This elegant film follows a sad, beautiful woman around Paris as she awaits the results of a biopsy – and the result is eternally cool
Cléo from 5 to 7 is streaming on Sbs On Demand. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click hereGet our weekend culture and lifestyle email
So elegant, so stylish, so extremely and eternally cool. In broad strokes Agnès Varda’s second feature film sounds like a downer: Cléo Victoire (Corinne Marchand), a singer in Paris, nervously awaits the results of a biopsy. In more specific terms it sounds rather uneventful: unfolding in real-time, Cléo spends her day faffing about – going to a cafe, trying on clothes, hanging out in her apartment with friends, walking the streets, catching cabs. But the sheer delightfulness of Cléo from 5 to 7 comes down to execution, its form and aesthetic born from the coolest cinema movement of...
Cléo from 5 to 7 is streaming on Sbs On Demand. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click hereGet our weekend culture and lifestyle email
So elegant, so stylish, so extremely and eternally cool. In broad strokes Agnès Varda’s second feature film sounds like a downer: Cléo Victoire (Corinne Marchand), a singer in Paris, nervously awaits the results of a biopsy. In more specific terms it sounds rather uneventful: unfolding in real-time, Cléo spends her day faffing about – going to a cafe, trying on clothes, hanging out in her apartment with friends, walking the streets, catching cabs. But the sheer delightfulness of Cléo from 5 to 7 comes down to execution, its form and aesthetic born from the coolest cinema movement of...
- 7/4/2023
- by Luke Buckmaster
- The Guardian - Film News
Lee Broughton returns with a review of Michele Lupo’s fine-looking Spaghetti Western, Arizona Colt. Giuliano Gemma stars as the eponymous anti-hero-cum-bounty killer who goes head-to-head with Fernando Sancho’s villainous Mexican bandit. The show’s collateral damage comes in the shapely form of fan favourite Rosalba Neri while its highly reluctant love interest is played by none other than Corinne Marchand, of Cleo from 5 to 7 fame.
Arizona Colt
Region Free Blu-ray
Wild East
1966 / Color / 2.35:1 widescreen / 116 min. / Il Pistolero di Arizona, The Man From Nowhere / Street Date 9 February 2021 / Available from Wild East / 16.95
Starring: Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Sancho, Corinne Marchand, Roberto Camardiel, Rosalba Neri, Nello Pazzafini, Jose Manuel Martin, Andrea Bosic.
Cinematography: Guglielmo Mancori
Film Editor: Antonietta Zita
Art director: Walter Patriarca
Original Music: Francesco De Masi
Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Luciano Martino
Produced by Elio Scardamaglia
Directed by Michele Lupo
A sadistic bandit, Gordo (Fernando Sancho), expands his gang...
Arizona Colt
Region Free Blu-ray
Wild East
1966 / Color / 2.35:1 widescreen / 116 min. / Il Pistolero di Arizona, The Man From Nowhere / Street Date 9 February 2021 / Available from Wild East / 16.95
Starring: Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Sancho, Corinne Marchand, Roberto Camardiel, Rosalba Neri, Nello Pazzafini, Jose Manuel Martin, Andrea Bosic.
Cinematography: Guglielmo Mancori
Film Editor: Antonietta Zita
Art director: Walter Patriarca
Original Music: Francesco De Masi
Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Luciano Martino
Produced by Elio Scardamaglia
Directed by Michele Lupo
A sadistic bandit, Gordo (Fernando Sancho), expands his gang...
- 3/23/2021
- by Lee Broughton
- Trailers from Hell
The Criterion Collection has announced a new treat for cinephiles coming this summer. The Complete Films of Agnès Varda, a 15-disc collector’s set, will feature all 39 of the late French icon’s features, shorts, and documentaries. The set hits shelves on August 11 this year.
Each of the 15 discs presents a curation of films organized by themes that marked Varda’s work, including explorations of Paris in “Cléo From 5 to 7,” studies of married life with “Le Bonheur,” her collaborations with Jane Birkin in “Jane B. par Agnès V.” and “Kung-Fu Master!,” and Jacques Demy with “Jacquot d Nantes,” “The Young Girls Turn 25,” and “The World of Jacques Demy,” and much more. She was married to Demy up until his death in 1990.
The full list of included titles is below. The set also features a 200-page book surveying Varda’s career, which launched in 1955 with “La Pointe Courte,” followed...
Each of the 15 discs presents a curation of films organized by themes that marked Varda’s work, including explorations of Paris in “Cléo From 5 to 7,” studies of married life with “Le Bonheur,” her collaborations with Jane Birkin in “Jane B. par Agnès V.” and “Kung-Fu Master!,” and Jacques Demy with “Jacquot d Nantes,” “The Young Girls Turn 25,” and “The World of Jacques Demy,” and much more. She was married to Demy up until his death in 1990.
The full list of included titles is below. The set also features a 200-page book surveying Varda’s career, which launched in 1955 with “La Pointe Courte,” followed...
- 5/11/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The Cannes Film Festival is saluting director Agnès Varda with its official poster, which depicts the filmmaker, then in her mid-20s, shooting her first feature, 1955’s “La Pointe Courte.”
The announcement reflects the enormous respect the director-cum-visual-artist had earned from Cannes and the film community worldwide as a pioneering director — the woman whose independent debut paved the way for the French New Wave. Later, Varda went on to make “Cléo from 5 to 7,” which premiered in competition at Cannes in 1962 and featured a cameo from “Breathless” director Jean-Luc Godard, whose own film career was catalyzed in part by her example. Varda died at 90 last month.
Varda was a regular at Cannes, whether or not she had a film to screen there — and she presented many, including “Jacquot de Nantes,” “The Gleaners and I,” and, most recently, “Faces Places” — and served on the jury in 2005, the year Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne...
The announcement reflects the enormous respect the director-cum-visual-artist had earned from Cannes and the film community worldwide as a pioneering director — the woman whose independent debut paved the way for the French New Wave. Later, Varda went on to make “Cléo from 5 to 7,” which premiered in competition at Cannes in 1962 and featured a cameo from “Breathless” director Jean-Luc Godard, whose own film career was catalyzed in part by her example. Varda died at 90 last month.
Varda was a regular at Cannes, whether or not she had a film to screen there — and she presented many, including “Jacquot de Nantes,” “The Gleaners and I,” and, most recently, “Faces Places” — and served on the jury in 2005, the year Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne...
- 4/15/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
The Beaches of Agnès (2008), the first feature I saw by Agnès Varda, is arguably both the best and worst place to begin watching her body of work. To put it another way, it’s a great farewell, but also a perfect primer for this titan of world cinema who died on March 29th at the age of 90. Varda directed the movie many consider to be the first French New Wave film, La pointe courte (1955), which also began a six-decade-plus career for her in filmmaking. She made documentaries, scripted fiction, gallery installations, and numerous experiments somewhere in between the two. She was married to another major French New Wave director, Jacques Demy. Her family was a key component of her cinema, giving roles to her children Mathieu and Rosalie, as well as collaborating with Demy on Jacquot de Nantes (1991) as he was dying of AIDS. To return to The Beaches of Agnès,...
- 4/10/2019
- MUBI
Agnes Varda is deservedly eulogized in newspapers and on social media all over America today, but critics, programmers and audiences in the U.S. took time in recognizing her accomplishments. It took several decades for her work gain appreciation in the U.S., and during that time, I witnessed Varda’s ability to continue evolving as an artist every step of the way.
While Varda’s debut feature, “La Pointe Courte” (1955) has yet to have a theatrical release in America, her early short, “L’Opera Mouffe” (1958), was distributed by Cinema 16, an important film club run by Amos and Marcia Vogel in the 50’s and early 60’s dedicated to the showing and release of experimental and avant-garde cinema. The film won some notoriety because of its casual nudity — then still rare on American screens — and it was booked in film societies around the country seeding the bed for later Varda appreciation.
While Varda’s debut feature, “La Pointe Courte” (1955) has yet to have a theatrical release in America, her early short, “L’Opera Mouffe” (1958), was distributed by Cinema 16, an important film club run by Amos and Marcia Vogel in the 50’s and early 60’s dedicated to the showing and release of experimental and avant-garde cinema. The film won some notoriety because of its casual nudity — then still rare on American screens — and it was booked in film societies around the country seeding the bed for later Varda appreciation.
- 3/31/2019
- by Laurence Kardish
- Indiewire
Many filmmakers have taught me how to look at the world, but Agnès Varda is teaching me how to age. She died this week at the age of 90, leaving behind an example we should all strive to meet as we get on in years.
One of the legendary filmmakers who made up the Nouvelle Vague, France’s influential cinematic New Wave of the 1960s, she continually embraced life and a changing world, even after losing her beloved husband and fellow New Wave icon, Jacques Demy, in 1990. In the years when one might have expected her to grow more home-bound, perhaps venturing forth to publish a memoir or pick up the occasional award, she instead continued to plunge into the ever-changing technology of cinema.
As a filmmaker, she constantly experimented with digital cameras and editing, never afraid to step into the arena of the young and always open to completely upending...
One of the legendary filmmakers who made up the Nouvelle Vague, France’s influential cinematic New Wave of the 1960s, she continually embraced life and a changing world, even after losing her beloved husband and fellow New Wave icon, Jacques Demy, in 1990. In the years when one might have expected her to grow more home-bound, perhaps venturing forth to publish a memoir or pick up the occasional award, she instead continued to plunge into the ever-changing technology of cinema.
As a filmmaker, she constantly experimented with digital cameras and editing, never afraid to step into the arena of the young and always open to completely upending...
- 3/29/2019
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Iconic filmmaker, celebrated documentarian, and a cinephile for the ages, Agnès Varda may have passed away, but the legendary creator leaves behind a rich and wonderful legacy of dozens of films that will be enjoyed for years to come. From her earliest, pre-French New Wave days to an increasingly lively and personal series of documentaries she continued to create well into her eighth decade, there’s always something new to discover in Varda’s deep oeuvre.
In honor of the master filmmaker and all-around wonderful creator, take some time to check out some of her best films, currently available on various streaming outfits around the web. Here’s where to watch eight of Varda’s best films right now, including her signature classics, some new hits, and even a potential double feature.
“Cinevardaphoto” (Watch on Kanopy with library membership)
Varda’s talents extended far beyond the film frame, and her...
In honor of the master filmmaker and all-around wonderful creator, take some time to check out some of her best films, currently available on various streaming outfits around the web. Here’s where to watch eight of Varda’s best films right now, including her signature classics, some new hits, and even a potential double feature.
“Cinevardaphoto” (Watch on Kanopy with library membership)
Varda’s talents extended far beyond the film frame, and her...
- 3/29/2019
- by Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich and Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Agnès Varda, the French New Wave director and filmmaking icon behind such films as “Cleo From 5 to 7” and “Vagabond,” has died at age 90. Varda passed away from breast cancer at her home in Paris early March 29. The death was confirmed by Varda’s family, who issued a statement saying Varda was “surrounded by her family and friends” at the time of her passing. The family described the filmmaker as a “joyful feminist” and “passionate artist.” Varda’s funeral is expected to take place in Paris on Tuesday.
Varda got her start as a still photographer before making the jump to feature filmmaking with the 1955 drama “La Pointe Courte.” The film, starring Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret, is widely considered to be one of the forerunners of the French New Wave.
Varda’s second feature, “Cleo From 5 to 7,” was entered into the Cannes Film Festival and earned her international acclaim.
Varda got her start as a still photographer before making the jump to feature filmmaking with the 1955 drama “La Pointe Courte.” The film, starring Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret, is widely considered to be one of the forerunners of the French New Wave.
Varda’s second feature, “Cleo From 5 to 7,” was entered into the Cannes Film Festival and earned her international acclaim.
- 3/29/2019
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Varda passed away following a short battle with cancer.
Agnès Varda, the Belgian-born director whose work played a pivotal part in the French New Wave, has died aged 90.
She died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a statement from her family given to French news agency Afp. It said: ”The director and artist Agnès Varda died at home on Thursday night due to cancer, with her family and loved ones surrounding her.”
Her death comes just weeks after Varda put in a fitting final appearance at the Berlin International Film Festival with the documentary Varda By Agnès.
An extended filmed masterclass of sorts,...
Agnès Varda, the Belgian-born director whose work played a pivotal part in the French New Wave, has died aged 90.
She died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a statement from her family given to French news agency Afp. It said: ”The director and artist Agnès Varda died at home on Thursday night due to cancer, with her family and loved ones surrounding her.”
Her death comes just weeks after Varda put in a fitting final appearance at the Berlin International Film Festival with the documentary Varda By Agnès.
An extended filmed masterclass of sorts,...
- 3/29/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
In the early 1990s, Madonna met with French New Wave pioneer Agnès Varda about the idea of directing her in a remake “Cléo from 5 to 7.” That film, which was told virtually in real time, followed a free-spirited chanteuse confronted with her own mortality as she wanders the streets of Paris. Though the project never came to pass, its ghost lives on in French director Fabien Constant’s “Blue Night,” which considers itself more of an homage than a remake, pilfering from not just “Cléo,” but Antonioni’s “La Notte” and a handful of other European art films as well.
A mopey indie drama that delivers an unusually introspective role for “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker (who clearly relishes the opportunity to go deep), “Blue Night” wraps with Parker whisper-singing “I Think We’re Alone Now” over the end credits. That’s fitting for what basically amounts to a stylish,...
A mopey indie drama that delivers an unusually introspective role for “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker (who clearly relishes the opportunity to go deep), “Blue Night” wraps with Parker whisper-singing “I Think We’re Alone Now” over the end credits. That’s fitting for what basically amounts to a stylish,...
- 4/20/2018
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Every so often, usually while walking around Toronto on a busy day, I'll be struck by the vividness and accuracy of Agnès Varda's singular portrayal of a day in the life (barely two hours, really, making it even more remarkable) spent in the various layers and spaces of the urban environment. I speak, of course, of Cléo from 5 to 7, Varda's 1962 classic and the first film of hers I fell in love with. In those instances, I'll find myself returning to the moments I've cherry-picked as my favorites over the years, skipping across the linear sequence of events that follow the titular singer (Corinne Marchand) across Paris as she waits for the results from a medical examination within the film's designated timeframe (minus half an hour, as the film famously ends at the ninety minute mark). More than for any other film, engaging in these mental replays feels very much like replaying the events of a day I had once experienced myself long ago—albeit one that I’ve been able to revisit and come to know nearly by heart, complete with all of my favorite moments and details waiting in their proper places, so often have I gone back to that June 21st in Paris, 1961.Varda has even made it relatively easy for anyone who wishes to explore and investigate to their heart's content the events of that fateful first day of summer from so long ago now, not only by making such a crisp cinematic itinerary of the various locations visited in the film itself, but also by helpfully providing a map in her book Varda par Agnès complete with a color-coded legend indicating the locations of key scenes from the film, practically inviting the reader to recreate Cléo’s journey for themselves on the streets of present-day Paris. At once attentive and relaxed in its tour of the city (mainly focused in the Left Bank), Cléo is ably conducted in a number of different registers: as an uncommonly lovely essay-poem on the ebb and flow of urban life, an at-times somber meditation on the precarious balance between life and death, and a revealing and honest study of female identity and the ways it is scrutinized and distorted in the public’s relentless gaze. In a feat of remarkable economy and resourcefulness, the film was shot in chronological order across a five-week period, beginning on the date of the story’s events, synchronized as closely as possible to the times in the day Cléo experiences them, in keeping with narrative fidelity and proper quality of light for each scene. Neatly arranged into thirteen chapters, each with its duration clearly stated so we can easily keep track in real time, Cléo’s lucid odyssey through the various public and private spaces that make up her day is observational cinema at its most fertile, free, and magically attuned to its subjects, partly the result of Varda and her team’s carefully planned and executed shoot, partly that of simply being in the right places at the right times.Together, the films of the French New Wave make up one of the most valuable and immersive audiovisual documents of a specific time and place in history—namely France in the late 1950s and early 1960s—that we have. This is especially true of the Paris-situated films, which create the alluring image of an interconnected network of overlapping stories concentrated in a single city. The sharing of certain actors, cinematographers, writers, composers, and other key artists and technicians across different films by different directors especially helped make the impression of one Paris holding an eclectic anthology of New Wave tales. This perception was further reinforced by the cheeky self-referential winks and nods that so many of the New Wave directors—Jean-Luc Godard in particular—lovingly included in their films as gestures of solidarity and support with their nouvelle vague comrades. This is why the eponymous hero of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le flambeur, noted by many as a crucial New Wave precursor, gets name-checked by Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s Breathless, why Truffaut muses Marie Dubois and Jeanne Moreau both pop up in A Woman Is a Woman, with Moreau getting asked by Belmondo how Jules and Jim is coming along, and why Anna Karina’s Nana glimpses a giant poster for the same Truffaut film as she is being driven to her fate in the final moments of Vivre sa vie.Varda got in on the fun herself in Cléo from 5 to 7 not only by casting Michel Legrand, who provided the film with its robust score, as Cléo’s musical partner Bob (a part that gives the legendary composer a substantial amount of screen time and amply shows off his incandescent charm), but also by extending the invitation to Godard, Karina, Sami Frey, Eddie Constantine, Jean-Claude Brialy, producer Georges de Beauregard, and Alan Scott, who had appeared in Jacques Demy’s Lola. They all show up in Les fiancés du pont Macdonald, the silent comedy short-within-the-film that serves triple duty as a welcome diversion for our stressed heroine, a loving cinephilic tribute to the legacy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, and an irresistible, bite-sized New Wave party. And yet I find Cléo to be perhaps the most enchanting of all the New Wave films not for the aesthetic commonalities and cleverly devised linkages that bind it to The 400 Blows, Breathless, Paris Belongs to Us, and its other cinematic brethren, but rather for the tapestry of curious details that root it in its specific time and place and entice on the power of their inherent uniqueness and beauty. “Here,” Varda seems to say as she follows Cléo across the city, “let’s have a look at these interesting people and places on this first day of summer here in Paris, and see what we can see after watching them for a while.” The film’s opening scene continues to extend this invitation as it draws us in closer. It shows us, through the sepia-hued Eastmancolor that deviates from the rest of the film’s silvery monochrome and the “God’s eye” overhead shots (long before Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson adopted the technique as their own), the cryptic spectacle of Tarot cards being shuffled, placed down, and turned over to reveal the story of Cléo’s potential fate before we’ve even gotten a chance to properly meet Cléo herself. The slightly macabre illustrations to which Varda and cinematographer Jean Rabier dedicate their tight close-ups and the elderly card reader’s accompanying explanations of their meanings lend an air of prophecy to the events to come while also fueling Cléo’s anxiety surrounding her fate (when pressed for a clearer forecast of the future through a palm reading, the reader’s evasive response is less than inspiring). This introduction effectively locks us into Cléo’s perspective, preparing us for the next hour and a half that we will spend quietly observing as, following her distraught exit from the reader’s apartment, she grapples with her fears and insecurities, contemplates and revises her appearance and the identity behind it (tellingly, we discover late in the film that Cléo's real name is Florence), and comes to terms with the ultimately fragile nature of her own mortality. In our allotted chunk of time with her, we see the pouty girl-child subtly shift and adjust her attitude, inching a little closer towards a place of earned maturity, grace, and acceptance regarding her fate, wherever it may take her.Along the way, the film seems to expand to take in as much of the people and places around Cléo as it can. Scene by scene, her Paris makes itself felt and known through key peripheral details: a pair of lovers having an argument in a café near where Cléo sits, listening in; the procession of uniformed officers on horseback heard clip-clopping through the street on the soundtrack and seen reflected in the array of mirrors placed throughout a hat shop; a spider web of shattered mirror and a cloth pressed against a bloody wound, indicating some incident that occurred just before Cléo happened along the scene of the confused aftermath. Other stimuli fill a dazzling program of serendipitous entertainments for us to take in one by one: whirlwind rides in two taxis and a bus, an intimate musical rehearsal in Cléo’s chic, kitten-filled apartment (with Legrand, no less, clearly having a great time, his nimble fingers releasing ecstatic bursts of notes and melodies from Cléo’s piano as if they were exotic birds), the aforementioned silent short, a sculpting studio (the space alive with the indescribably pleasant sound of chisels being tapped at different tempos through soft stone), a frog swallower, a burly street performer who wiggles an iron spike through his arm, and the soothing sights and sounds of the Parc de Montsouris, among a hundred other subtle and overt pleasures scattered throughout this gently orchestrated city symphony, a heap of specificities found and sorted into a chorus of universal experience.Very much in her own way, across a body of work informed by a boundless spirit of generosity, Agnès Varda has gone about carefully collecting and preserving a marvelously varied assortment of subjects throughout her busy life, shedding fresh light on some of the most unlikely (and overlooked) people and places in the world. She refers to her self-made approach to filmmaking as ciné-criture (her own version of Alexandre Astruc's caméra-stylo), which, as we’ve come to know it through Varda’s intensely personal works, is a little like cinema, a little like writing, and uses aspects of both media to make a compassionate, genuine, and wholly original film language. Just as Antoine (Antoine Bourseiller), the dreamy young man whom Cléo encounters in the Parc de Montsouris, translates the world around them into a stream of fanciful observations and flowery speech, so too does Varda, in allegiance with poetry, ditch any semblance of objectivity, going instead for presenting the world simply as she sees it, investing it with her own unmistakable blend of charm, warmth, eloquence, and empathy, all somehow executed with nary a shred of ego or preachiness.“All these stories we simply can’t understand!” randomly exclaims a café patron to her young companion at one point late in Cléo’s journey, perhaps suddenly becoming aware, as we gradually have, of the unfathomable multitude of trajectories that trace themselves across every city every day in a dense tangle of narrative strands. In picking up Cléo’s and diligently following it with her camera for an hour and a half, Varda draws our attention to all those other strands that make up the lives of other people, leading off into their own directions, fated to become entangled with others still. Wisely, deftly, one discovered strand at a time, she helps us better appreciate, again and again, the humble miracle of so many lives coursing and thriving alongside each other, each one special and strange, each rooted in its own distinct flavor of being-ness. Cléo from 5 to 7 in turn roots us in another person’s life for its short time span and ends up giving us a whole universe, casually overflowing with meaning, life, lives, and the myriad details that shape and define them. No, we can’t understand all the stories we come across in a day. But then again, sometimes we don’t really need to understand so much as simply see. See, and accept, and appreciate what is...and then move along to whatever’s next.
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series started last Friday and continues the next two weekends — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.
All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints.
All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints.
- 3/14/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional, we also offer a silent film with live music, and audiences are sure to delight in the Poor People of Paris...
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional, we also offer a silent film with live music, and audiences are sure to delight in the Poor People of Paris...
- 1/31/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Agnés Varda’s second feature film (Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961) opens starkly, sans any musical overture, with an overhead shot of a tarot reading taking place. Two women are heard discussing the cards. A young woman, the eponymous Cléo (Corinne Marchand), chooses nine tarot cards—three to indicate the past, three for the present, three for the future. The reading does not bode well, and Cléo is told by the fortune teller that she has no hope of marriage, a grim fate indeed for a young woman in this time and place. A second tarot reading comes with a confession from Cléo that she is very ill. Cléo then gives her palm to the fortune teller to read and the fortune teller appears deeply concerned by what she divines and suddenly withdraws from the reading, announcing fearfully that she cannot read palms. As a sobbing Cléo leaves the fortune teller’s...
- 12/26/2016
- MUBI
The Conversation is a feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their eighth piece, they discuss Agnès Varda’s stunning and essential character study Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962).
Drew’S Take
This month brings the Criterion/Eclipse release of the five film box set “Agnès Varda in California,” making August the perfect time to revisit her seminal 1962 film Cléo from 5 to 7. The close to real-time film covers 90 minutes (the title is a slight fib) in the life of a beautiful French pop singer (Corinne Marchand). She has two hours to wait until her Doctor contacts her to confirm if she has cancer and what her prognosis is. In the first scene of the film, Cléo visits a fortune teller whose tarot cards reveal that she will experience a transformative experience that may involve her death. She...
Drew’S Take
This month brings the Criterion/Eclipse release of the five film box set “Agnès Varda in California,” making August the perfect time to revisit her seminal 1962 film Cléo from 5 to 7. The close to real-time film covers 90 minutes (the title is a slight fib) in the life of a beautiful French pop singer (Corinne Marchand). She has two hours to wait until her Doctor contacts her to confirm if she has cancer and what her prognosis is. In the first scene of the film, Cléo visits a fortune teller whose tarot cards reveal that she will experience a transformative experience that may involve her death. She...
- 8/30/2015
- by Landon Palmer
- SoundOnSight
Brush up on your Varda! The "Cléo from 5 to 7" director will receive the European Film Academy's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th European Film Awards on December 13 in Riga, Latvia. Known for her strongly voiced feminist filmmaking, genre-bending cinematic whimsy and, of course, her colorful choice in apparel, Varda has won a Carosse d'Or at Cannes, an honorary French Cesar award, a Golden Lion in Venice, Berlin's Silver Bear and a Pardo d'onore in Locarno, among many other prizes. She has directed narrative and documentary films. Her 1954 debut "La Pointe-Courte" precipitated a female perspective on the French New Wave. Stream the black-and-white film on Hulu now. Varda broke onto the scene again several years later with 1962's "Cléo from 5 to 7," starring the blonde and marvelous Corinne Marchand as a woman running out of time. The film remains a forebear of many visually minded filmmakers including Wes Anderson. Catch...
- 10/30/2014
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
The film is called Cleo From 5 to 7, but it’s actually Cleo From 5 to 6:30 Exactly”
Agnes Varda states with a chuckle. Varda is the Guest Director for the 2013 AFI Fest, so four of her films are being screened at the festival, starting with her most famous film, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962). The woman who has been rightfully called the Godmother of the New Wave practically bounces in her chair, which is surprising for a woman her age. I hope I age half as well. Filmmaking and boundary-breaking agree with her.
Cleo From 5 to 7 takes place over a single afternoon. A young singer (Corinne Marchand) waits for results from her medical exam to tell her whether she has cancer. More surprisingly, the story takes place in real time; starting at 5pm and ending at 6:30pm. The film has the hallmarks of many French New...
Agnes Varda states with a chuckle. Varda is the Guest Director for the 2013 AFI Fest, so four of her films are being screened at the festival, starting with her most famous film, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962). The woman who has been rightfully called the Godmother of the New Wave practically bounces in her chair, which is surprising for a woman her age. I hope I age half as well. Filmmaking and boundary-breaking agree with her.
Cleo From 5 to 7 takes place over a single afternoon. A young singer (Corinne Marchand) waits for results from her medical exam to tell her whether she has cancer. More surprisingly, the story takes place in real time; starting at 5pm and ending at 6:30pm. The film has the hallmarks of many French New...
- 11/11/2013
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
1962, PG, Artificial Eye
Agnès Varda, wife and creative companion of film-maker Jacques Demy (who died of Aids in 1990), was the token female film-maker of the French new wave, with which she was peripherally associated, though she was closer to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. She has asserted her role as a significant figure in French cinema both through her own movies, her beautiful commemorative picture about her late husband (Jacquot de Nantes) and her wonderful autobiographical The Beaches of Agnès. Cléo from 5 to 7, her exquisite debut feature, a considerable international art house success, centres on a couple of late afternoon hours in the drifting life of a somewhat vacuous Parisian singer (Corinne Marchand) as she examines her life while anxiously awaiting a vital medical verdict. It's a beguiling, slightly indulgent work, featuring a film-within-a-film starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. Photographed by Jean Rabier, Claude Chabrol's regular cameraman, with music by Michel Legrand,...
Agnès Varda, wife and creative companion of film-maker Jacques Demy (who died of Aids in 1990), was the token female film-maker of the French new wave, with which she was peripherally associated, though she was closer to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. She has asserted her role as a significant figure in French cinema both through her own movies, her beautiful commemorative picture about her late husband (Jacquot de Nantes) and her wonderful autobiographical The Beaches of Agnès. Cléo from 5 to 7, her exquisite debut feature, a considerable international art house success, centres on a couple of late afternoon hours in the drifting life of a somewhat vacuous Parisian singer (Corinne Marchand) as she examines her life while anxiously awaiting a vital medical verdict. It's a beguiling, slightly indulgent work, featuring a film-within-a-film starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. Photographed by Jean Rabier, Claude Chabrol's regular cameraman, with music by Michel Legrand,...
- 11/28/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Iron Man 2 (12A)
(Jon Favreau, 2010, Us) Robert Downey Jr, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow. 125 mins
Considering his CEO status, it's no surprise that Tony Stark's return feels more like an upgrade than a sequel. It's this season's must-have tech-form with a human interface, machine-tooled for enhanced multiplex performance, even if it has trouble finding much to say. Downey divides his time between battling his own ego and Rourke's ridiculous Russian baddie – among other myriad convoluted Marvel-universe subplots – but it's all about as exciting as the launch of a new MacBook.
Revanche (15)
(Götz Spielmann, 2008, Aus) Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko. 122 mins
An Austrian noir thriller, this takes the heist-gone-wrong set-up to intriguing new territory – the countryside – giving our sympathetic crook a new perspective, and bringing him perilously close to his cop nemesis.
Valhalla Rising (15)
(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009, Den/UK) Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson. 100 mins
This gory, hallucinatory Viking odyssey makes an indelible impression,...
(Jon Favreau, 2010, Us) Robert Downey Jr, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow. 125 mins
Considering his CEO status, it's no surprise that Tony Stark's return feels more like an upgrade than a sequel. It's this season's must-have tech-form with a human interface, machine-tooled for enhanced multiplex performance, even if it has trouble finding much to say. Downey divides his time between battling his own ego and Rourke's ridiculous Russian baddie – among other myriad convoluted Marvel-universe subplots – but it's all about as exciting as the launch of a new MacBook.
Revanche (15)
(Götz Spielmann, 2008, Aus) Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko. 122 mins
An Austrian noir thriller, this takes the heist-gone-wrong set-up to intriguing new territory – the countryside – giving our sympathetic crook a new perspective, and bringing him perilously close to his cop nemesis.
Valhalla Rising (15)
(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009, Den/UK) Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson. 100 mins
This gory, hallucinatory Viking odyssey makes an indelible impression,...
- 4/30/2010
- by Damon Wise
- The Guardian - Film News
Filmmaker Agnès Varda and friend.
Editor's note: "The Beaches of Agnes" opens in a limited run in New York and L.A. this week for Academy Award consideration. If you reside on either coast, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to "Beaches."
Agnès Varda Hits the Beach
By
Alex Simon
Born in Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda is renowned for being the only female member of France’s legendary “Nouvelle Vague” (which also includes such luminaries as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Varda’s late husband, Jacques Demy) school of filmmaking when, in 1954, she formed a film company called Cine-Tamaris for her first feature, La Pointe Courte. It earned her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave,” at the tender age of 26.
Varda has made 33 films since then, alternating between shorts and features, fiction and documentaries. Some of her most famous titles include Cleo from 5 to 7...
Editor's note: "The Beaches of Agnes" opens in a limited run in New York and L.A. this week for Academy Award consideration. If you reside on either coast, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to "Beaches."
Agnès Varda Hits the Beach
By
Alex Simon
Born in Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda is renowned for being the only female member of France’s legendary “Nouvelle Vague” (which also includes such luminaries as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Varda’s late husband, Jacques Demy) school of filmmaking when, in 1954, she formed a film company called Cine-Tamaris for her first feature, La Pointe Courte. It earned her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave,” at the tender age of 26.
Varda has made 33 films since then, alternating between shorts and features, fiction and documentaries. Some of her most famous titles include Cleo from 5 to 7...
- 12/28/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Dear Agnes Varda. She is a great director and a beautiful, lovable and wise woman, through and through. It is not enough that she made some of the first films of the French New Wave. That she was the Muse for Jacques Demy. That she is a famed photographer and installation artist. That she directed the first appearances on film of Gerard Depardieu, Phillipe Noiret--and Harrison Ford! Or that after gaining distinction as a director of fiction, she showed herself equally gifted as a director of documentaries. And that she still lives, as she has since the 1950s, in the rooms opening off each side of a once-ruined Paris courtyard, each room a separate domain.
That is not enough, because her greatest triumph is her life itself. She comes walking toward us on the sand in the first shot of "The Beaches of Agnes," describing herself as "a little old lady,...
That is not enough, because her greatest triumph is her life itself. She comes walking toward us on the sand in the first shot of "The Beaches of Agnes," describing herself as "a little old lady,...
- 3/2/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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