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You have to invent life.

Agnes Varda

I don’t try to make a place in history at all! People put me in the history of cinema because my first film, La pointe-courte, was so ahead of some other filmmakers.
AGNES VARDA

Cinema Film Filmmaker First History Make People Picture Place Trying
I’m not interested in seeing a film just made by a woman – not unless she is looking for new images.
AGNES VARDA

Film Ghouls Image Interested Looking Made Unless Woman
I had a world. I don’t think I had a career. I made films.
AGNES VARDA

Career Film Made Thinking World
The tool of every self-portrait is the mirror. You see yourself in it. Turn it the other way, and you see the world .
AGNES VARDA

Mirror Portrait See Self You Yourself
People know it’s not easy, and even though you have strong feeling and desire and endless love, it doesn’t always happen.
AGNES VARDA

Always Couple Especially Fragile Happen More Story Thirty Year
Gleaning is getting things that are abandoned. I did not abandon my early pictures, my photos, my early films. It’s just going through my body of work as something I can pick from.
AGNES VARDA

Abandoned Body Early Film Getting Gleaning Photo Picture
I’m sure they learn a lot, and some of them, it makes them aware of what they wish to do. I was – that’s the way I was – autodidact.
AGNES VARDA

Autodidact Aware Learn Some Sure Way Wish
When I saw what painting had done in the last thirty years, what literature had done – people like Joyce and Virginia Woolf, Faulkner and Hemingway – in France we have Nathalie Sarraute – and paintings became so strongly contemporary while cinema was just following the path of theater.
AGNES VARDA

Contemporary Country Done Last Literature Painting People Saw Strongly Theatre Virginia Year
I live in cinema. I feel I’ve lived here forever.
AGNES VARDA

Cinema Fel Forever Here Loved Movie
You have to invent life.
AGNES VARDA

Discover Invent Life
I tried to find images, allegorical images, that I could use to express things that I didn’t want to say or didn’t want to show or I was not able to find how to show.
AGNES VARDA

Able Allegorical Express Find Image Say Saying Show Thing Wanted
When I started my first film, there were three women directors in France. Their films were OK, but I was different. It’s like when you start to jump and you put the pole very high – you have to jump very high. I thought, I have to use cinema as a language.
AGNES VARDA

Cinema Country Different Director Film First High Jump Language Pole Started Three Women
There is a song of Gainsbourg that Jane Birkin sang, and the words are beautiful in French. It says, “Le jeu et les moi.” It’s impossible to translate, because it has a very nice sound.
AGNES VARDA

Beautiful Celebrity Country Gainsbourg Impossible Nice People Sang Song Sound Translate Word
To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States – black people didn’t have the right to vote.
AGNES VARDA

Black Change History People Right Slow State Two Vote
The film critics don’t know my artwork and the art world doesn’t know my films.
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Art Artwork Critic Film Know Time
If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.
AGNES VARDA

Find Landscape Opened People
Many filmmakers have made resurgent work, and I was just a little ahead of the time.
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Ahead Filmmaker Little Made Many Resurgent Time
I don’t believe in inspiration that arrives like a bolt from the blue … It seems to me that the more motivated I am by what I film, the more objectively I film.
AGNES VARDA

Arrive Belief Blue Bolt Inspiration Inspirational
Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.
AGNES VARDA

Artist Hand Painter Tool
I think it’s ridiculous to take such risk. But look, people love to do that. But I was not afraid of doing things I wished to do.
AGNES VARDA

Afraid Doing Look Ridiculous Risk Such Take Wished
I had flops, I had success.
AGNES VARDA

Down Flop Success Up
I’d been educated stupidly, I knew nothing about nothing, that’s part of being shy.
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Educated Nothing Part Shy Stupidity
To share a lot of ideas – not ideas – emotions, a way of looking at people, a way of looking at life. If it can be shared, it means there is a common denominator.
AGNES VARDA

Emotion Idea Life Looking Lot Mean People Share
An old woman I loved very much when I was young – the wife of Jean Villard – she’s just reciting poetry all the time, which is beautiful because it means she went back to the world of poetry that she loved when she was young. That’s all she does.
AGNES VARDA

Beautiful Children Loved Mean Old People Poetry Reciting Time Wife Woman
My company is called Ciné-Tamaris, which is rosemary. That’s my speed. Hot water and herb.
AGNES VARDA

Call Cine Company Herb Hot Rosemary Speed Tamaris Water
Just yesterday I saw a good film, but even if I’d seen a bad one, I’d feel, “Oh my god, what a bad job, I can do better.”
AGNES VARDA

Bad Better Film God Good One Yesterday
Sometimes I say, If I had seen some masterpieces, maybe I wouldn’t have dared start. I started very – not innocent, but naïve in a way.
AGNES VARDA

Draed Innocent Masterpiece Say Sometimes Start Way

You have to invent life.

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You have to invent life.

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