In her book Varda by Agnès, the filmmaker talks of her work like a place to be visited, gone through, stopped at and wandered around in. This invitation for a walk in her company, this way and that, shows that Agnès Varda has for a long while considered her images and the words that accompany them as installations. And it is true that the one who announced the Nouvelle Vague like “the swallow heralds the summer”, the director of La Pointe Courte (The Short Point) (1954), Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo From 5 to 7) (1962), Sans toit ni loi (No Roof, no Law) (1985), Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Harvesters and the Harvester Woman) (2000) is more and more interested in exhibitions. A number of her films deal with the nature of art, the importance of images, on ways of seeing, showing and looking, notably those three brilliant films she grouped as a trilogy, Salut les Cubains (Hello Cubans), Ulysse (Ulysses), Ydessa et les Ours (Ydessa and the Bears).
Ever since the 2003 Venice Biennial where she presented Patatutopia, Varda has installed and exhibited with the big names. Last year, the Cartier Foundation displayed her magnificent vision of things seen on the Isle of Noiremoutier, both melancholy and cheerful, in an exhibition entitled L'Île et Elle (The Isle and Her). In January 2007, a commission from the Ministry of Culture and Communication crowned this artistic and civic recognition with “A creation for the Panthéon” as a tribute to The Righteous of France. All this reminds us that Agnès Varda started out as a photographer, and in particular for the Avignon Festival, from 1948 to 1960, for which she was the official image maker at Jean Vilar's request. So, it is only natural to find two of her major installations this year as part of the Festival. It is as if Agnès Varda were presenting both her own return to her roots combined with the most daring work she has done to date on images.
An Agnès Varda installation she created for the Panthéon in Paris as a tribute to the Righteous of France on 18th January 2007. The Yad Vashem Memorial, in Jerusalem, first defined in 1953 the notion of The Righteous Among the Nations: non-Jews who, during the war, saved Jews, risking their own lives selflessly. 20,757 The Righteous Among the Nations have been located around the world and number 2,725 in France.
Agnès Varda designed an installation made up of people gazing and staring to honour these men, these women, a village (Chambon-sur-Lignon, is the only community to have received this recognition on a collective basis): to see the faces, the gestures, the attentions, the hideouts as the construction of as many havens. The photographs of the faces are laid out on the floor or propped up in pairs like books over a large circle. The faces of the righteous and of the extras, representing the thousands of unknown people whose images have disappeared, appear in the film she made. Above the circular set are four screens on which are projected two feature films directed by Agnès Varda. One is dark, unsettling and “historical” in black and white and the other simultaneously illustrates, in their everyday living conditions and in colour, the detail, the texture and the gestures of the Righteous as they saved Jews. Right at the back, stands the large tree of giant photographs as if nature had entered History. This is how Agnès Varda installs emotion: she ties and re-knots ties with History.
Distribution
conception et réalisation: Agnès Varda
scénographe :Christophe Vallaux
coordinatrice: Rosalie Varda films
prises de vues :Valentin Caron, Stéphane Krausz, Sophie Bosquet
montage :Baptiste Filloux
montage son :Fabien Caron
musique :Violaine Sultan
production :Franco American Films, Jacques Arnaud
photographies des Justes : Mémorial de la Shoah, CDJC, Yad Vashem, Emmanuel Finkiel, USHMM, Centre des Monuments nationaux, MONUM
portraits des “Justes inconnus” :Agnès Varda, Valentin Vignet
Production
Œuvre prêtée par :le Centre national des arts plastiques - Fonds national d'art contemporain, avec le soutien du: ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - Délégation aux Arts plastiques et de la Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles de Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur