READIN

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

🦋 Les Plages d'Agnès

Looking at the Film Forum's web site yesterday to see what was playing this summer, I was really excited to see that Agnès Varda's Les Plages d'Agnès will be opening in July. I heard this movie was in post-production last year and have been anticipating it eagerly ever since. It's an autobiographical piece, a look back at Varda's career; should be a lot of fun. If you're going to be in town in early July, give me a holler -- we should make plans to see it.

Varda also has a funny brief interview with Michael Musto in the Voice.

posted evening of May 20th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Les Plages d'Agnès

Monday, July 6th, 2009

🦋 Memories, swarming around me like confused flies

"It happened only yesterday, and it is already in the past," Agnès Varda says near the end of her breathtaking new autobiographical documentary, Les Plages d'Agnès. There is a constant feeling of astonishment and wonder in this film, that so much water has flowed under the bridge already, that so many people and circumstances are in the past and irretrievable. There is a strong sense of sadness but it's offset by Varda's joy in the present moment and in playing games with the past and with memory. The movie is a kick, a fling, a romp; I need to watch it another couple of times before I get enough of the content to say anything more intelligent about it. But right now I want to recommend it, because it's in the theater (at least in NYC) and is not going to be for very long, so you ought to grab the chance while it's available.

posted evening of July 6th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about The Movies

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

🦋 Comme Toujours Here I Stand

This is kind of exciting to hear about: Big Dance Theater is presenting a new show called "Comme Toujours Here I Stand" based on Cléo de 5 à 7, featuring an original title song by Robyn Hitchcock -- a confluence of two of my very favorite artists! (And of an art form I'm not familiar with at all...) It will be premiering next month at The Kitchen in NYC; I'll certainly be there.

Speaking of Hitchcock, here are a couple of things I've seen in the last few days and been meaning to link to:

• See him singing a lovely new song, "Dragonfly Me", on BBC4 Today -- he performed this song yesterday at Pestival, I'm not sure whether it was written for the occasion or just a happy coincidence...
• On Jennifer Robbins' show "Cooking With Rockstars", he discusses how to make Food Pie:
  "Dead pheasant would be hung in the pantry or something for maybe a week after it dies, getting high... 'getting high' means -- as I suppose it often does in human terms -- slowly turning green..."

  I'm a little surprised to find Hitchcock not liking parsnips -- this guy who has always struck me as being the height of good taste!

posted morning of September 5th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Cléo from 5 to 7

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

🦋 Shut up and dance

Ellen and I went to see Comme Toujours Here I Stand last night, and had a good time. It is a fun show, though without being a masterpiece or a great work of art -- I may have gone in hoping a bit for a masterpiece based on the Cléo de 5 à 7 connection... What seemed to me like the big limitation of the show, what kept it from being great, was that although it was billed as a dance production, and the players were dancers, there was a lot of time spent on dialog, when they were not moving. The dialog was OK -- some of it was taken directly from the movie, some of it was funny twists on what was in the movie... but the players were not actors, and their delivery of dialog left a lot to be desired -- I would much rather be watching them move.

The show's conceit was fun and self-referential -- rather than trying to do a straight remake of the movie, the narrative was of a group of film students or art students trying to create a work of art derivative from the movie. The woman who was playing Cléo was also supposed to be the director of the piece, and she was portrayed as a narcissistic prima donna, and there was a lot of broad humor about her being difficult to work with; I thought this worked pretty well, Ellen thought some of it got old.

When they did shut up and dance, they were gorgeous -- and maybe the very best bit of the show was the interplay between the director's need to be in charge and the movement of the dance -- there were complex bits where she would criticize another player while they were dancing, stop, rewind, take 2... They could have pruned the dialog quite a bit and still gotten their storyline across, and there would have been room for a lot more dancing.

posted morning of October 10th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Agnès Varda

Monday, October 26th, 2009

🦋 Pamuk, Varda

I was exuberant at the thought of beginning anew, and greatly soothed by the consolations of life in a yalı, so much so that during the first few days I convinced myself that a rapid recovery was in prospect. No matter what amusements we'd partaken in on the previous evening, no matter how late we'd come back, and no matter how much I'd had to drink, in the morning, as soon as the light began to stream through the gaps in the shutters, casting its strange reflections of Bosphorus waves onto the ceiling, I would throw open the shutters, each time amazed at the beauty that rushed in, that almost exploded, through the window.

posted evening of October 26th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Museum of Innocence

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

🦋 Goytisolo, Varda

I'm glad I watched La Pointe-Courte when I did, as I'm now seeing loose parallels between it and everything I am reading... Sort of the archetypal melancholy romance.

Paco se había sentado en cuclillas, algo más lejos y antes de abandonarme del todo, le pregunté:

--¿De qué vive la gente aquí?

Se entretenía en escurrir la arena entre sus dedos y no levantó, siquiera, la cabeza:

--De la pesca.

--¿Y tú? --Me extendí boca arriba y cerré los ojos--. ¿Qué quieres ser?

Su respuesta, esta vez, llegó en seguida:

--Mecánico.

Me dormí. Tenía conciencia de que, al cabo de unas horas, olvidaría la fatiga del viaje y no deseaba otra cosa que cocerme lentamente, cara al sol.

En una o dos ocasiones, me desperté y vi que Dolores dormía también.

Con la vista perdida en el mar, Paco hacía escurrir aún la arena entre sus dedos.

Paco was squatting a bit further down the beach; before giving myself up to sleep, I asked him:

--What do people live on, here?

He was distractedly letting the sand run through his fingers; he didn't even raise his head:

--On fish.

--And you? --I turned my mouth up(?) and closed my eyes--. What do you want to be?

His response, this time, came directly:

--Mechanic.

I slept. I was aware that after a few hours, I'd forget the fatigue of the journey; I didn't want anything besides to let myself bake slowly, my face to the sun.

Once or twice, I woke up and saw that Dolores was sleeping too.

His gaze lost in the sea, Paco was still letting the sand run between his fingers.

posted morning of November 14th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Juan Goytisolo

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

🦋 Varda in Contexts

I'm playing the role of a little old woman, pleasantly plump and talkative, telling her life story. And yet it's others I'm interested in, others I like to film.

-- Àgnes Varda

posted evening of October 30th, 2010: Respond

Saturday, March 24th, 2018

🦋 Faces Places

I watched the new Agnès Varda film for the second time last night. It is a gem.

posted afternoon of March 24th, 2018: Respond