“It’s like a puzzle – and I think everybody is a puzzle – and when you put all the puzzle together to make a portrait of somebody, it’s not like a confession – it’s nothing like this. It’s a collage, and some pieces don’t fit very well – that makes the realm of the film.” —Agnés Varda
The acclaimed and beloved French New Wave filmmaker, photographer, and artist Agnès Varda (b. 1928, Brussels, d. 2019, Paris) passed away on March 29, 2019 at the age of 90. In this 2010 video from PBS’s great POV program, Varda talks about making her autobiographical 2008 film The Beaches of Agnès and what it was like to act in her own film. She discusses her approach to filmmaking, the influence of the surrealists on her work, combining narrative elements within her documentary work, and how she came to make the film as she approached her 80th birthday, with many charming anecdotes along the way.