Quotessence
Home / Authors / Agnes Varda

Agnes Varda Quotes

Film director

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleFilmThinkingWayIfsTryingCinemaKnowsNeedsMade

Famous Agnes Varda Quotes

“I never fought, I never learned kung fu or boxing, I never went into these sportif competitions. I wouldn't cross the ocean. 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. I did not think that woman would be restrained. I never saw that, especially not in filmmaking, where you don't have to be strong.”

PeopleThinkingLooksWould BeStrongSawsRiskOceanCrossesCompetitionRidiculousBoxingNot AfraidFilmmakingKung Fu
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“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. I have to do something which relates with my time, and in my time, we make things differently.”

PeopleYearsDoneLastsLiteraturePathSawsPaintingTheaterFollowingContemporaryFranceRelateCinemaThirtyMy TimeVirginiaThirty YearsJoyceWoolf
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“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. I had beautiful jewelery around me, and when I lost I would take the jewelery and say, Service - being very generous, because it was very expensive jewelery. I would say, Tip.”

PeopleMadeBeautifulFilmLostPlayerSceneNakedCardsGenerousExpensiveGamblingPortraitsJaneDealerCasinos
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“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. It sounds so lovely in French. So I took that because it was the subject: I and myself and myself and I. Which is, in a way, boring, because it is a contradiction.”

WayBeautifulSongSoundNiceImpossibleSubjectsBoringLovelyContradictionTranslateJaneVery Nice
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“I had a very good time when I did The Gleaners - even though the people are poor, and I was suffering to see the conditions, and plus they are not such lovely hearts. They are tough to each other, they beat each other, they are rude and they are violent and they drink. They're not sweethearts, you know, but some were so interesting.”

PeopleKnowsHeartSufferingInterestingPoorConditionsDrinkBeatsToughVery GoodLovelyViolentGood TimesPlusRudeSweetheart
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“When I did the first edit of Les plages, it was very dry and very square in a way. I was just saying the minimum. I said, Well, if this is the minimum, I don't make it. So I tried to make it more refined. 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.”

IfsWayWantFirstsWellsSaidUseShowsAbleDrySquaresMinimumEditsRefinedJust Saying
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image

“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 - she almost doesn't recognize her children, but she recites Valéry and Baudelaire. So what? We're the ones who are suffering. She's not.”

WorldMeanChildrenDoeBeautifulYoungSufferingWifeOld WomanRecitingBaudelaire
Author:Agnes Varda
Create image