Today's Female Filmmaker is a maven of French cinema. She is one of the most celebrated French directors of all time, regardless of her gender. We are obviously talking about Agnes Varda!
Director Agnes Varda came up in France during the lauded French New Wave movement. This movement was defined by jump-cuts, strong and unique visuals, and an untraditional narrative style that tended to focus on themes of existentialism. Her films used this experimental style but tended to be incredibly realistic as well as focusing on women's stories...which is where we got to see some realistic female nudity. Yippy!
Agnes was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1928 as Arlette Varda. She moved to Paris for college which gave her a lot of inspiration as she studied at the acclaimed Sorbonne, a place that she thought was pretty stupid and antiquated. Her words! Don't come for me! She took her art school training and began working as a photographer which lead to her becoming one of the prominent photographers of Left Bank Cinema (the more bohemian directors of the French New Wave). To be honest, she had barely even seen films when she started making them. She said she wrote her first screenplay the way that "a person writes his first book. When I'd finished writing, I thought to myself: 'I'd like to shoot that script'". She barely knew what she was doing, but she learned as she went along and followed her instincts which turned out to be great. Her first film was made in 1954 before the French New Wave movement was really started, but it was filled with some of the themes we would soon come to know and love.
On a completely personal film nerd note, Agnes Varda is one of my absolute favorites. Cleo from 5 to 7 is a captivating movie and it goes into my personal top ten list for best films directed by women. Varada understood that human beings are really complex in the most subtle ways and her films really showcased that. Look no further than her colorful 1965 film Le Bonheur - translated to English as "Happiness" - for proof of that. Technicolor only serves to accentuate actresses Marie-France Boyer and Claire Drouot who are nude in this movie.
If you are looking for a little bit more skin, then her 70s cinema is for you even though her work in the 70s are no longer considered French New Wave. By this time they are distinctly Varda! Her 1977 film One Sings, The Other Doesn't introduces us to some seriously sexy seventies chicks for a story that dives into the rising women's movement. Valérie Mairesse plays a middle-class girl who helps out her country friend Thérèse Liotard who is in dire straights and then they meet up again years later. We'd love to meet up with Valerie's full-frontal!
The 1985 film Vagabond introduced us to Laurence Cortadellas with her domes out as she gets out of a shower. Speaking of being wet, Macha Méril shows her tits when she is in the tub. Vagabond seems to love ladies who bathe! The movie itself is about the life and death of a female drifter named Mona. Her death is investigated by an interviewer looking to get to the truth of her life which gives us the movie's nonlinear storytelling, a nod to all of the narrative styles we enjoyed during the French New Wave. This is considered to be one of her masterpieces as it is divided into 47 scenes with each one being about the woman at the center of it all from a different person's perspective of her, showing us all the different ways our life story can be told by the people whose lives we affect. Just beautiful storytelling here!
Director Agnes Varda passed away in 2019 at the age of 90 and she was still cranking out films. In 2017, she was even nominated for numerous awards for her documentary Faces Places which she co-directed with JR. She made a lot of documentaries throughout her career, always choosing to uplift other people through film and bring awareness to different causes. Her best cause? Showcasing beautiful women by telling stories about them dealing with the dramas of everyday life:
