd have a fishermen sequence,
then a couple sequence.
Two stories with nothing in common,
except for a place, the Pointe Courte.
She discovered the place he was born.
He showed her the houses, the alleys.
I asked Suzou and Pierre to stand in for the couple.
With a 16mm camera, I shot tests with them
as the inhabitants looked on.
Before the editing was finished, Pierrot died of cancer.
Suzou raised their two sons,
Blaise
and Vincent.
I invited them to share in a little ceremony
with a handcart from the film.
A set up to show them
the test footage they'd never seen.
They'd seen their father in photos but never in motion.
A little nocturnal voyage with Pierrot.
The kids who were in the film are the old timers now,
from the neighborhood.
So we hear about it.
I was in the part... where the little boat arrives
and unloads the shellfish.
The little boy in the boat...
- That was you? - Yeah.
The little boy grew up.
Take your grapes.
And little "Dédé-take-your-grapes"
became deputy mayor when the town council was communist.
He was champion of the Great Jousts twice.
In 1978 and 1987, right?
Yes. Good memory, you know your classics!
I know my classics, and I know my friends.
There's Dédé.
Images shot in 2007.
and shot in... 1954.
We'd form a heart.
At la Pointe Courte, the inhabitants surprised me:
They let me into the jousters' world.
And gave my name
to an alley from the canal to the Etang de Thau.
They even gave me a little shield my size,
and a matching lance.
This whole mise-en-scene
is simply my way of expressing gratitude
to the Pointuswho adopted me.
Another family adopted me, the Schlegel family.
I spent my summers with them.
The couple and their three girls
had a balcony overlooking our boat.
Behind these three shutters...
were three sisters.
Andrée became an artist and married Jean Vilar.
Second-born Suzou
was my den mother and introduced me to music.
I met Linou, the 3rd daughter, in 8th grade.
In 10 years together,
we traveled, made discoveries and sowed our wild oats.
Together we'd go to the beach to see a dragnet fisherman.
The Biascamano sons
re-pitched the tent where their father spent summers.
Their sister Patricia brought the accessories.
The pan Mom made her coffee in.
Agnès is lucky we kept everything!
Even the storm lamp.
Charles, their father,
taught me how to repair fishnets.
Remember the fishing then?
So many years ago.
I remember, yes...
but only vaguely.
You know, I'm 82 years old.
So my memory escapes me sometimes.
Lovely way of putting it.
Her sons Aldo and Fanfan
organized a bit of dragnet fishing.
This time Suzou's son Blaise assists.
On the other side is Christophe Vilar, Andrée's son.
He lives in Sète, he's a painter.
Stéphane Vilar is a musician.
This was his table.
He worked here, facing the sea.
Do you realize how much your sons resemble Vilar?
No.
She used to tell us that constantly,
a while back.
And also a while back,
Andrée began slowly losing her memory.
What she does remember
is poetry.
I like reciting, knowing poems by heart.
Jean and Andrée Vilar named their villa "High Noon",
after Paul Valéry's "The Cemetery by the Sea".
This roof where dovelike sails go and come
Peacefully trembles near each pine and tomb
High noon appeases with a brilliant flame
The sea, the sea, the sea renewed forever
Any man who gazes at the sea is a Ulysses
who doesn't always want to go home.
All the children I love,
and all men who gaze at the sea, I call them Ulysses.
As a teenager I'd daydream.
I'd imagine joining a circus.
Reality meant little to me,
and I knew absolutely nothing of life.
I didn't ask questions.
I knew women gave birth
but Mom never told me girls got periods
or what men and women do when they were naked together.
You don't fool around with nets, they're for fish.
This time it's at Sète harbor
that I tirelessly watch the fishermen
in lateen boats with leaning masts
and archaic sails.
Thanks to Mr. Mestre's teachings,
Linou and I navigated with the lateen sail on Thau Salt Lake.
"Too much water in the sea!" her father would say.
I'm heading out across Sète
on my own, in a lateen boat
using motor or sail, depending on the bridges.
Savonnerie Bridge...
Crossing the Cadre Royal, where the Jousts are held...
heading for Civette Bridge...
From Victoire Bridge, which turns,
to Tivoli Bridge, which rises...
And the two bridges where trains pass, near the Pointe Courte.
I named my first film after this neighborhood.
This is the last shot.
- When do we arrive in Paris? - Tomorrow morning.
We'd say, "Going up to Paris" as if France were vertical.
The whole family, including my father, gathered in Paris
while the war was still on.
Food ration tickets, wooden soles.
Paris was full of Germans. The Occupation, you know.
The streets were cold and dark.
The street lights were out.
In the houses, we obscured the windows with blue paper.
At high school, during air raids,
classes continued in the basement.
Mallarmé poems amidst sacks of sand...
We were given two vitamin-enriched biscuits a day.
I didn't climb the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame,
but I did hang out on the riverbank, near the boats.
I missed Sète harbor and its seagulls.
They rarely discussed the war at home.
People mostly lived day to day.
When Paris was liberated, we were in the country. We missed it.
First Baccalauréat final, braids and white bobby socks.
Second Baccalauréat final,
I started the Ecole du Louvre.
To get there,
I took the Pont des Arts, my favorite bridge.
What a pleasure... though the first year was intense.
Philippe de Champaigne...
and his sister in the convent.
Cézanne...
and his modest mother.
Art history books were in black and white.
I'd borrow them from the Louvre library.
I remember reading on the banks of the Seine,
just below.
Years later I wrote a script, "Nausicaa".
The story of a girl with a Greek father,
studying Ancient Art at the Louvre.
France Dougnac played Agnès
and a young Depardieu played a beatnik.
Give me back my books! Why'd you take them?
1st answer: No. 2nd answer: I have no money to buy them.
- That's no reason to take them. - Sure it is.
Need is my motive. I need art books just like you.
Fine, steal. But not mine, I need them!
Young people are all alike. They crave revolution
just to disturb the older generation, the bourgeoisie.
Steal from the old farts, not from the youth!
The sacred youth, bourgeois or otherwise.
I'll have to buy them.
That means you have money.
You have money, so I'll take the books.
- I've got books. - I'm calling right now!
Call the ambulance or the police.
But you won't dare. Don't you have a slight aversion to the police?
Sending a poor man who needs culture to jail
without books or sunshine...
You wouldn't dare.
Peace.
I didn't know many boys.
I was nervous, reserved, insecure, intimidated by everything.
And I had a problem to solve:
how to enter the world of men,
who frightened me, intimidated me.
I had bad images of men.
I had to lose my virginity.
I had to find a man to serve this unique purpose.
In reverie,... a delicate stranger.
In reality,... a delicate adult.
Nothing could beat surrealist poets and painters,
mad love,
and Baudelaire, Rilke, Prévert and Brassens.
We played with chance. We played "exquisite corpses".
I feel safe in the belly of this whale.
Sheltered from the world,
sheltered from the coastal wind,
inside my coastal shelter.
Today I'm creating images which have haunted me for a long time,
since Bachelard's classes at the Sorbonne.
I didn't always understand what he said,
but when he spoke of the whale who swallowed Jonas,
or Jonas in the whale's belly, unwilling to come out...
I felt involved and happy,
like I do today.
It was the age of questions, not knowing what you wanted,
knowing what you didn't want.
I'd rather eat an apple in my room.
What did you say?
I just graduated, and I've been 18 for three days!
Running away, without telling anyone, seemed necessary.
I plotted in secret,
sold several objects
and bought a 3rd class train ticket to Marseille
and a deck ticket for the boat to Corsica.
Ah, my first night of freedom!
Under the stars,
curled up on deck in a coil of rope.
Upon reaching Ajaccio, I settled in on a quay
with an old fishing net.
As I knew how to mend it,
a fisherman needing help took notice and hired me.
My first job
was to row while they cast or raised the nets.
But the boat was bigger than this, and there were 3 of them.
Three months of hard work and unambiguous cohabitation
with these silent men
made me strong and less fearful.
It was a good start, not a profession.
I had to get back to Paris to learn one.
Ok... photographer!
I took night classes in photography
at Vaugirard, where Jacques Demy went 2 years later
to study cinema.
Apprenticeship with Rodin specialists.
I wasn't allowed into the darkroom.
My job was to guillotine prints
and retouch them with gouache and a little spit.
They gave me several prints, which deteriorated.
They're beautiful like this.
Like my ceiling, which I put off repairing.
Training certificate, first equipment:
a real chambre, as we called them,
and a second hand Rolleiflex Mother bought
from a "Détective" magazine reporter.
First paying job at Galeries Lafayette,
400 children per day.
Then a gig with the French Railway.
Photos of my friends, artists and artisans,
most of them from Sète.
I had photographed Andrée and Jean Vilar's children
on the beach in Sète
and at the Parc Montsouris.
One day he asked me to the Avignon Festival
to lend him a hand and take some photos.
The previous year, 1947, I'd missed out.
I'd gone fishing in Corsica.
This time I went, and I was thrilled.
I discovered the Papal Palace...
The courtyard where Vilar built his stages...
This was for Richard ll.
There are no more plays in the orchard.
But I did meet a wandering musician there.
Where are you from?
Brazil, Salvador, Bahia.
Avignon Festival, 2007 Saint Charles Chapel
Festival directors Vincent and Hortense
proposed I expose here my photographs
of the festival's early years.
For those who don't know, Jean Vilar founded
the Avignon Festival.
He was a great man of the theatre
and a remarkable actor.
In 1948,
when I took this picture
of Vilar after losing his crown,
waving his hand in abandon,
I was really ashamed that his hand was blurry.
Under the tyranny of the sharp image, I felt my photo
was an utter failure.
Now I like blurry images, especially in the foreground.
This is Anne and Gérard Philipe.
I'd like us to film Thierry
putting the ancestral tiles back in.
This whole idea of fragmentation appeals to me.
It corresponds so naturally
to questions of memory.
Is it possible to reconstitute
this personality, this person Jean Vilar,
who was so exceptional?
This photograph of Gérard Philipe stands 5 meters high.
The puzzle side of things pleases me.
There's something of a sleepwalker in this character.
I asked Gérard to dress as the Prince of Hamburg in broad daylight.
My idea was to create,
with bright sunshine,
the effect of a full moon.
As to the flashing cameras at openings, we know their effect.
It's crowded, everyone's distracted.
Noise, speeches.
Always the same. Compliments, thank yous, waiting.
Emotion is something you can't control.
Of course it's amusing
to see Vilar wearing his sunglasses
as a mustache,
rather than normally.
He's watching his actors.
But I...
Mostly what I see, is they're dead.
So I've brought them roses.
Roses and begonias.
For Casarès, who's gone...
Begonias.
Begonias for Gérard Philipe, gone. For Noiret, dead.
For Denner, dead.
For Germaine Montero, dead.
For Vilar, who I admired so.
For this flamboyant young man. All the girls loved Gérard Philipe.
And he's dead.
I cry for them from my heart.
I expose them as an artist
who's proud of what she can do,
proud to be invited,
and proud when people say, "What beautiful photos!"
"What a beautiful chapel!"
"How young and beautiful they were!"
Naturally I think of Jacques.
All the dead lead me back to Jacques.
Every tear...
every flower, every rose and every begonia,
is a flower for Jacques.
He is the most cherished of the dead.
I met him in 1958 at the Tours Festival.
In 1959, Jacques came to live here with me,
in this house
and courtyard.
This is where we raised Mathieu and Rosalie.
Rosalie became a costume designer
and Mathieu is an actor.
This courtyard, now so charming,
was in a horrendous state
when I first arrived here in 1951.
I got the idea to rebuild it as a set.
It was an alley
between an old grocery store and a framing workshop.
I liked it.
My father came to visit. He said, "You want to live in this stable?"
I said, "Yes, wait and see.
"It'll be nice, later. "
Then my father died
and I moved into this run-down place
with no heat or bathroom, nothing.
Just a Turkish-style toilet in the courtyard.
These were relics of those who worked here.
Frames, even.
Like this one.
I actually picked that one here,
and found it beautiful.
Calder was tickled by it.
I liked his neighborly visits to the courtyard.
I took photos of his wonderful mobiles.
Calder said he made them in no time.
He gave me one for the time I'd spent for his photos.
What a fellow!
What a wonderful man!
So light on the Sète beach,
so joyful.
I made a mirror of the frame, and used it in some films.
If you want to look at the spectators,
you have to look into the camera.
I look at the camera constantly.
Even when I tell about my urgent work
to set up a fully-equipped darkroom...
where negatives become images.
My early days as a photographer were difficult. I was on my own.
A relatively solitary life,
with passing elations,
crushes, love stories...
There were some awfully cold winters.
I had a Godin stove brought in and coal delivered.
Each day, I'd take my pail
and go pick up the coal.
I lived in rabbit-fur lining
a wool bonnet and gloves
day in and day out.
The cold courtyard
served as a set for Jane Birkin and Laura Betti.
Little A: Patience.
Little B: Courage.
The law of the wise unemployed person.
Oh my friend, how you must've suffered from the cold!
But come,
my boss is looking for an employee.
I mentioned you.
Our neighbor, the good baker, accepted our circus on his turf.
Your stories sure are funny!
I was a baker and she was a dressmaker.
He was a baker back home where I'm from.
I'd take bread out to her.
I couldn't wait to see him on Wednesdays, when he'd come.
I liked his craft.
I was happy to become a baker's wife.
And also,
he was quite handsome.
My neighbors were often my models.
The Tunisian grocer
and Bienvenida, who was an amazing woman.
She lived in the same courtyard as me,
with her husband and her son Ulysse who I loved so.
I exhibited my work in the courtyard.
Neighbors came,
and artists like Hartung,
Prassinos,
Brassai...
A nude in the shape of a walnut,
and a potato in the shape of a heart.
Just one in 1953,
and hundreds in 2003 for the Patatutopia exhibition
at the Venice Art Biennial,
with 700 kilos of real potatoes on the floor.
To attract visitors,
I went around as a talking potato,
naming all kinds of potatoes.
When I left, my costume had a photo for a head...
or a cat...
or a ceramic tile...
or a mosaic...
like my first official self-portrait.
Mosaics and frescoes... I loved ancient art.
The women of Piero della Francesca
led me to Silvia Monfort,
paired with Philippe Noiret,
who looks a bit like Philippe le Bon.
As for the image of the couple, I'd seen some Braque.
Back then I also discovered Picasso,
with enthusiasm.
I had to write dialogue for the couple.
Which I did, on Sundays in my courtyard.
If you want peace, I can leave.
You talk only of happiness.
That's right.
For the editing,
Alain Resnais joined the pool of volunteers in the cooperative.
I gaze at his classical features.
They don't reveal his passion and curiosity for art, culture,
and the complexities of surrealism.
He even filmed a missing shot.
My courtyard provided a link shot
for a street in La Pointe Courte.
You'll be telling me once again, "This can't go on. "
Maybe.
Alain's assistant was Anne Sarraute
who introduced me to her mother, Nathalie Sarraute.
With her Sioux features, she was the sharpest of writers.
She enlightened me, she influenced my work,
and her friendship was a joy.
While we were editing in 1955,
this one fellow often called Resnais:
Chris Marker.
When he came, we saw only his leather jacket,
boots, gloves and glasses.
He's so discrete he has a cat represent him,
a cat named Guillaume in Egypt.
He's the author of amazing films and assorted commentaries.
I'll have to deal with him.
He's my friend and interlocutor,
but I changed his voice.
Why did you go from photography to cinema?
I remember wanting words.
I thought if you paired images with words you'd get cinema.
Of course I soon learned it was something else.
Were you a film buff?
No, I wasn't a film buff.
I'd only seen about 10 films by the age of 25.
I didn't go to film school or work as an assistant.
I used my imagination
and took the plunge.
I got support
and help from generous technicians.
It's not their fault the film lost money.
I continued to work as a photographer for Vilar.
The TNP went from the Papal Palace to the Chaillot Palace.
Almost daily
I'd go up to Trocadero hill.
I needed a car.
I'd park my first 4 chevaux at home.
The courtyard and garage were so narrow
I had to do some tricky maneuvering.
Inching forward...
inching backward.
I had to do it 14 times
to get into this tiny garage.
On a good day I'd get in there in 13 times.
Take a great leap forward, go to China!
I told them you were a sinologist
and a good photographer.
I brought the works: Leica, Rolleiflex,
bellows...
I was loaded up like a mule.
I brought back thousands of images.
I focused on the work
and collective impulse of this brand new revolution.
Sometimes I'd stop because the landscapes were beautiful.
In China in 1957,
I was amazed to hear this waltz everywhere.
In the nurseries, to my surprise,
the babies wore colorful costumes
whereas in France they were still in baby blue and pink.
I brought back bonnets that Rosalie wore
a year later.
Before she was born,
I wrote letters to her future father I was in love with.
But our love affair ended when Rosalie was taking shape.
I had decorated the envelopes.
He sent them all back.
I made a bundle of his, never reread.
I raised Rosalie alone,
then with Jacques.
We often went to Noirmoutier.
Jacques wanted to show me this island where he camped as a teenager.
He was looking for a fisherman's house.
We found an abandoned mill.
I was intrigued by a glove hanging there.
The island's specialties are potatoes and oysters.
What a beautiful oyster!
What a beautiful mussel!
What a beautiful wave...
The New Wave...
Hey! Oyster, mussel, wave!
Enough.
Tell us instead about the birth of the New Wave.
Truffaut, Godard, Resnais,
Chabrol, Rivette, Demy...
And you, La Varda?
So, Jean-Luc Godard
went to see Beauregard and said,
"I'll make a film, get you back on top. It'll be great. "
He was right.
He made "Breathless".
It was a big success.
The audience loved it. Georges de Beauregard asked Jean-Luc,
"Got any pals like you,
"who make cheap films that make money?"
Jean-Luc introduced him to Jacques Demy,
who made "Lola" with Anouk Aimée.
So Beauregard said to Jacques,
"I want a stable of guys like you, know any?"
Jacques said, "No, but I've got a girl, Agnès Varda. "
Beauregard said to me,
"Do like your pals, make a cheap little B&W film. "
So I made "Cleo from 5 to 7"
with Corinne Marchand.
All the doors are open
The draft is so cold
We had to shoot quickly and focus on the content.
Cleo is afraid she has cancer.
I follow her minute to minute,
in real time, in a real situation.
I wanted the film to combine
objective time, as seen on the omnipresent clocks,
and subjective time,
as Cleo experiences it during the film.
Before and during the shoot,
I had Baldung Grien's paintings on my mind.
Voluptuous beauty and bony death.
Sweet flesh cannot live forever.
Her fear of cancer and death met another fear,
the fear of a soldier in the Algerian war.
That war of colonization was contested by many.
Others bombed the protest sites.
Still others fought that war.
In the film, Antoine Bourseiller plays the soldier
who, before leaving for Algeria that very night,
experiences a moment of intense friendship with a tall blond.
The film was selected for Cannes.
Corinne feels like she's queen for a day.
Nobody knows or recognizes me.
Everything amuses me.
Back then we introduced the film before the screening.
The presenter, Léon Zitrone, introduced me as
"Agnès Varga".
Probably because of the Varga Girls at the Casino de Paris.
After the screening,
we posed together outside the former Palais.
The TNP costume designer made my dress,
plus some circus spangles at my request.
I never imagined "Cléo" would be invited everywhere,
with or without me,
and that I'd travel here and there, with or without Jacques,
whose films "Lola" and "Bay of Angels"
went to many festivals
before the mega-tour of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg".
In 1962, a halt in Cuba,
in the middle of its revolution.
It was Socialism and cha-cha-cha,
with big hopes and energy, beautiful to witness.
I took pictures to film later.
I had to photograph Fidel Castro.
When I did,
I saw a tall utopist with stone wings.
And I had to photograph the sugar cane harvest.
Radical climate change.
In the dead of winter in Noirmoutier,
I sorted and prepared the 4,000 Cuba photos
for my animated film.
Jacques and I
loved arriving on the island just after the tides cleared the road.
We loved that island,
living there,
writing there.
I feel good by the sea.
Like the sea, with its changing colors...
Maybe I'm a bit like that too,
gray and blue.
I'd like to make calm films.
Films about happiness.
I made a film about a particular happiness.
I filmed it in the delicate landscapes of the Ile-de-France
that had so impressed the Impressionists.
It's the simple story, actually not so simple,
of a little family.
With Jean-Claude Drouot, his wife
and their children.
We all know the tender expression of parents gazing at their children.
Tender is an understatement.
Come see.
Come see... Hélène.
You know, Jacques took this picture.
It's intimidating for me to film you two.
I'd like to see you always together.
My beautiful children, the children of Jacques and Antoine,
raised by Jacques... My beautiful children.
Such as we are!
Here's Rosalie, at the end of "Umbrellas".
She's the love child.
I was paid, I got a little umbrella and grocery store.
Here she is in "One Sings, The Other Doesn't".
- For my 18th birthday. - You didn't argue.
I had no choice!
I had no choice.
And this one, Mathieu Demy...
I watched him grow up on screen.
Apparently Nazism wasn't much at first.
They only had six members.
But this is fiction, while he's still alive he can serve us.
He amazed me in a pastiche from "The Golden Age",
in homage to Luis Bunuel.
Was that my little Mat?
When I shot "Daguerreotypes",
Mathieu Demy was just little.
I'd had him late and wasn't keen on leaving him.
Filming in the neighborhood suited me.
It kept me close to home.
My merchant neighbors agreed to come to the café
for Mistag's show.
They let us shoot in their shops.
I promised to use my own electricity.
I'd thread the cord through the mail slot.
Every morning
we pulled the cord
to the café, the bakery,
the accordion seller,
the guy who sold clocks...
On the other side,
the tailor,
the hardware store... Then further down,
the butcher,
the grocer,
and this couple I loved so much,
Mr. and Mrs. Chardon Bleu, at the end.
I said I'd go no further than 90 meters.
That was the limit.
At night we'd pull the cord back
and put away the lights.
The cord stayed stuck in the slot,
and I went home.
We cut the electricity.
One time, I told the story of this long cord,
90 meters and all...
And someone said,
"You didn't want to cut the umbilical cord. "
They may have been right.
Our facade went through transformations.
So did the Belfort Lion, who reigned over the neighborhood.
André Breton suggested he chew a bone.
And I replaced him with my cat Zgougou.
Zgougou is also the mascot
and logo of our production company.
Ciné Tamaris.
You want to speak to Cecilia Rose? One moment...
I'm calling about a rental of "Peau d'Ane".
Hello? Please hold.
There's no more tea!
Have you got the estimate?
Not yet, not yet.
Here are the "Jacquot" reels.
Thanks.
I'll put you through... Agnès?
Me first!
See Stéphanie.
Bank Neuflize OBC?
We need a loan without interest
to finish this film comfortably. Please.
It's hard to bear the weight and expenses of a production.
You must strike a delicate balance between imagining a film,
financing it and paying for it.
Yes, you must spend,
but you must also collect.
If not money, then trophies.
In a closet or on the sand,
Demy's prizes and mine stick together.
The Golden Palm from Cannes and the Golden Lion from Venice.
Go on, go!
We had the beach 2 days.
First day: gorgeous.
Second day, bad news: rain, the sand is wet.
Good news: we've got birds.
I'm home. The cats are here.
These two, too.
An imaginary family found in the street,
along with a handless clock and two chairs.
But for some people, finding means eating.
They live on our leftovers.
They go to market when it's over.
People throw away so much.
They rummage through garbage.
In the past, they foraged by necessity.
Today that's still true.
To see so much waste,
while others are going hungry...
It's deplorable.
I was able to approach them,
and sometimes film them on my own
thanks to these new little cameras,
digital, sound cameras.
I could even use one hand to film my other hand
catching trucks during the long trip North to South
for the "Gleaners" shoot,
and from the seaside to the center of France.
These are the departements I memorized as a child
with the help of puzzles now relegated to flea markets.
Gone are the days of, "Corrèze, county seat Tulle... "
"Lot, county seat Cahors... "
I like hanging around flea markets.
Hunting around, chatting, strolling, filming...
and finding stuff.
Look, a plate from Liège.
I'll give it to the Dardenne Brothers,
my brothers in cinema.
A sewing machine like the one in "L'Opéra Mouffe".
And some film cards.
My favorite film.
Here! Ten cents for my film.
Jacques Demy...
Jean Cocteau...
Before we were cinema cards with cardboard heads,
we were flesh and blood beings.
Lovers, like Magritte's.
We shared a bed, a table,
children, games and trips to Noirmoutier.
But the courtyard afforded us two domains.
That's what Michèle Manceaux observed.
On one side, Jacques, here with Michel Legrand...
Here, cinema is made in every corner.
Across the courtyard we find Agnès Varda
with Michel Piccoli,
finishing her latest film "The Creatures".
Edgar... You turn, and immediately...
as soon as you turn around...
Ready? Action!
Edgar?
Easier to do a link shot in Paris
than take Piccoli back to Noirmoutier
where the film was shot.
We'd settled in there, we went often.
The island inspired me.
In the film, Michel Piccoli talks to a horse.
Then to his wife,
Catherine Deneuve, mute
after an accident.
She looks like an Angel of Annunciation
when she announces they're going to have a child.
Jacques was nearby on the island, preparing a film with Michel.
He'd come to the shoot sometimes
and take Polaroid pictures.
But for the other films we were on our own.
We visited each other's sets only rarely,
and discretely.
I want to point out that Godard, in friendship,
let me film him without his dark glasses.
I loved his beautiful eyes and his cinema.
I took a few photos.
"The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" crew, like a family.
And beautiful Catherine on the Farewell Platform.
The yellow raincoat in the background is Jacques.
Here's Jacques Demy wreathed in his Cannes Golden Palm.
His film was popular in the USA
and Columbia Pictures offered him an attractive contract.
I followed Jacques because I loved him,
and they'd offered him a wonderful Hollywood adventure.
I didn't expect to stay long.
But in fact,
this town immediately seduced me,
immediately fascinated me.
The hippy movement agitated the town and its people.
Freedom, Peace and Love, Down with the Vietnam War,
Up with the Black Panthers, Women's Lib...
Huge peace rallies were held in public parks.
Jacques was looking for a partner for Anouk Aimée.
He had me test
a young actor named Harrison Ford.
But the studios advised him to forget acting.
He still laughs about it.
In 1967-68, I shot "Lions Love"...
Then we came back, ten years later,
and I shot my documentary "Mur Murs", but...
Thinking about it, time gets all mixed up.
When we lived in Beverly Hills with a palm tree,
and a kidney-shaped pool,
Rosalie discovered TV and commercials.
Ten years later, Mathieu fell for a pinball machine
in a seaside apartment.
My memories swarm around me like confused flies.
I hesitate to remember all that.
I don't want to.
And now I'm returning to my films' locations.
I'm not sure I'm happy about it.
The blue-eyed whale reminded me of Prévert.
California swimming pools
reminded me of my Hollywood hippy film,
"Lions Love and Lies".
The two guys were Rado and Ragni,
authors and actors of the famous musical "Hair".
And the divine Viva, Andy Warhol's muse,
who I'd met at the Factory in New York.
Here they are in a conjugal threesome,
watching the news of an assassination.
The slogan of the time in action: Sex and Politics,
Politics and Sex.
As for Emilie's desk,
it faced my favorite landscape, the beach.
Sometimes we put the camera there,
turned it on and waited.
Passersby staged their own scenes, invested the space.
Chance was my assistant for this film called "Documenteur".
Another day while shooting,
chance offered us a nasty lovers' quarrel.
We were alerted by angry voices.
I panned the camera.
I asked if the camera bothered them.
They couldn't care less.
So I sent in Sabine to walk past them.
How to describe Sabine Mamou? Her grave beauty...
And her laugh, that we'll never hear again.
She was a film editor. She agreed to play Mathieu's mom.
A mother and her son.
Emilie and Martin.
In retrospect,
I see she was another me.
- How's Martin? - He's well.
And Tom?
We're separated.
I don't believe it, not you two!
You got along so well.
Tell me, are you alright?
No.
If I'm not happy, what'll we do?
If he's not happy, what'll I do?
If they're not happy, what do they do?
Women or men, what do they do?
This pier on the Pacific Ocean
is the end of the line for the westward rush.
For many immigrants with dreams of success,
it's the end of hope.
But it's also
a favorite spot for Venice Beach eccentrics.
On this beach I like seeing friends from all times.
Tracy and Jimmy MacBride,
the independent filmmaker I met in 1968.
May '68 in France...
ring any bells?
I wasn't there, that's all.
But in '68, the Black Panthers
were organizing.
And I filmed them.
They protested, and I filmed.
And I marched with Vietnam War protestors.
No draft, but there are deaths.
An homage on the beach.
In this gallery, artists have designed posters.
30,000 of them have already been distributed,
but the artists don't know what effect this action has.
I came across our friend Gerry Ayres.
He's the one who brought Jacques to Columbia in 1967
and gave him carte blanche.
He also followed my adventures with the Hollywood studios.
Forget the studios.
I used French money to make my film about murals, "Mur Murs".
This one was an ad for a wedding dress shop.
This long fresco painted on six kilometers of wall
is called "Pigs' Paradise"
and surrounds a sausage factory.
They kill 6,000 pigs per day here.
Other murals express problems on a local level:
alcohol, battered women...
poverty, drugs...
and the demands of certain groups.
But here a guy painted his wife
for the surfers to enjoy.
I'm back at the beach with friends.
I'd like to make a short film about each of them.
Lisa,
Gwen,
Tom,
Lynn
and Alain.
Our friend Alain Ronay introduced us to Jim Morrison.
We'd go see Jim in concert.
He came to the house a few times.
A short digression, in France:
I once took Alain and Jim to Chambord
to see Jacques, shooting
his fairytale "Peau d'Ane".
With his favorite princess, Catherine Deneuve.
They came as film buffs, as friends.
End of digression.
Another digression:
a California brunch for two,
sharing the camera.
Thank you.
I forgot I was being filmed
and was caught cleaning myself less gracefully than a cat.
End of digression.
I'd like to tell a little beach love story,
the story of Patricia Knop and Zalman King.
Patricia knows the names of birds and angels.
They protect her and her family.
For so long now, I've watched them live in loving harmony.
A wave of tenderness for this couple.
A little twinge of jealousy.
I feel blue.
Back to France, the house
and the tree in the courtyard.
Jacques and I
were working on less gentle films than we'd made previously.
Sandrine Bonnaire was Mona the "Vagabond",
a beautiful rebel without a cause.
The film is a portrait of an enigmatic young woman,
drawn by those who crossed her path.
We get glimpses of her.
Her encounters are separated by 13 tracking shots
all moving right to left...
all with music by Joanna Bruzdowicz,
specially composed for these shots.
Can you take me?
I'll get my bag.
Mona is rebellious.
Assholes!
Mona wants to be free.
Fuck being a secretary. I left those petty bosses behind,
I don't need another one out here.
I'm not sure when I realized
that it wasn't just a question of freedom.
The feminist struggle had to be collective to exist.
Down with violence against women
Male chauvinism kills
Among the claims, the most urgent was
the right to choose to bear children or not.
No daddy no pope no king
No judge no doctor no legislator
Gonna make that choice for me
I tried to be a joyful feminist,
but I was very angry.
Rape, domestic violence, clitoral excisions...
Abortions in appalling conditions...
Young girls going to hospital for scraping
and young interns saying,
"No anesthetic, that'll teach you!"
Twice we loaned out
this charming pink house
for clandestine abortions.
I was among the women who signed a manifesto.
One newspaper dubbed it "The Manifesto of the 343 Bitches"
because we'd declared:
We've had abortions! Judge us!
It was true or false, but the more or less famous signers
made noise whenever a woman who'd aborted was judged.
Same struggles all over: Women's rights! Workers' rights!
For his part, Jacques Demy, along with Michel Colombier,
came up with a way to tell the story of a huge strike in Nantes.
The film is called "A Room in Town".
We don't want any trouble
Let us through! We won't leave!
Let us come through
We're here to fight for our rights
You have no right.
That's a movie.
But Delphine Seyrig and I really did march
at the Bobigny trial in 1972
for abortion rights.
And I was pregnant up to my eyes!
They pushed us against the barriers, and we laughed and shouted.
When she was young Delphine looked English
and we became friends.
I photographed her in my courtyard,
like other actors.
And again later, in the courtyard.
I loved how the feminist
turned into a fairy.
Magic wands aren't always where you expect them.
A wave of the wand and presto!
Joan of Ark.
Jane also wanted a shot at the role.
With my accent, it's impossible.
Imagine, "I shall boot the English out of France!"
It doesn't work.
I've said it before,
memories are like flies swarming through the air...
bits of memory, jumbled up.
Do you think you'll manage?
We're shooting in bits and pieces.
It's like doing a puzzle. You place the pieces here and there
until it comes together, but there's a hole in the center.
It happens at dinner parties, suddenly it goes quiet
and someone says, "Sing us a song!"
A song? Gainsbourg...
If I hesitate so often
between the Me and the I...
If I swing between feeling
And playing...
A bit of I, a bit of Me...
I dump it all out, then tidy up a little.
Even when we dump it all out, we reveal little.
The Eiffel Tower by day,
the Eiffel Tower by night.
I created an ephemeral monument to the glory of cinema.
Dziga Vertov
An eye, a camera, a gaze.
Action!
And here's Mr. Cinema, 100 years old and glorious.
I'm the golden age!
An old man with a fading memory.
That was Mom's problem, and her freedom.
She got mixed up, her memory failed her.
She mixed up the names of her children and her siblings.
But who would correct her?
She had a right to ramble.
I found it charming,
even funny.
I am David O'Selznick!
The other day you were Hitchcock.
I'm Jean Renoir, Nosferatu, Catherine Deneuve,
and... David O'Selznick.
I created
three or four dreamy creatures who are now huge stars.
My head is full of stars,
faces, beauties!
It's a dream.
It was a dream to have the means and a wonderful crew
to film such impressive stars.
But for some reason
maybe it was my fault -
the film took a dunk!
As for the famous Mr. Cinema,
he was also a little old man, all alone at night
hoping someone would pay him a visit.
It feels better to grow old together.
That was our plan, even more so when we got back together.
It was sweet and surprising.
We traveled together,
we lingered in a painting.
We went to beaches and museums.
We hung around with Bill Viola
and Rauschenberg.
We were close to Jacques Monory...
And we lived with Prassinos' cat.
We looked. Together.
And boom!
Jacques fell ill. A fatal disease.
He was sick. He stayed home a lot.
Go on now, let me write.
He wrote about his childhood in the garage in Nantes,
where he lived with his family.
He had me read the pages at night. One day I said,
"This would make a great film. "
He said, "I don't have the strength. You do it. "
I said, "Would it please you if I made this film about your childhood?"
He said, "Yes, do it. "
We knew Jacques didn't have much time left.
Rosalie, Mathieu and I were by his side.
Rosalie and I cared for him in turns, especially when production started.
Cine-Tamaris had to quickly
raise money and assemble a crew.
I remember that crew, so motivated by the film,
so generous, and sensitive toward me.
Especially Marie Jo, who was close to Jacques and me.
I met with some of them recently
and we spoke about those special times
with Didier and Mireille.
Jacques was dying, he knew he was dying.
He knew AIDS was incurable,
he knew it could only get worse.
We all knew it.
Nobody talked about it.
It was a kind of affectionate silence,
totally respectful of Jacques, who didn't talk about it.
We accepted this silence because it was Jacques' silence.
It was his choice to remain silent, and so we did.
Back then,
in 1989,
AIDS was considered a shameful disease.
It was taboo.
His illness was part of the project.
We were working as much for him as for you.
For all of us.
He was somebody, Jacques Demy!
We had this idea that we were...
accompanying Jacques
as long as we could by shooting the film.
I didn't know how he viewed the reenactments,
how we reinvented what he'd experienced or said.
Sometimes he'd come with his brother and sister.
His mother came, too.
You'll draw a crowd!
I was a bit nervous he'd intervene, or say, "It wasn't like that... "
I approached him.
"How is it? Not too different?
"Can you see yourself in it? You as a child?"
And he said, "Oh yes, it's just right, I'm there!"
His words encouraged me to continue, and structure the film.
There were several films. One in black and white.
An homage to the films of the 30s and 40s,
telling Jacques' story from the age of 9 to 19.
We shot as simply as possible.
Then there was a proposition. It could've been a Master's thesis.
If we explore Jacquot's life, will we find
scenes which became scenes in his films?
And if so, a scene from Jacquot of Nantes...
The engine still rattles at first but it's normal.
Thanks.
...became a scene in one of Jacques' films.
The engine still rattles at first but it's normal.
Or vice versa.
I'd take a scene from one of his films
and write the script in such a way
as to present it naturally.
It's almost good.
There was another film.
Jacques was still alive.
In this difficult time, this hard road he was on,
all I could do was stay by his side,
be as close to him as possible.
As a filmmaker, my only option was to film him
in extreme close-up: his skin, his eye,
his hair like a landscape,
his hands, his spots.
I needed to do this, take these images of him,
of his very matter.
Jacques dying, but Jacques still alive.
The shoot finished on October 17...
and Jacques died on October 27, 1990.
These women are all widows from Noirmoutier.
I filmed them and presented them in this way
so we could choose to listen to one or another,
person to person, confidentially.
Thierry's presence still fills the house.
His odor, his...
Two days ago we ate green beans he'd bought at the market.
It's still so new...
He was quite the man, he was!
Never a word.
He came in from the sea after a drink,
he went to bed, he slept. That was it.
I'm part of the show and keep silent.
My exhibition at the Cartier Foundation
was thanks to Hervé Chandez.
He had no idea how happy he made me by inviting me.
The old filmmaker turned into a young artist.
Presenting widows - the heart in winter -
but also the plastic colors of summer.
I was almost 80 years old.
In French slang "broom" means "year". I'd be 80 brooms!
I was surrounded by young technicians and friends.
This is an homage to Sempé.
I FEEL PAIN EVERYWHERE
I'm fortunate to be helped in my work by Rosalie and by Christophe Vallaux.
He's a scenographer.
He's well known for his fashion sense
and his caricatures.
In Noirmoutier we spotted some shacks
for him to build for the exhibit.
The portrait shack, for example.
Full of islanders,
women I encountered here and there,
all beautiful.
The same background
for each woman
and another one for the men.
I went around with this background,
placing it behind those who accepted to pose.
I also used them for my family.
Rosalie,
her three sons: Valentin,
Augustin
and Corentin.
Mathieu,
Joséphine
and their son Constantin.
Together, they're the sum of my happiness.
But I don't know if I know them
or understand them.
I just go toward them.
One day a neighbor came to visit.
His father had filmed the mill, that is now ours,
with a 9.5mm camera.
Thanks, Neighbor Satie, for such rare images.
The miller's name was Adam Gervier. He had 11 children.
I got Mom!
Often I stop writing.
The world's in bad shape
and I'm overwhelmed.
At this very moment, disasters, wars, earthquakes.
I sit in safety and imagine those situations.
People without shelter, entire families on the road.
I sit motionless
and think of my dear ones.
Family is a somewhat compact concept.
We mentally group everyone together
and imagine them as a peaceful island.
This shack has a story.
Once upon a time two good and beautiful actors
played in a film which turned out to be a flop.
Gleaner that I am,
I salvaged the abandoned prints of the film
and unrolled the reels.
And the two good and beautiful actors became
walls and surfaces, bathed in light.
What is cinema?
Light coming from somewhere
captured by images more or less dark or colorful.
In here, it feels like I live in cinema,
cinema is my home.
I think I've always lived in it.
It's not over!
Sometimes the curtain opens again!
Someone's asking for you.
Happy birthday, Agnès!
After the fiesta I found myself alone
and I counted the brooms.
Yes, there were exactly 80 of them,
including these four.
Then another one, sent by email,
another of bloody Guillaume's ideas.
It all happened yesterday and it's already the past.
A sensation combined instantly with the image, which will remain.
While I live, I remember.
Subtitles: Sionann O'Neill
Subtitling: CMC - Paris