I call [ordinary people] real people, because they have in themselves an incredible treasure – stories, a way of speaking, a way of sharing, an innocence and a perversity which I find very interesting to discover little by little.
AGNES VARDAYou have to be strong to be a carpenter, maybe, but the director of a film doesn’t need to have muscles.
More Agnes Varda Quotes
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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.
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I tried to find a language for the film – not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain.
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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.
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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.
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I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing.
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In my films I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.
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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.
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I had a world. I don’t think I had a career. I made films.
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It’s a way of living, cinema. And I see my family, I do this and that, I travel. It’s a long process to let it happen.
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I never adapted anything. Beautiful books are beautiful books, that’s it. I don’t know why we should transform them.
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I didn’t go to film school. I was never an assistant or trainee on a film. I had not seen all those cameras. So I think it gave me a lot of freedom.
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I was free always. I could work without the money, to film this and that. But this is another point, because now I’m alone, and I can just use it when I want.
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I’m myself – knowing I’m doing a documentary and speaking with the people, telling them I have a bed, that I can eat every day, but I would like to speak to you. And they really gave me wonderful answers.
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I never fought, I never learned kung fu or boxing, I never went into these sportif competitions. I wouldn’t cross the ocean.
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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.
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