Description
Book SynopsisDrawing especially on the encounters and relationships that defined her exceptional career,
The Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda outlines a sustainable legacy for the celebrated director and visual artist. Over nine chapters, it unpacks how creation, connection, and environment form the core of Varda's artistry, which centers foremost on relationships with her family, with other artists, even with passersby she would meet in her travels around the world. Also celebrating her feminist legacy, the chapters cover a wide range, from the classic
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) to documentaries
The Beaches of Agnès (2008) and
Faces Places (2017) as well as selected art installations. The book's final section is dedicated to teaching Varda's work; here, ten scholars from around the world consider how Varda's art and feminist pedagogies offer unique ways to bring crucial concepts into the classroom. By seeking a sustainable praxis to discuss and teach Varda's work, and by
Trade ReviewThe Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda constitutes a magnificent critical tribute to the work of a filmmaker who turned cinema into an art of encountering. Arguing that her legacy extends beyond her filmography, through an ethical and political vision of art worth examining, the contributors of this book remained faithful to the memory of a woman and an artist committed to her time. -- Luc Vancheri, Lumière University Lyon 2, France
Throughout the volume, the overall question — how to sustain joy in Varda’s legacy — is met with nuanced and perceptive analysis. The collection offers new perspectives, not least through critique, for example in Jennifer Stob’s illuminating essay on Varda’s formalist feminism, in which she argues that Varda both ‘reveals the patriarchal structure that collapses representational space and the feminine’, and ‘confirms and reproduces its formalist myth’… This collection is an indispensable tool for Varda teachers, scholars, and fans, and it delightfully fulfils the task of sustaining and renewing Varda’s legacy. -- Ros Murray * French Studies *
Inquisitive moving-image artist par excellence, Agnès Varda receives here an expansive and multifaceted treatment, one that matches the range and generosity of her own work. These essays revise and open out our understanding of a cinema that both depicts and embodies sustenance. -- Girish Shambu, Canisius College, Buffalo, USA
In framing its collection of essays in terms of sustainability,
The Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda offers a timely intervention in feminist criticism in visual studies. Varda’s work lends itself beautifully to these eco-critical analyses, which collectively sustain meticulous attention to Varda’s elaborations of embodiment, space, and place across her oeuvre. -- Sharon Willis, University of Rochester, USA
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgments 1. Sustaining Joy in Varda’s Legacy - Colleen Kennedy-Karpat
Part 1 Creation 2. Agnès Varda’s Formalist Feminism - Jennifer Stob 3. Gleaning Metaphors from Reality in the Documentary Films of Agnès Varda - Joseph Horsey 4. The Nude Auteur, Denuding Filmmaking - Ayça Çiftçi
Part 2 Connections 5. Women Directors on the Edge of Hollywood: Agnès Varda/Shirley Clarke in and beyond
Lions Love (1969) - Zizi Li 6. Agnès Varda and Ursula Le Guin in Dialogue: The Narrator’s Carrier Bag - Ruken Dogu Erdede
Part 3 Environments 7. Passion, Commitment, Compassion:
Les Justes au Panthe´on by Agne`s Varda - Sandy Flitterman-Lewis 8. Urban Environments and Agnès Varda’s
Genius loci - Zeynep Demirhan and Colleen Kennedy-Karpat 9. Iran Under Varda’s Eyes: Interview with Dr. Ali Rafie - Negar Taymoorzadeh
Part 4 Teaching Varda Section Introduction: Teaching Varda - Colleen Kennedy-Karpat 10. Agnès Varda: The Queen of the Margins - Beth Tsai 11. Teaching Varda Teaching - Sandy Flitterman-Lewis 12. Varda’s
Sans toit ni loi/Vagabond (1985): The Center of My Feminist Film Teaching, 1998–2020 - Kate Ince 13. Teaching
Vagabond (1985) - Homay King 14. Cléo from Abu Dhabi to Seoul - Seung-hoon Jeong 15. Digital Time, Teaching Temporalities, and Feminist Pedagogies: Teaching Varda’s
Gleaners (2000) Twenty Years on - Jenny Chamarette 16. Gleaning with Visible Machines: Teaching Digital Cinema and Embodiment with Agnès Varda - Michael Cramer 17. Teaching
Le Bonheur (1964) - Jeremi Szaniawsk 18. Vardian Lessons: From Sea to Screen and Beyond - Nadine Boljkovac 19. Farewell to Idols with Varda - Feride Çiçekogl Filmography: Agnès Varda Additional Filmography Bibliography Index
