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 VARDAI 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.
More Agnes Varda Quotes
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This is all you need in life: a computer, a camera, and a cat.
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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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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’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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Even Vagabond – it was a fiction but it was really a documentary. I mean, it has the texture of documentary. Even if I made up every line, it has the texture of being true.
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I quit seeing some people who were saying bad things about women; I don’t even want to meet them or see them.
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The mirror is the tool of the one who wants to do a self-portrait. And if you want to make a photo you need a mirror.
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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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Nostalgia doesn’t make sense, because it’s like bringing the memories back to be a special part of my day or to be part of my week. And I’m inside my memories the same way I’m inside my everyday life.
AGNES VARDA -
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 didn’t have a list of things I should do this year, next year, find a good novel, sign two stars and make a deal – because I think cinema should come from cinema.
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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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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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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