Tout(e) Varda: the DVD collection as authorworld

Abstract

In 2012, Ciné-Tamaris released Tout(e) Varda, a DVD box set spanning filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 60-year career to that date. Although relatively unusual in the degree of control Varda seems to have had in curating the collection, this box set is a logical development of Varda’s work of the 2000s in which she has increasingly interrogated her oeuvre and career. This article argues for the significance of the collection – and the paratextual material it includes – for an analysis of Varda and her work. But it also seeks to position the analysis within the wider context of DVD scholarship, where – despite a recurring concern with both the commercial and didactic functions of auteurism – the authorial collection has attracted little attention. An analysis of Tout(e) Varda points to the importance of considering the formal qualities of paratextual material as well as their thematic concerns. Tout(e) Varda offers not a definitive commentary on Varda’s work, but rather extends its formal and thematic preoccupations, albeit in ways which are at times contradictory, constructing Varda as both an unreliable curator and unreliable narrator.

Keywords:

• Agnès Varda
• authorworld
• DVD authorship
• DVD extras
• DVD box sets
• paratext

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ian Garwood for introducing me to Varda’s DVDs and providing feedback on an earlier version of this article; and to Sarah Smith, Sarah Neely, Katharina Lindner and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments have enriched this article at different stages.

Notes

1. Ciné-Tamaris was formed in 1954 (as Tamaris Films), to produce La Pointe Courte. It became Ciné-Tamaris in 1975 and has been involved in production and distribution of Varda’s films ever since. Ciné-Tamaris also oversees the restoration and distribution of the films of Jacques Demy, Varda’s husband, who died in 1990. See www.cine-tamaris.fr

2. The features: La Pointe Courte (1954), Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961), Le Bonheur (1964), Les Créatures (1965), Lions love (...and lies) (1969), Daguerréotypes (1975), L’Une Chante l’autre pas/ One sings, the other doesn’t (1976), Mur Murs (1980), Documenteur (1980/1), Sans toit ni loi/ Vagabond (1985), Jane B par Agnès V. (1987), Kung-fu Master (1987), Jacquot de Nantes (1991), Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1966 & 1992), L’Univers de Jacques Demy (1993/95), Les Cent et un Nuits/ 101 Nights (1994), Les glaneurs et la glaneuse/ The Gleaners and I (2000), Deux Ans Après/ Two Years Later (2002), Les Plages D’ Agnès/ The Beaches of Agnès (2008).

3. The shorts: Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1957), Du côté de la côte (1958), L’opéra-Mouffe (1958), Les Fiancés du pont MacDonald (1961), Salut les Cubains (1962/63), Elsa la rose (1965), Oncle Yanco (1967), Black Panthers (1968), Réponse de femmes (1975), Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976), Ulysse (1982), Les dites Cariatides (1984), 7 p., cuis., s. de b. (1984), T’as de beaux escaliers, tu sais (1986), Le Lion volatil (2003), Ydessa, les ours et etc...(2004).

4. There are exceptions, of course. Among recent Varda-scholarship, discussions of various of Varda’s short films appear in Conway (2015), Gorbman (2012) and Blatt (2011), whilst Conway (2015) also analyses Varda’s installation work.

5. Varda was 84 when the collection was released and had repeatedly stated that 2008’s The Beaches of Agnès was to be her last feature (Conway 2015, 108). However, in 2017, her first feature in nearly a decade – Visages, Villages, codirected with young photographer JR – appeared at Cannes. Her short film Les 3 Boutons (2015) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mkuSTzf_Pw) also post-dates Tout(e) Varda. Made for an online ‘Women’s Tales’ series funded by fashion house Miu Miu, the film has its own ‘making of’ film (not, this time, written and directed by Varda herself, but by Marian Lacombe) which features Varda as the familiarly reflective and reflexive raconteur (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJWNrEH25Q8). Following these links on YouTube of course creates its own authorworlds.

6. Conway (2015, 74) notes that the film about Zgougou was part of Varda’s 2006 installation L’île et elle, a further example of the way Varda recycles and reuses material in different contexts.

7. Between 2008 and 2013, the number of retail DVDs sold to consumers in France fell from 85.1 million to 60.7 million (http://www.statista.com/statistics/372525/number-of-retail-dvds-sold-to-consumers-in-france/ accessed 25 February 2015).