Agnès Varda is a Belgian-born French director, screenwriter, photographer and artist. Varda studied literature, art history and photography in Paris. After finishing his education, she worked as a photographer at Jean Vilar’s theater, Théâtre National Populaire. In 1954, she shot his first feature film using the money he had saved, without having any knowledge of cinematic technique. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
La Pointe Courte, Influenced by the novel style of the American writer William Faulkner, who tells two different subjects in alternating chapters, Varda combined the documentary narration of a fishing village with the portrait of two people who get closer to each other while vacationing in this village. While she had no contact with the writers of the French film magazine “Cahiers du Cinéma”, Varda here realized the distinctively subjective film style they stipulated. Alain Resnais, who later became one of the representatives of “Nouvelle Vague”, undertook the editing of Varda’s first film. Resnais vehemently refused to work on this project at first, as Varda’s method was exactly like the one she had just developed.
Her films are focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women’s issues and other social interpretations in a distinctive experimental style. Varda’s work has used gravity in an age where the limitations of sound technology have made it easier and more common to film indoors rather than outdoors, with built sets and painted landscape backgrounds. The use of non-professional actors was also unusual for French cinema of the 1950s. Varda’s feature film debut was La Pointe Courte, followed by one of the most important film narrative films, Vagabond, and Cléo 5 to 7, Master of Kung Fu. Varda is also known for her work as a documentary filmmaker.
Agnes Varda’s husband was Jacques Demy, a French director. They got married in 1959 and started living together in 1962. They were married until 1990. Varda lost Damy in 1990. Varda also had a son, Matthiew Demy, born in 197. Varda has another daughter named Rosalie. Varda died of cancer on March 29, 2019, at the age of 90.