![]() ![]() The portable camera is essential for this film, as it creates a more personal approach to the film itself, such as the unsteadiness of her hand, the extreme close ups on her and on the potatoes, the freedom of being able to carry around the camera and being able to record unexpected events. The camera is her apron, she is a gleaner, but a gleaner of images and stories which reflects the world through the character of Varda. ![]() This is shown when she was filmed trying to pose as Breton’s famous gleaner, but, contrary to Breton’s painting, she drops the crops and grabs her portable camera a symbol of the modern world, the advance of technology and of freedom for her as a filmmaker. A symbolic moment of the film, a moment that signifies that the documentary is not only about gleaning but is about Varda too at the beginning. This can be seen with the close up of her hands –with her reflections about death and getting old, also with the close ups of her (white) hair, and with her playing with the effect of the new camera. Varda is mostly present throughout the film, not just as director/narrator but also as a character. This kind of coincidence helps drive the structure of the film, with many of her meetings with people happening either by chance, or by her following people around and asking questions. For example, one of her interviews is with a wine maker/psychotherapist, who turns out to be the descendant of Etienne-Jules Marey. Varda in one her interviews calls herself a gleaner of images, which relates to the way she has constructed the film gleaning her story together. The rhythm is quite slow, because of this type of editing, the pace is steady and this keeps the audience’s attention, her voice over and the cuts helps too. ![]() Her voice and the shots of her herself are used as a glue throughout the film, as Homay King says on his essay: Matter, Time, and the Digital: Varda ‘ s The Gleaners and I “Varda often uses a visual Rhyme, metonymic link, or verbal pun as her means of connecting one segment to the next (page 9). By doing this, the meaning that is created within the images can be freely interpreted from the spectator. Varda is not following a chronological order with her narrative, but instead has edited the film by connecting shots by theme or association a technique that can be associated with the deep focusing editing technique. This film can be considered a road documentary set in France. Varda observes and gets involved in the people’s life she is not trying to judge or jump to conclusions on the way they live their lives or the way the society treats them. Varda has opened the eye of the common ignorant person, and not with prejudice but with her witty curiosity, with the editing, with the wonderful people she interviews and with her nearly constant presence on the film. Problems that are filmed are not necessarily there to make a comment on the society that the filmmaker is living in, but to open a window to that society, creating a sense of disgust and awareness in the spectators, whether that sensation is voluntary or not. This film touches on political and social issues like poverty, sustainability, waste, reusability and the limits of capitalism. It is a painful view on todays unfair and consumerist society. The definition of gleaning, for this film, is updated to reflect modern society, where gleaning can be picking rubbish and leftovers from bins, streets and markets. It is also a film about Agnes herself in fact this film is a self-portrait of herself and the part of the French community (homeless, poor) that is often forgotten. It is a documentary based film, as the title says, on gleaning – as to “gather (Grain o the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers” (Dictionary. The gleaners and I is a film by Agnes Varda, one of the few female directors of the French New Wave.
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