31 Quotes by Agnes Varda

Agnes Varda was a French film director and photographer known for her unique approach to filmmaking and her commitment to exploring the lives of marginalized communities. She was a key figure in the French New Wave movement and is considered one of the most important feminist filmmakers of all time. Varda's films often dealt with issues of social justice, and she used her camera to give voice to those who were often ignored by mainstream media. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including an honorary Oscar for her lifetime of achievement in filmmaking. (Bio)

Agnes Varda Quotes


Love is not something like you open and you close (Meaning)

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In my films I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don't want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.

This is all you need in life: a computer, a camera, and a cat.

Humor is such a strong weapon, such a strong answer. Women have to make jokes about themselves, laugh about themselves, because they have nothing to lose.

If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.

Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.

The tool of every self-portrait is the mirror. You see yourself in it. Turn it the other way, and you see the world .

You are always in the world. Even in Vagabond. I am not on the road, I am not eating nothing. 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.

I'm still fighting. I don't know how much longer, but I'm still fighting a struggle, which is to make cinema alive and not just make another film.

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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I wanted to speak strongly about feminism in my life, since it's been a struggle.

Good cinema is good cinema. It makes you feel like you need to work. Just yesterday I saw a good film, but even if I'd seen a bad one, I'd feel, "Oh my god, what a bad job, I can do better."

Gleaning is getting things that are abandoned. I did not abandon my early pictures, my photos, my early films. It's just going through my body of work as something I can pick from.

I tried to find a language for the film - not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain. 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.

I'm trying to capture something more fragile than a regular story. I love what people bring me.

Humor is such a strong weapon, such a strong answer.

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.

I hated myself totally white. So now I cheat. It's my white hair, and I put color there. My grandson says I'm punk.

I think we need to have a nest of something which is family.

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I had a world. I don't think I had a career. I made films.

Society is so slow. A feminist is a bore.

I'm interested in people who are not exactly the middle way, or who are trying something else because they cannot prevent themselves from being different, or they wish to be different, or they are different because society pushed them away.

My company is called Ciné-Tamaris, which is rosemary. That's my speed. Hot water and herb.

You have to invent life.

I've always been like this - trying to find adventure where it's still in its first élan - the first spring.

I'm missing some people, you know, and this is not nostalgia. I miss them. This is melancholy.

I don't watch my own films. There is little time; I'd rather see another film.

I live in cinema. I feel I've lived here forever.

Sometimes I feel sad, but this is not nostalgia, because I don't want time to come back.

I'm not nostalgic. My memories are back here in my mind.

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.

― Agnes Varda Quotes

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