Varda by Agnès (2019) - full transcript

VARDA BY AGNES

Subtitles: Sionann O'Neill

Subtitling: HIVENTY

Thank you for inviting me.

Seeing this marvellous opera house
turned into a cinema

intimidates me.

There might be children of paradise
up there.

Some of my films are known,

some well-known,

others not.

I'd like to tell you what led me



to do this work all these years.

Three words are important to me:

inspiration, creation and sharing.

Inspiration is why you make a film.

The motivations, ideas, circumstances

and happenstance

that ignite your desire to make a film.

Creation is how you make the film.

With what means, what structure?

Alone or not alone?
In colour or not?

Creation is work.

The third word is sharing.

You don't make films
to watch them alone.

You make films to show them.



You are the very proof of this sharing.

These three words guided me.

We need to know why we do this work.

I'll start with a short film,

one I often show in my talks.

Because...

a family member is in the film.

An older gentleman
who will introduce me, as in the past.

By chance, I was in San Francisco

for a festival.

A friend said, "You may know this man,

a painter named Varda.

He lives on a boat in Sausalito."

So we went to see him.
It was a Wednesday.

I instantly fell in love with him.

I absolutely had to film him.

In truth,

it wasn't so much about meeting him,

it was about knowing right away
how to film him.

I imagined the editing as I filmed him.

I wanted to share the spontaneity,

joy and excitement of the encounter.

Now what happens? I say, "Film clip!"

Mr. Varda?

I Don't know.

Are you Eugene Varda's daughter?

Yes I am.

Cut!

So, you are my niece!

Looks like it

cut!

A perfect example of a miracle.

From my inspiration to the shoot,
there was a day and a half.

Then I took my time editing.

For those of you who want to make films,

especially those starting out,

you need patience.

You have a project, but you need money,
from your school or elsewhere.

So...

you need patience,
but try to get around that obstacle.

Film quickly with the means at hand.

I show this film for its good humour,

and for the wonderful Yanco.

But my most well-known film
is Cléofrom5to7.

Has anyone in the audience seen Cleo?

Nice!

A fair few, as they say down south.

Cléowas inspired

by two very strong impressions.

Back in the 60s,
there were collective fears, as always.

The most common one was cancer.

People feared cancer.

Also, the producer told me,

"I'll make a film with you,
as I did with Godard and Demy,

but it has to be cheap."

So how would we do it?

We could shoot in Paris.
No travel expenses, no hotels.

The action could take place in one day,
limiting sets and locations.

It occurred to me
to shorten the timeframe further.

I'd film an hour and a half of her life.
90 minutes, like a film.

I actually follow Cléo

from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

illustrating time is difficult.

Time feels different
if we're happy or if we're anxious,

if we're expecting someone
or having fun.

I call that subjective time.

And then there's objective time.

Time we can't argue with.
Mechanical time,

counted in hours,
minutes or even seconds.

I wanted

to combine objective time,
the clocks we see everywhere,

with subjective time,

the way Cléo feels during the film.

You're wrong.
The card doesn't necessarily mean death.

The fortune teller says
it means transformation, not death.

But Cléo sees
a hanged man and clattering bones.

It gives her a fright.

Her fear and the threat of death,

consciously or subconsciously,
stay with her.

Just like this beautiful woman

painted by Baldung Grien.

A skeleton whispers in her ear
what she doesn't want to hear.

Or pulls her hair.

I had reproductions, postcards.

Tiny images to look at.

And a big mental image
at the heart of my project.

The film is in two parts.

First 45 minutes, second 45.

Exactly in the middle,
she sings her song.

And if you come too late

I will have been laid fo rest

Alone, ugly and pale

Without you

ls foo much.

I can't go on.

It's horrible!

- What's wrong?
- She's tired.

And you know, the word despair is evil.
Like the word rope.

Rhymes matter more than words.

It's a beautiful song.

You'll revolutionise the music business!

Really? What is a song anyway?
How long does it last?

Another tantrum.

Tantrum, tantrum!
That's all you ever say!

You make me this way!

Treating me like an idiot
or a china doll!

Now 1] lead a revolution
with grim words?

You call that song charming?
My big hit?

It'll be a hit funeral!

You tire me, you exploit me! Go away!

No, I'll go!
Angéle will make you drinks.

Session's over!

Leave the songs. I'll choose later.

I made two cuts for this presentation.

11 wear black.

In harmony with your songs.

She goes down.

There are ten steps.

We filmed all ten.

Then we filmed every step she takes
to cross the courtyard.

We chose not to cheat
with the distance or the geography.

The courtyard leads to Rue Huyghens.

That's where she walked.

It's the actual street
that leads to Boulevard Raspail.

The sidewalk was as it was,
with people watching her pass.

I wanted to go
from the coquetry of the first part

to something more real.

Cléo and what happens around her.

People,

pigeons...

Then she notices

a store called "Good Health."

And she can no longer stand the hat.

That doll face, always the same.
That ridiculous hat

She takes it off.
She becomes a woman who sees.

She's no longer seen,
as in the first part.

She sees.

I'd noticed a street performer.

I Asked him to come back.
Look what she sees.

How a guy earns his living.

C'mere, froqqy. Time for a new aquarium.

Third frog!

You can't help but notice.

Even in fiction,
I like to add documentary elements.

In this film,
as we follow Cléo and her fear,

we see people in cafés,

in the streets.

I love documentaries.

I know great ones
have been made in faraway places.

But big documentary journeys
are too far from me.

I want to film close to me.
What I know.

Daguerreotypes
was made on my street, Rue Daguerre.

I chose to film
my close neighbours and the merchants,

those who sold me bread, meat, hardware.
The hairdresser...

They create a kind of village.

At the bakery, people wait in line.

As everywhere, they wait their turn.

We were there for the time it took

to buy or sell something.

Nurith Avivis...

a director of photography.
A camerawoman.

She did the work.

We had sequence shots

where the camera lingered
on people waiting.

Nothing happens,

yet something happens inside.

That's it.

Videos and commercials move very fast.

But when you're in the duration,

you're really in.

We got set up.

Nurith takes no space.
Neither did I back then.

We got set up, hiding in a corner.

The sound engineer too.

The idea was to film people,

whether they realised it or not.

When you decide
to look closely at something

that may be trite, it's no longer trite.

The very act of looking at it
changes it.

Nothing is trite,

if you film people
with empathy and love.

If you find them extraordinary,
as I did.

We filmed that baker at work.

I loved how he scored the bread dough

with his razor blade.

I listened closely
to what the merchants said.

They weren't very open.

They weren't very friendly to outsiders.

They represented the silent majority.

That's what I filmed.

It occurs to me,

in contrast to what I just said,

that I once filmed an enraged minority.

The Black Panthers.

They were a movement of Black Americans

who, in 1968,

created a political program,
spoke out and protested

because some of their leaders
had been arrested

and one was in prison, Huey Newton.

They held protest rallies.

Jacques Demy and I
lived in Los Angeles then.

I took a plane
to film the protests in Oakland,

near San Francisco.

I was a little lady with a 16mm camera.
I said, "French television"

and they let me in
while they were training.

- Who are you?
- Black Panthers.

- Why are you here?
- To free Huey.

- How?
- Huey's teachings.

- What are they?
- The guns.

This brother here, myself; all of us
were born with this hair.

We wear it this way
because its natural.

Black people now realise
that black is beautiful.

The Black Panther movement
didn't last very long.

But it was a Black revolt,

for their identity,
and it was a feminist revolt.

Feminism was already going strong
in the USA in the 1960s.

Obviously, I was a feminist.

I was, and I still am.

And I must say,

issues surrounding women's liberation,

specifically,
the question of body politics,

really concerned me.

Back then, there were struggles

fought by both women and men

that led to contraceptive rights in 1972

and abortion rights in 1975.

It's old history now,

but I experienced it

and wanted to tell the story.

To do so,

I got the idea of two young women.

One already has children,
the other is a natural-born rebel.

How pregnant are you?

2 months, more or less.

Don't cry, get an abortion.

How, where? Think its easy?

Well find a way.

You're still up?

Anaré, you promised me!

Why do you lie? What'd we do to you?

- I needed money.
- As always.

Why didn't you ask?

It was for an abortion, you'd say no.

What?

My friend Suzanne needed money
for an abortion.

Their friendship lasts.

10 years later, we see them again,

after they've both lived, loved
and fought the feminist fight.

The feminist fight

was something I wanted

to put into song.

No papa no pope no king

No judge no doctor

No legislator

Gonna lay the law on my body

Biology isn't fate

Papa's laws are out or date

My body belongs to me

I'm the one who knows

Whether or not

I want to give birth

Whether to bring new life

To this earthly existence

Whether to be flat or round

The choice is mine

My body belongs to me

I really took it to heart.

For the music,
I hired Francois Wertheimer

and a girl group called Orchidée.

We used texts by Engels and Marx.

A very interesting thing:

"Nowadays, in the family,
the man is the bourgeois,

and the woman represents
the proletariat."

It flows better in a song.

But it's worth saying.

Hear that, birdie?

Listen.

When men and women both work full time,

you can set to music
the double shift women do.

Domestic Habits

Incredible friendships formed

in that collective struggle.

The women were often joyful.

We laughed a lot
as we fought for women's rights.

The joy and good humour of the group
come across in the film, I hope.

Now I'll make a jump.

Much later,
I told the story of a girl in a rage.

Not in a group this time, alone.

An enraged loner.

A lot of guys were out on the road.

It was kind of in fashion.

And I'd noticed
women were also doing it.

Backpacking.

I wanted to make a film
about these lawless vagabonds.

I wanted to film freedom and filth.

Tell the story
of a young woman on the road.

So I wrote the film Vagabond.

I asked Sandrine Bonnaire,

who'd been in Pialat's A Mos Amours

and was still only 17.

She was exactly who I needed.

- Is there a tobacco shop?
- Not here.

She's described by the people she meets.

They speak of her quite badly.

Mona's anger is what keeps her alive.

But saying no to everyone
leads her to her death.

The film's structure was precise.

I wanted the camera
to walk the roads with her.

To do that,

I used tracking shots.

There are 13 in the film.

The shots move right to left,
which is jarring,

because it's the opposite
of how we read in the West.

Each tracking shot lasts one minute.

We accompany Mona and her backpack.

We're in rural farm landscapes,
not particularly charming.

At the end of each tracking shot,
the camera leaves Mona

to film a local element or object.

Each subsequent tracking shot
comes about 10 minutes later

and starts with an object or element

reflecting what we've seen.

I enjoyed setting up an enigma
for which only I knew the secret.

Actually, the entire film

is a portrait in the form

of a discontinuous tracking shot.

Ten minutes later in the film...

this was the next tracking shot.

To music by Joanna Bruzdowicz,

composed solely for the tracking shots.

A lovely surprise, Sandrine has arrived.

I've talked about structure.

Now I'd like to discuss
what the role meant to you.

The first thing
you told me about the role was,

"She's a girl who...

never says thank you, stinks,
and tells everyone to fuck off."

We never discussed

where she came from
or why she was on the road.

It was about how she lives.

How she finds food,
where she sleeps, how she behaves.

We didn't analyse her.

We focused on what she did.

- Her actions.
- And behaviour.

You practiced putting on your backpack.

Putting on your boots.

You sent me camping with Setina.

- You slept outside.
- We did.

You wanted me to learn to make a fire
and pitch a tent.

There's a scene
where you repair your boots.

It was all concrete, physical things.

I remember pruning grapevines.

Pruning requires
simple but precise gestures.

You accepted me saying,
"You're Mona, figure it out."

Your own rebellion
went into the character.

I just needed to be there.

And you were. Solid and tough.

I wasn't easy on you.
I gave you a rough time.

Come on!

I remember at one point,
I'd dug up a whole garden patch

and had blisters.

I said,
"Real blisters, like you wanted!"

You said, "Good!"

That bugged me!

I should've licked your blisters
in thanks!

The film is unusual,

because you're dead at the start.

Even though I was young,
I imagined my own death.

Obviously.

And we made you to do it.
Get in the bag like a corpse.

That really freaked me out.

Cinema can be very humbling.

You have a project,
you write it, you make it,

with an actress like yourself...

But during the shoot,

things can feel quite harrowing.

After the shot of dead Mona, a beach...

Beaches are a place of inspiration.

A mental landscape.

You have the three elements.

Sky, sea and earth.

Here, the earth is sand and seaweed.

I remember the works of Bachelard,

a philosopher whose classes I attended.

Water and Dreams,

Air and Dreams,

Earth and Reveries of Repose.

Dreams, reveries,

dreams and repose. Everything I love.

But he also wrote
Earthand Reveries of Will,

I'll continue my chat here.

And I'll invite birds and children.

It's charming to talk to birds.

But real or fake,
they don't understand me.

We make films to share with audiences,

so I thought, "How awful it'd be
if they didn't listen or watch."

A filmmaker's nightmare.

An empty cinema

Nightmare!

Some of my films did well in the cinema.

Others less so.

We'll jump around.
I can't talk about all my films.

I can't follow the crim...

Not the criminology, the chronology!

We'll jump ahead to a summer film I made

in the 1960s

called Happiness.

I imagined Impressionist paintings,
with their melancholy.

And yet they're happy scenes
of daily life.

I listened to Mozart and pondered death.

I wrote and shot the film quickly.

Like the bright clarity
of our too-short summers.

Go to sleep kids. Daddy's sleeping.

Be quiet.

I wanted to show happiness
as it is traditionally described.

A woman and a man, beautiful children.

They love nature.

They're friendly, unpretentious.

A template for happiness.

And I wanted to set the story
in lle-de-France.

In places that had inspired
the Impressionists.

I shot in summertime,

in soft, delicate tones.

I accompanied the story
with music by Mozart,

which seemed to express happiness

with a little dash of anguish.

Jean-Claude Drouot was a TV hero.

He was Thierry la Fronde.

I went to the woods
to ask him to be in my film.

He was on horseback, in costume.

I said, "Excuse me, sorry to bother you.

Would you agree to make a film
with your real wife and kids?"

His wife hesitated at first,
but they did it.

It's no problem.
Annie can come babysit at 8:30.

We can make the 9 o'clock show.

lad love that.

On the surface,
it's a simple story of a happy family.

He's happy with his wife.

But then he meets a postal worker.

She looks like his wife.

He falls in love.

He thinks you can

add happiness to happiness.

The critics had a field day. Outrageous!

Does fidelity mean anything?

Can you film happiness?
Do we have the right?

I had such fun choosing the colours.

I went all out on the blue,

the yellow, the red...

Here we have a predominantly red picnic.

I also thought,

instead of ending the scenes
with the traditional fade to black,

it'd be nice to fade to colours.

So the scenes ended

in red, blue, purple, yellow.

I even made a flag,

with a dissolve in blue,

one in white, and one in red

to announce Bastille Day.

July 14th.

I used to describe the film

as a beautiful summer peach
with a worm inside.

A tragedy.

He cannot bear the situation.

He can't connect to it.

So I used repetition.

I tried repetition.

I used repetition.

I'd like to discuss
what a film is as a whole.

In literature, they use the word style.

In cinema, I use the word cinewriting.

It covers all the choices made
throughout the making of a film.

What do you film?
Fluid or abrupt shots?

Clear, isolated images
or crowded spaces?

Pacing? Music?

It all takes shape in the editing room.

I sometimes add commentaries,

to stay in the film
and be with the audience.

But in editing and mixing
we finish the cinewriting.

As for how a film starts,
life sometimes decides.

At a very sad time of my life,
when Jacques Demy was ll,

he shared his memories, wrote them down.

Fond memories of his childhood.

He was raised in Nantes,
in the garage where his father worked.

He was taking notes.

Every few days he showed them to me.

I said, "This would be a great film.
Will you make it?"

He said, "You do it, I'm too tired."

So I wrote a script
about Jacques Demy's childhood.

Set in the actual garage.

We kicked out the mechanics.
They let us use the place.

The old gas pump was still there.
It hadn't been removed.

It was a very particular experience.

I approached the film
in three different ways.

Black-and-white footage,

1930s style,

tells the story of his childhood.

Then there were colour excerpts

from films Jacques Demy made later,

all inspired

by his childhood.

The engine knocks when it's cold,
don't worry.

Thank you.

Is it ready to go?

Yes.

The engine knocks when it's cold,
don't worry.

And then there was
a third film within the film.

Jacques was still alive, but very ill.

I loved him
and wanted to be as close as possible,

help him as much as I could.

In film terms,
that meant extreme close-ups.

The whole film is a desire to stop time
and deny death.

No.

I don't see it that way.

Not to stop time. To accompany time.

The film accompanies Jacques as he dies.

As he remembers his childhood.

The love of cinema
starts early for some.

Little Jacquot invented cinema,
I dare say.

Look.

Nice set up.

- If's fragile!
- What is it?

Don't bump into the camera.

Look. To make the ballerina move,

I move her leg and take a shot

Move her leg, take a shot

Get it?

It creates a continuous movement.
If you film my arm...

you get a continuous movement.

Now get going.
I need quiet concentration.

No good. If's all out of focus.

No good at all.

Several years later, against his will,

Jacquot worked in his father's garage.

And this goes
around the customer's neck?

Start over!

Where's your mind?

On Hollywood!

Some mechanic!

It's extraordinary. Years later,

after the success
of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,

he was invited to work in Hollywood.

I went with him.

In Los Angeles I discovered,
like everyone,

the stars of the stars

on Hollywood Boulevard.

And I met some of the idols and stars

of the new Hippie Generation.

They wanted to make it in Hollywood
their way.

Three actors with big manes of hair:
Lions.

A love triangle: Love.

Television and the news: Lies.

For the cast,
I chose heroes of the hippie scene.

Rado and Ragni,
who wrote and played in AHarr,

and Viva, Andy Warhol's muse.

I went to the Factory in New York
to see Andy,

so he'd introduce us and convince her.
She was tricky.

Then he said:

Another character in the film
was the television set.

It was always there,
embodying the spirit of the film:

sex and politics.

Here the silence was planned,
but usually they talked a lot.

They improvised.

They changed the text
from one take to another.

The scenes were impossible to edit.

So I shot each take of each scene
with three 35mm sound cameras.

Sometimes they agreed
to pose like models.

This is an exact copy
of a drawing by Picasso

from a series he did in 1936.

This is another one.

I wanted to feature Shirley Clarke,

the New York filmmaker

who was, in a way, my double.

Another tableau,

this one inspired
by a Magritte painting.

I think of it as an imaginary
news report, a utopian fiction.

From my time in Hollywood.

A collage, made my way.

Ten years later,
a collage of names on walls.

I was fascinated by what I saw.

Giant murals.

I began documenting them in photographs.

You rarely know who made them.
They're unsigned. I asked neighbours.

Some fine arts graduates
became muralists.

For example, Kent Twitchell.

It was a form of resistance
against the art industry.

The idea is art should be free
for everyone.

Beyond the river is Bast LA,
with its Chicano Art.

I filmed large murals,

like those by Willie Herron.

But I also wanted to make cinema.

I often say Murals Muralsis a film
about the extroverted Los Angeles.

People express themselves through walls,
clothing and words.

But I also sense an introverted,

sad, desperate Los Angeles.

It's the story of Emilie,
a French woman exiled in Los Angeles,

looking for a place to live
with her son.

Sabine Mamou, who edited Murals Murals,
played Emilie.

This is your home.

Mathieu Demy played her son.

You mean I'll be sleeping...

all alone?

You'll be fine, you'll see.

If ] don't like it whatll we do?

If he doesn't like it whatll I do?

If they don't like it, what do they do?

He or she, what do they do?

She's extremely lonely,
she's going through a separation.

But she doesn't want to discuss it
with her son.

You don't confide in children.

So I decided
on a specific process for this film.

I'd use documentary images
to speak for her.

Or she monologues
over documentary images.

When you lose words like tureen,
ladle, table, warmth, togetherness,

the only words left are soup,

Solitude, separation, absence.

I had accumulated images
we wondered about.

We didn't always know
what we were capturing.

Silence or speech, pain or peace.

Some sequences were mysteries to us.

For example, we were on the beach

filming Sabine and the boy.

Lying on the sand

was a woman with a bible
and two men on either side of her.

The boy asks Sabine about it.

She has no answer. Neither did we.

We were open to filming
things we didn't understand.

Because in cinema and elsewhere,

it's important to feel, to experience.

What're they doing? Is she dead?

No. I don't know.

Why didn't we stay to find out?

Nurith Aviv and I would go out evenings
to capture images.

One image in particular struck me.

There was a woman doing her laundry
in a laundromat.

We'd just parked the car.
We filmed through the window.

That lone woman fiddled
with her greasy hair for a long time.

An extraordinary moment
of solitary sensuality.

The film is greatly enhanced
by Georges Delerue's music.

He watched it a few times

and improvised a score
that is captivating, frail and subdued.

Like a gentle ache.

Georges Delerue also composed,
23 years earlier,

the music for this short film,
Diary of a Pregnant Woman.

Like Documenteur,

this film was tied to my personal life.

I often went to Rue Mouffetard.

It was almost like the Middle Ages.

There was a market. I love markets.

And there were poor people

living on the streets.

Old folks, cripples

and drunkards.

I was pregnant.

I didn't tell people,
but I filmed a clear sign of pregnancy:

a big belly.

And the way
certain basic, ancestral fears

could be portrayed.

I was utterly haunted
by a fundamental contradiction.

You're full of hope,

you're offering a life to a new child,

who might be happy.

And yet, I saw a population

that was terribly,

terribly... unhappy.

They really inspired me to think.

They too had been newborns.

Maybe when they were wee babies,
even if they were unwanted,

someone cuddled them,
stroked their belly, even a bit.

Some of them

They were newborn babes

Someone, some other

some of them

Many of you want to make documentaries.

I think it's very important...

This isn't really advice,

but when you film something,

a place, a landscape,

a group of people,

you need a viewpoint.
At least to start.

You film in relation to that viewpoint.

It's both a documentary and staged.

There are two types of documentaries.

Pure and raw, reality only.

Those documentaries
can be extraordinary.

But I want mine to be a film too.

I think it's fun to prepare a film

with real reality, but also a twist.

I really love organising,

not the staging per se,

but the general outline
of a documentary.

From the very start, I understood

that contemporary musicians
were my allies.

I've mentioned Delerue.

There was also Pierre Barbaud,
the composer for La Poinfe Courte,

my first film,

shot in 1954

in a neighbourhood of Séte.

I made that film with no experience,

no film schooling,

no prior work as an assistant.

The film came out of nowhere.

I had a particular structure in mind.

I wanted to combine two films
with alternating chapters,

like a Faulkner book I admired,
The Wild Palms.

I'd alternate fishermen sequences
with couple sequences.

Two stories with nothing in common

except the location.

It's a confrontation

between the private and the social.

The labour representative

ls coming on the boat.

Don't talk about encounters.

It's a juxtaposition
of two approaches to the world.

One very stylish,

with composition and dialogue.

I know your gestures.

Your habits have become mine.

No more surprises.

And one that looks more
like Italian Neo-Realism.

Though I hadn't yet seen those films.

Alain Resnais, who edited the film,
taught me a lot.

I did another thing that wasn't done.

Usually sound diminishes
as people move away.

It gets quieter
until you barely hear them.

I decreed that the sound
would remain in the foreground.

So as they talk and walk away,

it feels like voiceover dialogue,

yet they're really talking.

It's synchronised.

But the sound stays up front.

I never used to have such thoughts.
Did you?

I've always noticed others.

But I don't want to live anywhere
but with you.

Let's leap from Séte to Sceaux.

In Sceaux Park, a project took shape
with my friend Jane Birkin.

We were walking and suddenly she said,
"It's terrible, I'm almost 40."

I said, "Don't be silly!
It's a wonderful age.

Let's do your portrait."

That's how it began.

I suggested to this lively,
vivacious woman,

that we do the opposite
of those tributes to dead actresses

that compile excerpts from their films
and interviews.

I said we'd create excerpts
of films she'd never made

and do pretend interviews.

We reversed the golden rule
about not breaking the fourth wall.

You must look into the camera
to look at me.

I'm trying!

Its like I'm filming
your self-portrait.

You won't always be alone in the mirror.

There will be the camera,
which is a bit me.

And if's OK if] sometimes appear
in the mirror or in the background.

We were in it together.
The filmmaker and the filmed.

The theme is painter and model.

It's a surprise portrait
of Jane in many roles,

including that of herself.

With my jeans, old sweaters,
messy hair, pajamas...

She was a good sport.

She was funny,

strange,

magnificent,

poignant.

They can eat and drink
a bit of my husband.

It was her first time
in a Spanish costume.

She hated it.

This is also the first time
I've dared show my writing.

Yes, you let me read it.

! liked it well use it

We ended up making a whole film
to tell the story she wrote.

She's a woman like me. She is me.

She falls in love with a very young boy.

A love story with an unhappy ending.

It'd be nice to shoot the film
as a family.

I get your art.

You want my son to play the boy.

Yes, of course.

This was a first.

We interrupted Jane B.
to make Aung Fu Master.

Starring Jane as planned,
and Mathieu as planned.

They played a love story

that was a bit different than Jane's,
because now

the woman was in love with a boy

who was himself in love
with a video game.

They throw high or low.
You gotta duck or jump.

The game was called Kung Fu Master.

And the boy wanted to master it.

Knock out a big guy or wizard to go up.

You have to rescue Sylvia
on the 5th floor.

We shot in summer.

I had Mathieu.

And Jane had her two girls.

We liked that.

When school started, we resumed Jane 5.

We played with cinema and painting.

Its hard to pinpoint when you slipped

from close-ups to the background,

lo the very back of the shot

Here she is as La Maja Vestida

and La Maja Desnuda.

And vexed

in the background of Titian's Venus.

May the plague take her! And old age!

May she die, may she rot!

Now we'll go
from the History of Painting

to the History of Cinema.

Cinema's 100th birthday
was celebrated very officially.

They asked me to make a film
about the 100 years.

I imagined a 100-year-old man.

A man whose name would be

Simon Cinema.
In French it sounds like "If my cinema."

"If my cinema isn't good,
see another film."

So ll called him Simon Cinema.

Monsieur Cinema,

played by Michel Piccoli,

lived in a castle
that was like a film museum.

Night is coming, and melancholy.

Come now.
Who and what shall we talk about?

Renoir? The Popular Front?

I was thinking
of the fellow with the big eyes.

Who? Buster Keaton?

No, not Keaton today.

Burivel. That eye he slashed in two.

Monsieur Cinema had visitors.

Hanna Schygulla and Jeanne Moreau!

I worked with experienced actors here.

They intimidate me.

For this film,
I dared hire a number of stars.

B for Belmondo.

D for Depardieu.

D for Delon.

I hear Monsieur Cinema has taken ill.

And D for duo. Two famous actors.

Deneuve and De Niro.

A dream.

A dreamy couple, an idyllic cruise.

In reality, on the technical side,

the ocean was a pond.

And 40 technicians found a clever way

for us to do tracking shots
with light stands,

filter screens, rails
and pillars for spotlights.

It was very hot.

We'd bought sunshades
and 20 rubber overalls.

The crew resembled slaves
going down The Nile on a fool's arc.

De Niro flew in on the Concorde
the day before.

He said he rose at 4 a.m. for 3 days,

to beat the jetlag in advance

and be in good shape for the shoot.

A one-day shoot.

He had to leave the next morning.

Getting up at 4 a.m.

was so professional.
We were impressed.

He was willing to shoot in a boat,
in a bowtie

and in French.

He learned his lines phonetically
all morning.

It was fun rehearsing with him.

Honey, did you turn off the gas,

change the cat litter
and put the mayo in the fridge?

Not bad!

I can brag

about getting Deneuve and De Niro
in a boat and in a film.

I can brag about writing a scene
where De Niro falls in the water.

But that was a stunt double.

The film took a dive too.

A box office disaster.

I Didn't make
another fiction film in 35mm

or 16mm.

Through to the end of the century.

But I'd made a few films.

They are appreciated and loved
around the world.

My films are covered in affection.

Freeze frame.

Let's talk photos,

with a return to the 1950s
and picture cameras.

I was a photographer in my first life.

I'll be brief about it.

Some remember

my photographs of Gérard Philippe

and Jean Vilar

at the Avignon Festival

and the TNP.
People still talk about them.

Back then, in 1950,
I began photographing theatre.

To document elements
of staging and performance,

and also, in particular,
to create images to represent each play.

For example,

The Prince of Homburg.

Officer, dreamer.

Shot outside in bright sunlight.

In profile,

the star-crossed lovers of Macbeth,

Vilar and Casareés.

And Aing Ubu, on a jaunt in Paris.

"Blue corn! Ham of God! Head of Cow!"

Caravans as dressing rooms
for Mother Courage.

And in a makeshift dressing room
at the Papal Palace,

Vilar alone,
after playing The Miser.

Salvador Dali in Cadaqués.

Brassai on Rue Fermat.

Eugene lonesco
with his three-nosed fiancée.

Pierre Székely and his daughter.

Simon Hantai with his wife and son.

And Mario Prassinos.

Calder in the 14th arrondissement.

A few filmmakers: Visconti,

Fellini,

Demy.

Jacques Demy.

Portraits of famous actresses:

Anouk Aimee,

Catherine Deneuve

and Jeanne Moreau.

And the famous L/der Maximo,
Fidel Castro,

with his wings of stone.

But also neighbours:

Mimi and her mother,

Boukkra the grocer.

And friends:

Igor, my brother Jean,

Linou

and Véronique.

Chance provided the staging

on Corbusier's terrace in Marseille.

These are people seen at random

and caught at the right time.

A Portuguese woman passing.

A salt maker, some salt

and a pious woman.

People outside a circus.

I liked to do composed photographs.

Groups too.

A family in the Ardennes.

School girls in Mukden.

China was so far away.

I felt emotions there.

With children.

A little girl with a flower.

The old woman in the back
has mangled feet.

A little boy.

Workers, or prisoners, pass nearby.

And a moving landscape.

A petrified forest
with two living beings:

a small horse and a man bearing water.

I'll sign off this prelude
with some self-portraits.

In this one, I was 20.

How I loved mosaics!

In this one, I was 36.

Standing on the right
of a huge painting by Gentile Bellini.

How I loved paintings!

And here I am at 80.

I experienced the passage
from one century to another.

As the year 2000 approached,
there were many rumours.

It'd be the end of the world.

A computer bug of epic proportions
would blow everything up.

In reality, that New Year's Eve

was celebrated a thousand ways,
from anxiety to exaltation.

But on the first morning
of the 21st century, all was calm.

The new century brought change.

Something new for me as a filmmaker.

Small cameras. Digital cameras.

They gave me an opportunity

to work in a different way.

These new cameras are digital

and fantastic.
They can be stroboscopic,

narcissistic,

even photorealistic.

I could do more personal, intimate work.

I could make documentaries freely.

I'd like to return to three words
I mentioned in my first chat.

Words that guide me.
Inspiration, creation, sharing.

I'd like to discuss inspiration again.

It's quite curious.

Sometimes it happens,

and it comes straight out of reality.

I was at a café on Blvd. Edgar Quinet.

The market was just finishing.

I saw vendors loading their crates,

baskets and cash boxes
into their trucks.

City cleaners were waiting
with their green plastic brooms.

And people began to come.

They bent down
and picked up what they could find.

A phrase took root in my mind.

"They pick up and eat
what we throw away."

The phrase felt like a subject
in itself.

I absolutely had to make a documentary.

Gleaning may be extinct,
but stooping has not vanished

from our sated society.

Urban and rural gleaners
all stoop to pick up.

There's no shame,
only worry and distress.

Those small cameras
really played a role here.

They allowed me to approach people
who'd fallen on hard times

and would've been uncomfortable
with a cameraman,

a sound guy with a boom,

assistants in caps and sunglasses...

All the clichés of a film shoot.

It was just me and my little camera,
like a picture camera.

I didn't frighten them.

I intimidated no one.

I never have.

It gave me a chance to meet people.
I'll tell you about Alain.

I see a man with a large bag
eating on the spot.

I'd see him now and then,
always with his bag,

always eating.

The day he was eating parsley

I approached him.

Are you a big parsley eater?

Sometimes. If's good for you.

Full of vitamin C and E, beta carotene,
zinc, magnesium.

It's excellent.

His answer amazed me.

Over the following weeks
I filmed him often,

with or without sound,

and he talked to me in snatches.

I eat a lot of fruit.
I love apples. They're easy.

I find all the apples I want

How many do you eat a day?

6or/.

ls if your staple diet?

I also eat bread.

I talked to him a number of times.

I learned how he went
from studying biology

to living in this difficult,
humble situation.

I was also keen
to explore agricultural gleaning.

Gleaning in the fields
after the harvest.

We had to shoot quickly.

It was potato season.

Seasons don't wait
on cinema's unpredictable schedules.

So I contacted a potato cooperative.

I saw the gleaners
and went to the cooperative.

In supermarkets, firm ones are sold

in containers of 2.5 or 5 kilos.

They have to be a specific calibre.

For the stores, we sell potatoes

ranging in size
from 45 to 75 millimetres.

All the rest
are automatically discarded.

We reject outsized ones, green ones,

sf ones and cut

or damaged ones.

The non-standard potatoes
are left in the fields.

Off 1 go with my 30 kilos.

There are several tonnes left

People could take some,
if they knew about it

There you go.

There's someone
who must have been tipped off.

Among the rejects, we find huge ones.

And heart-shaped ones.

The heart I want the heart!

What a surprise!

I Was happy.

I filmed them up close.

And brought some home.

Even with a documentary
on a specific subject,

you are guided by what you film.

Hearts speak of tenderness, love.

It was powerful.

We couldn't help but think about it.

It inspired us to approach the gleaners
with affection.

And those heart-shaped potatoes
inspired me.

I let them age,

sprout

and shrivel up.

Despite it all,

they found new life as sprouts

and roots.

That's when Hans Ulrich Obrist
came into my life.

He had a section
in the 2003 Venice Biennial.

He created a group

called Utopia Station.

Everyone did a poster
and an installation.

I had a potato costume made for me

to promote my installation Patatutopia.

There were 700 kilos of potatoes
on the floor.

It was the first time
I exposed on three screens.

I Loved it.

In the centre,
I put breathing, heart-shaped spuds.

And on either side, I put roots

and sprouts.

This work of rot
marked my entry

into the group of artists
known as visual artists.

The French call artists plasticiens.
We don't make plastic!

I prefer the English term:
visual artist.

I really enjoyed proposing

a more complex way of seeing.

It was also a nod
to 15th and 16th century triptychs,

which I love.

Some of them evoke special emotions.

I wanted to do something along the lines
of those triptychs of interior scenes.

So I made 7he Trptych of Noirmoutier.
Very simple. In a kitchen.

The man drinks his beer,

while his elderly mother
untangles a string

and his wife peels potatoes.

I've always had questions like:

What happens
before and after a snapshot?

Orin a film:
What happens when they exit the frame?

Here, I used side panels

to show what's off-screen.

I proposed answers
to our desire to enlarge the frame.

Visitors choose to see, or not,
what lies beyond the walls.

Many visitors came,
responded and reacted.

MoMA in New York
acquired one of the 3 copies.

And since then, Hervé Chandes,

the inventive Director of this place,

the Cartier Foundation
for Contemporary Art,

purchased the second copy
of the triptych.

The time has come to ask him
to join our chat.

Good evening.

Good evening Agnes, everyone.

We met when you invited me.

I'd seen the expo in Venice.

Then one day I called you, in 2005.

The expo at Martine Aboucaya's gallery
came soon after.

We went to it together.

That's where I discovered
The Triptych of Noirmoutier

and The Widows of Noirmoutier.

So you invited me
and offered me that incredible space.

I was so excited to have so much space.

All my ideas and propositions were based

on the lle of Noirmoutier,
where I'd lived with Jacques Demy.

I made up a title with two meanings,

L7e et Elle.

That was in 2006.

Before they built the bridge,

you could only get to the island

by the Gois highway at low tide.

Signs indicated
the exact times of the tides

and access to the island.

Visitors had to go through a filter.

We built a barrier.

They had to wait for low tide to go in.

A clever idea.

On a factory curtain
of heavy plastic slats,

you watched the tide go down.

Then the barrier lifted.

You entered the island

and my world.

The big postcard.

The portrait shack.

Women.

Men.

I took advantage
of the dimensions and light

in that big space
designed by Jean Nouvel

to make my first cinema shack.

Made with the footage of a film.

On a metal structure
by Christophe Vallaux,

we mounted the 3,500 metres
of a standard copy in 9 reels.

We even added a couple reels
to finish the roof.

For visitors,

the film's good and beautiful actors

Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli,

Were now up close.

The close-ups

and the light passing through the film

create a new form of cinema.

Let's rewind a bit.

We filmmakers
used to work with 35mm film.

We handled it during editing,
assembled it.

We transported reels in canisters.

And it all ended up

in cinema projection booths.

Film projection has disappeared

in favour of digital files.

We found ourselves
with hundreds of reels

stagnating on shelves,

in basements, projection booths

and stockrooms.

We used the reels of my film Happiness

to build, in 2018,

my third cinema shack
in the Galerie Obadia.

For those who know the film,

this is a reference
to the opening credits.

Jean-Claude Drouot,

his wife and his children,

the film's characters,

arrive blurry in the background.

In the foreground
is a field of sunflowers.

I made light boxes

for close-ups of the film strips,

with their projector perforations
and optical soundtrack.

So, this is the archway.

The archway of canisters.

The metal canisters that contain films.

We have the contents and the containers.

The canisters are empty?

Yes. Their contents

were used to make the shack.

You're recycling.

Always.

Ever since The Gleaners, whose theme

was suggested
by the gleaners themselves,

I've been interested in it.

And I've learned
that recycling brings joy.

We feel things aren't lost.

By taking these unusable canisters

and that unusable film

and recycling them artistically,
so to speak,

we give them new life.

It's not wasted. It comes back.

Nothing is lost. Everything transforms.

It transforms
through creation and imagination.

On the same floor,

I did an installation all in plastic.

Your work is fairly serious,
but this is funny.

Blowup mattresses, swim rings...
It's childhood, summertime.

Today we know plastic
is a scourge on the planet.

And yet,
how I loved that colourful stuff,

so cheap and so funny.

A 3-euro pair of thongs

is 2 triumph of consumer society!

I wanted to celebrate it.

70 me, colour dances.

It dances in my head. It's summer.

Two things motivated me to do this.

A desire to throw myself info colour.

And the sound of it inspired me foo.

Ping Pong, Thongs and Camping.

Bernard Lubat improvised music
on a pulsating table.

A ping pong concerto.

From the carefree world of childhood,
we went to a moving, solemn work:

The Widows of Noirmoutier.

There are many on the island.

I went there often.

I'm a widow too.

I felt close to them.

I began by asking
if they'd mind if I filmed them.

One-on-one. I was usually alone.

And they trusted me, because...

they felt
they could share their distress with me.

I arranged the space
in a particular way,

creating a polyptych screen.

Like the one by Jan van Kessel
of the four continents.

There was a central film,
shot by Eric Gauthier in 35mm.

It showed a table on a beach,

and widows walking around it.

That image was surrounded
by 14 small video screens.

There were 14 chairs in the room.

Each chair had headphones,

to listen to one of the widows.

Some people say
they speak to their dead.

I don't do that

As I tell my kids, Dad left 13 years ago
but I can tell you...

it still feels like yesterday.

Especially at night.

During the day,
things keep you occupied.

But at night you're all alone.

You think twice as much.

What I miss is touching him...

The house is still filled
with his presence.

His smell, his...

Two days ago we ate green beans
he bought at the market.

It's still so new.

That project really interested me.

I was used to one screen,

where everyone watches the same thing.

I wanted to modify
the audience's experience.

There, you had just 14 people
listening to one widow each.

But they were together in the room.

It made the experience
both intimate and collective.

Having each widow speak to one person

meant that
when the installation travelled,

we obviously couldn't subtitle it.

We'd lose the confidentiality.

So we dubbed it.

We dubbed the widows

in Swedish,

in English of course,

in Spanish,

and even in Chinese.

We loved each other so much...

It was so amazing for me

to see the Noirmoutier widows' words

finding listeners so far from home.

It's striking to see
how something so local,

like these stories from Noirmoutier,

can be so universal.

In China, Argentina or elsewhere.

It gave me great confidence
in art in the grand sense.

Because art

moves across cultures,

countries, nationalities, religions

and ages.

Speaking of ages, let's talk mine.

I just passed 90 and I don't care.

But 10 years ago,

when I was about to turn 80, I panicked.

The number 80

felt like the front of a train
barreling toward me.

I had to finish something
by the time I was 80.

So I plunged into a film project.

I went into it
feeling I had to get it done quick.

It would be a self-portrait,
a story of my journey.

I called it 7he Beaches of Agnes

because I've always lived near beaches.

I grew up in Belgium
near the northern beaches.

After the bombings
and the fall of France

we fled to Séte on the Mediterranean.

Jacques introduced me to the Atlantic.

In Los Angeles,
we discovered the Pacific.

We felt we'd seen all the seas.

Jacques and I lived for a long time

on Rue Daguerre.

So to justify the title of the film,
we made a beach outside my house

and office.

Ciné Tamaris.

You want Cecilia Rose?
One moment

They want to rent Donkey Skin.

11 pass you Agnes.

Me first!

Please hold, I'l get back to you.

I'm out of tea!

Got the estimate?

Not yet. Not yet!

Beachfront houses are nice.

Our neighbours were amused
and a bit alarmed.

The street was blocked for 2 days.

We had a permit.

For a private collection.

See Stéphanie.

Bank Neuflize OBC?

We need a loan without interest

lo finish this film comfortably. Please!

A loan without interest.
Money was our eternal problem.

You must spend,
but you must also collect.

If not money, then trophies.

In a closet or on the sand,

Demy's and mine stick together.

A Golden Palm from Cannes.
A Golden Lion from Venice.

And since...

Vanitas, vanitatis...

I play the role of a little old lady,

pleasantly plump and talkative,

telling her life story.

And yet others interest me more.
I prefer filming them.

Others intrigue me, motivate me,

arouse my curiosity,

disconcert me, fascinate me.

In telling my story, I thought:

If we opened people,
we'd find landscapes.

If we opened me, we'd find beaches.

Good. Turn it all the way around.

Painters use mirrors as tools

in making self-portraits.

But actually,

I presented, in my mirror,

people who worked with
and accompanied me.

It was a way to say

the film was about others and me.

Or me and others.

And I thought

of all the times I marched with others,
for various causes.

I wanted to march
in homage to a drawing by Sempé.

I hurt everywhere

We filmed the rally,

and me alone on the sidewalk

with a sign reading,
"I hurt everywhere."

I can march again if you like,
it's still true.

In any case, I tried,

with this film,

not only to tell my story,

but also to bring to life
memories attached to my films.

To capture certain moments
in the present.

For example,

I wanted to visit my childhood home
in Brussels, Rue de I'Aurore.

I went to film it,

but I met a couple there who collected
those little miniature trains.

Their collection was so extraordinary
and they were so enthusiastic

that I made a documentary about them.

It was more entertaining
than my old curtains.

So I've been right

in choosing others over myself.

This is a brass piece.

It's worth 80,000 Belgian francs
in Switzerland.

Only 150 of them were made.

We call ourselves "insane for trains.”

The real term for train lovers,
toy trains or real trains,

ls "trainopatl. ”

Trainopath!

And since it was unusual,

and I like making documentaries,

I jumped on the chance

offered to me by chance.

The "childhood home" part was a flop.

Then I returned to the Pointe Courte
where I shot my first film.

Where I learned
to choose places and faces

and work with non-professionals.

As I walked around,

I wanted to create a situation
linked to a memory from the film.

Create an emotion in the present.

I found some 16mm footage
I'd shot as a rough draft of the film.

I'd asked my friend Suzou

and her husband Pierrot

to pretend to be the couple

in the film.

Before the final cut
Pierrot died of cancer.

Suzou raised their two sons.

Blaise

and Vincent

I invited them

lo share in a ceremony
with a cart from the film.

A way to show them
the fest footage they'd never seen.

They'd seen their father in photos,
but never in motion.

We walked through the night
with our beloved friend.

Hundreds of anonymous people,
gone and forgotten,

inspired this Boltanski installation
that I filmed.

It was called Personnes.

Hundreds of tin boxes

as manifestations of his project.

Each number evokes a person,
and each tin is different

Its as though each box
has someone inside, someones heart

or someone's Spirit.

Behind the wall of tins,

like a monument to the dead,

I filmed this gigantic installation.

On the floor were thousands of clothes.

And a pyramid of old clothes.

The artist gave them a meaning.

There's this constant movement

The claw takes and releases.

It grabs at random.

A bit like the hand of God.

It's neither good nor evil.

It just does its job.
Taking and releasing.

It's part of a series
I made around the world.

I filmed people and places.

And in France, artists.

Artists and filmmakers whose work I love
open my mind.

They give me pleasure and energy.

And a desire to invent installations

or methods for each subject,
each project.

Here, on the 2nd floor
of a condemned building in Nantes,

I wanted to show

what life is like for squatters
who have nothing

and are evicted unceremoniously.

I posted information on a wall.

In an abandoned room,
I installed three essential items.

A mattress,
because they seek a place to sleep.

A woodstove, because they're cold.

And a shopping cart with a microwave,
because they're hungry.

The idea of a bed is important.

A bed is important.

Having a roof over your head.

Someone left mattresses outside.

We picked them up
and brought them home.

How many people live here?

About 6.

Yeah, 6 or 5.

You can prepare all you like,

but when winter comes,
at some point, it'll be cold.

This year, winter was so hard.

I Have a bad window,
its alreaay broken.

Air gets in and it's very humid.

People can end up on the streets.

One day they might wake up
lo the police bursting in.

It was 7 in the morning.

They knocked on many doors.

We didn't wake up fast enough
to open the door.

They broke it down.

It was so violent.
There were 40 of them.

Over 40 police officers.

We were surrounded, people panicked.

It was so sudden.

We didn't even have 10 minutes.

Our stuff is still in there.

Can you get it?

No, they walled it off.

The opposite of a wall is a beach.

But it can become a wall,
as in this installation,

where I evoked the seaside
in three ways.

A giant photo.

The seafoam on the wave is still.

Then the still image
becomes a moving image.

The wave breaking on the sand.

And then sand.

A bit of tangible reality.

As in Patatutopia,

I like to bring together
reality and its representation.

That's a general goal,

but I also juxtapose
moving images and still images

in video...

and in photography.

The middle image is an old photograph.

A silver print from the 1950s.

On either side,

I took digital photographs in colour

of moving doves.

The metal frames resemble frames
I saw in Mexico.

And he's Miguel Barceld.

Another triptych.

The photo of Alice
hangs on the wall.

Next to it,
we project a double video.

I was fascinated
by how still the cows were.

Filming them for a moment,

we captured a fleeting instant
between stillness and movement.

One flicks her ear,
then starts to move.

A desire for movement
linked to immobility.

For a family cat,

Zgougou,

I made a tomb.

The animation was done the old way,
to music by Steve Reich,

We filmed the finished installation
with shells and flowers.

Then we filmed image by image,

removing one element at a time.

Here the sequence plays backwards.

You watched me film it, Hervé.
You brought your daughter.

Yes, she went up in the crane.

We put a big flower in the tree.

We needed a marker.

And I knew why.

I asked you: Will the Foundation
pay for a helicopter?

Of course we would!

So we filmed from the helicopter,

using the flower as our guide,

a sequence to show that the tomb
is near the sea.

And most of all,
this kitty who was important to us

took on another dimension
with the tomb.

But seen from further way,
she was like any human.

Miniscule in the universe.

You liked Zgougou's tomb.
You bought it.

I love it. I snapped it up.

But that's not all.

As always, I called you.
"Agnes, why don't we...

install the cat
in the Foundation gardens?"

- And?
- He ordered a shack from me.

It's out there in the garden.

Just outside.

A little soundproofed utility room

where we can play a video.

The video is on a loop.

Visitors to the Foundation
can drop in anytime.

They can say hi to Zgougou.

There's a pile of dirt in the shack.

- Yes.
- Is there really a cat under it?

Good question.

In truth,
the real cat Zgougou isn't here.

She's under a similar pile of dirt

on the island of Noirmoultier.

I haven't seen many cemeteries.

I know they're pretty sad.

But this one is more...

Even though it's a tomb

and we should be sad,

it's more...

more of a happy place,
with fun colours.

I came back, because it's better

to watch the film alone.

You feel things better, in the film.

Me too, when I'm alone by the sea,

I feel things better.

Things are double.

Even as I enjoy the gentle seascape,

I know the world
is filled with war, violence,

suffering and wandering.

Images of migrants

struggling and drowning.

Then this terrible image,

seen throughout the world.

We think about it,
and then we forget.

That's how we live.

Occasionally I got to work
on the inside of history.

I want to evoke Les Justes tonight.

I lived through the war,
I remember it.

But I had no traumatic experiences.

President Chirac wanted to pay tribute

to Les Justes de France
at the Pantheon.

I was asked to create a short work
for the ceremony.

A ceremony, a choir

and my enormous installation.

Hundreds of portraits on the floor

of those who took risks to save Jews.

They were named Les Justes,
the righteous.

I displayed photographs of them
like open books.

Their names are on them.

I added recent, unidentified portraits

representing
anonymous or unknown Justes.

To evoke Jews and Justes
in their time,

I screened 2 films simultaneously

on 4 screens under the dome.

A black-and-white film

shows at a distance
Jews being arrested.

On another screen,
detail shots in colour enhance reality.

You looked from one screen to the other
to follow the action.

Everyone recreated,
for real or mentally,

what I'll show you

in this excerpt
fusing images from both screens.

At the end of each sequence,

I showed photos of the Justes
who inspired the scene

and photos of those
who played the scene.

They weren't real actors,

but they were real people.

That's what I've always called

the people I film
in the streets or fields.

He was a baker in my native country.

And then, well...
l waited every Wednesday

when he brought his bread,
fo see him.

Then, six months later,
we got married.

Real people
are at the heart of my work.

I have that in common with JR,

the urban photographer

who has approached
thousands of real people.

We wanted to make a film
of our encounters with people.

This time, in the French countryside.

We headed out in his magic truck,

with the goal of listening to people

and photographing them in the truck.

People go into the back,
like in a photo booth.

The photo comes out 5 seconds later,

in large format.

The plan was to show them off.

To post them as a counterpoint
to models and celebrities

selling cosmetics, cars and coffee.

We hired her as a waitress back in...

late May, early summer.

Now she's Bonnieux's most famous face.

What do you think
of your mum up there?

- She's super pretty.
- Indeed. I agree.

Press the button.

Show us your selfe.

Wow, nice!

You're good.

I'm no expert though.

Tickle tickle!

Our social and sociological experiment
was full of surprises.

In one village,
a man said he was the bell-ringer

and took us to his bell tower.

And there was a woman
who made goat cheese.

She was furious,
because other cheesemakers

were burning goats' horns off.

We saw it for ourselves.

We met Francoise.

You have one of the only herds

where the goats have horns.

To my mind,
if a goat has horns, she keeps them.

I'm not going to remove them.

That just seems...

I can find no logical explanation,

unless you see them as a product

required to attain
a certain rate of return,

So you eliminate anything
that might make them less profitable

and cut off their horns.

Bum them off

But if you respect the animals,

you leave them intact

If they have horns, they keep them.

Sure, they fight.

Human beings fight foo.

I Don't know about it

until you told me just now.

This horn thing.

For this project, we didn't ask people

to answer our questions,

but rather to think,
and to invent their own responses

to the situations.

I say put balls on the tips,

like with bulls. Rubber balls.

Could be funny. Or clown noses.

Rubber ones.

You could use different colours

to tell them apart.
Purple, mulficolour, zebra.

Great idea, I love it!
Very imaginative.

We're glad we met you.

I enjoyed meeting you, too.

Our work together

made our friendship grow,

like a plant.

Like a fish in water.

He was interested in me,

and he was interested in my ageing.

I have an eye disease.

No fun, considering my profession.

I need shots, check-ups

and exams.

What kind of exams?

Looking at letters.

ls this right, Agnes?

Yes, the bottom is blurry, but...

The letters need to move a little.

Move how?

- Up and down a little.
- Got it

- Go tell them.
- Right away.

Move up and down a little!

Now I'm happy. That's what I see.

It was important to me

that we find a way to bring beauty
to my deteriorating eyesight.

And that we enjoy ourselves
on that shoot

full of surprises and emotion.

Its surprising.

- Art should surprise us, right?
- True.

Have a nice day.

Today's my last day.
I'm taking early retirement.

- Today?
- Today.

- If's your last day?
- Yes it is.

I feel like I've reached
the edge of a cliff,

and tonight
I'm leaping info the unknown.

1 discover lots of things.

And we discovered
that fate was with us.

Once in Normandy,
fate struck three times.

JR wanted to paste
on a German bunker

that had fallen off a cliff.

I said, "We can pick any bunker."

But when he said
it was at St-Aubin-sur-Mer,

I pricked up my ears.

I'd been there in 1954 with friends

and taken photos on that beach.

A photo named Ulysse
that inspired a film.

I was with my friend Guy Bourdin,
a young photographer.

He became very famous,
but died young.

I did portraits of him.

He posed sweetly, dreaming.

I showed JR my photos of Guy Bourdin,

and we decided
to paste one on the bunker.

It was a difficult and dangerous shoot,

because the low tide didn't last long.

I could imagine nothing better for Guy.

Here he is, like a child in his cradle.

Resting in peace.

The next morning, we went to see.

The tide had washed the image away.

Ephemeral images are my stock-in-trade.

But the sea worked fast

The sea has the last word.

And the wind, and the sand.

At one point,

JR and I imagined
ending the film this way.

Disappearing in a sandstorm.

I Think this is how I'll end this chat.

Disappearing in the blur.

Leaving you.