In one of the rooms on the first floor of the Cloître Saint-Trophime in Arles, an exhibition of photographs taken by Agnes Varda as part of the Rencontres is displayed. Not only the photographer is invited here, but also the film director behind the scenes of his first film. Quick tip (1955)
Agnes Varda was 25 years old when she started studying it. He then became a photographer for the National People’s Theater (TNP), he returned to Sète, a city for his family, and he arrived in 1940 from Belgium, a welcoming country during the war. He places the action there, in a popular neighborhood on the edge of the Etang de Tau, where he rubs shoulders with fishermen and their boats, the pointus he photographs them with their fishing nets as they run in the canal. The people of Setua, dressed in white, face each other at the bow of the boats; a scene that he will reproduce in his film.. He films the love story of two lost souls on a budget. Starring actress Sylvia Montfort and Philippe Noiret, for whom this is his first leading role. The director develops this Parisian couple on the verge of separation in this maritime environment. During editing, he teamed up with Alain Renes.
The city of Set is revealed in Agnes Varda’s eyes
The exhibition Rencontres shows the preparatory work of Agnes Varda and her privileged relationship with the sea. She photographs her dream environment and signs an almost documentary film where she comes to a love story that embodies two characters frozen in their immobility. Their disruptive progress is all the more striking in the contrast that the bubbly city of Sete offers.
Agnes Varda. Jousters in Sètevintage silver print, circa 1952. Courtesy of the Agnes Varda Estate/Rosalie Varda Collection.
A quick tipwork of the avant-garde
An exhibition of some 800 views of Sète taken by the photographer is also of double interest. From understanding the development of a budding filmmaker’s first feature film and witnessing the city of Seth in the mid-20th century. In his exit, A quick tip recognized as an unpublished work, a precursor to a new cinematic style, the New Wave. Seven years later, the director is Agnes Varda Cleo 5 to 7 (1962), then it will be Happiness (1965), one sings, the other doesn’t (1977) or even No asylum, no law (1985). To complete the visit to the Rencontres exhibition, Luma exhibits Hans-Ulrich Obrist Archive – Chapter 3: Agnes Varda, A day without seeing a tree is a wasted day, in the tower of the museum. We reveal the artistic friendship that connected the filmmaker, who died in 2019, and the art historian at the beginning of his participation in the Venice Biennale in 2003.
Agnes Varda, La Pointe: From Photographs to FilmSaint-Trophime Cloister, Arles, until September 24
Hans-Ulrich Obrist Archive – Chapter 3: Agnes Varda, A day without seeing a tree is a wasted day, LUMA, La Tour, Arles, luma.org
Source: Le Figaro
