The Criterion Collection has officially announced that The Complete Films of Agnès Varda will be available on Blu-Ray on August 11, 2020. The set will include all 39 of her features, shorts and documentaries along with a 200 page book and more.
The Criterion Collection had the following to say about the set:
We’re celebrating the boundless creative vision of Agnès Varda with a comprehensive collection of her genre-blurring, culture-shaping films. Bringing together all thirty-nine of her features, shorts, and documentaries for the first time, this fifteen-Blu-ray box set also contains extensive special features- many created by Varda herself- including introductions to the films, interviews with and tributes from family and friends, once-banned and unfinished works, behind-the-scenes footage, archival programs, and more. The edition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated 200-page book, with notes on the films and essays on Varda’s life and work, as well as a selection of her photography and images of her installation art. The Complete Films of Agnès Varda captures the restless curiosity and radical imagination of a true original who invented a new cinematic language.
THE COMPLETE FILMS OF AGNÈS VARDA
A founder of the French New Wave who became an international art-house icon, Agnès Varda was a fiercely independent, restlessly curious visionary whose work was at once personal and passionately committed to the world around her. In an abundant career in which she never stopped expanding the notion of what a movie can be, Varda forged a unique cinematic vocabulary that frequently blurs the boundaries between narrative and documentary, and entwines loving portraits of her friends, her family, and her own inner world with a social consciousness that was closely attuned to the 1960s counterculture, the women’s liberation movement, the plight of the poor and socially marginalized, and the ecology of our planet. This comprehensive collection places Varda’s filmography in the context of her parallel work as a photographer and multimedia artist-all of it a testament to the radical vision, boundless imagination, and radiant spirit of a true original for whom every act of creation was a vital expression of her very being.
PROGRAMS AND FILMS
Agnès Forever – Varda by Agnès (2019), Les 3 boutons (2015)
Early Varda – La Pointe Courte (1955), Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1958), Du côté de la côte (1958)
Around Paris – Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Les fiancés du pont Macdonald (1962), L’opéra-mouffe (1958), Les dites cariatides (1984), T’as de beaux escaliers, tu sais (1986)
Rue Daguerre – Daguerréotypes (1975), Le lion volatil (2003)
Married Life – Le bonheur (1965), Les créatures (1966), Elsa la Rose (1966)
In California – Uncle Yanco (1968), Black Panthers (1970), Lions Love (. . . and Lies) (1969), Mur Murs (1981), Documenteur (1981)
Her Body, Herself – One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), Réponse de femmes (1975), Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1977)
No Shelter – Vagabond (1985), 7 p., cuis., s. de b. . . . (à saisir) (1985)
Jane B. – Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988), Kung-Fu Master! (1988)
Jacques Demy – Jacquot de Nantes (1991), The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993), The World of Jacques Demy (1995)
Simon Cinéma – One Hundred and One Nights (1995)
La glaneuse – The Gleaners and I (2000), The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (2002)
Visual Artist – Faces Places, codirected with JR (2017), Salut les cubains (1964), Ulysse (1982), Ydessa, les ours et etc. . . . (2004)
Here and There – Agnès de ci de là Varda (2011)
Beaches – The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
FIFTEEN-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTOR’S SET FEATURES
- Digital restorations of thirty-nine films, including the first home-video presentations of Les créatures, Jacquot de Nantes, and the television series Agnès de ci de là Varda
- Introductions by director Agnès Varda
- Nausicaa, a once-banned 1970 television film directed by Varda
- New programs featuring actor Jane Birkin; Varda’s children, Mathieu Demy and Rosalie Varda; and scholar Kelley Conway
- Segments directed by Varda from the 1983 French television program Une minute pour une image
- Programs on Varda’s work as a visual artist, including Quelques veuves de Noirmoutier, a 2006 television presentation of one of her installations
- Over seven hours of archival programs featuring Varda, many of them also directed by her
- Archival interviews and tributes featuring Varda’s friends, family, and key collaborators
- Rare footage from unfinished features and commercials
- Behind-the-scenes footage, video essays, and trailers
- PLUS: A lavishly illustrated 200-page book, featuring notes on the films and essays on Varda’s life and work by writers Amy Taubin, Michael Koresky, Ginette Vincendeau, So Mayer, Alexandra Hidalgo, and Rebecca Bengal, as well as a selection of Varda’s photography and images of her installation art
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
