You have to be strong to be a carpenter, maybe, but the director of a film doesn’t need to have muscles.
AGNES VARDAI’m trying to capture something more fragile than a regular story. I love what people bring me.
More Agnes Varda Quotes
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With Jane Birkin, we had a scene from a film called Jane B. by Agnès V. – a portrait I made in ’87. We had a casino scene, surrealistic, in which we had some naked people gambling. Jane Birkin was the card dealer and I was the player.
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But in a way we all have a Mona. We all have inside ourselves a woman who walks alone on the road. In all women there is something in revolt that is not expressed.
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The film critics don’t know my artwork and the art world doesn’t know my films.
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To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States – black people didn’t have the right to vote.
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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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Some Bresson, some Godard of the early times, the Cassavetes of those years I love. And the early Wim Wenders. But my own films I don’t watch, unless I need them.
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We need to find another way or another shape or an allegory or something that tells us more.
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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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I’m missing some people, you know, and this is not nostalgia. I miss them. This is melancholy.
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You know, an hour and fifty-four minutes is too much for audiences. They get nervous.
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When I started I did not know I wanted to be a filmmaker. I started – I made a film. Then when I finished I said, Oh my god it’s so beautiful – I should be a filmmaker!
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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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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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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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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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People think you are an orphan when you are a child, and don’t believe that old people can feel that they are orphans.
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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.
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I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That’s what I try to do all the time.
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I see all these students, and I admire them – they’re trying to learn something, they go to school, they do film school, they go on shoots, they help.
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My company is called Ciné-Tamaris, which is rosemary. That’s my speed. Hot water and herb.
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I’ve always been like this – trying to find adventure where it’s still in its first élan – the first spring.
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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.
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I should say nothing! I’m through with it! I hate to repeat myself all the time.
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It’s nice to think that we have in ourselves the energy. It’s somewhere, but it’s sleeping sometimes. I try to wake it up when I need it.
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People like my films. They understand me through my films; it’s like a connection that has been established between all my work and myself and the audience and the viewer.
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I was a photographer first.I worked alone. I did it my way as much as I could. I have been sort of courageous about doing things, because I didn’t think I should do less than my brothers.
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