MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture: Focus Issue Twelve: Reframing Varda

Misiak, Anna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7153-944X, Sadri, Houman ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7736-2494, Sheen, Erica and Fayard, Nicole (2023) MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture: Focus Issue Twelve: Reframing Varda. [Journal]

Preview

Image (Screenshot of the front page of the published journal issue) Screenshot 2024-12-16 at 12.16.34.png - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract / Summary

Given the contents of our previous issues, which featured a range of novel and creatively diverse discourses and methods for researching and discussing visual culture, this collection may seem rather traditional in its focus. Some may even see it as an unexpected return to a more old-school style of academic analyses. In fact, this slight return represents a celebration of a multimedia female artist who was the exact opposite of ‘traditional’.

Agnès Varda, whom our feminist authors here ‘reframe’, gave the global cineaste community such a breadth of beautiful filmic, visual, and political commentary that we may never tire of discussing her. From her earliest directorial debut, La Pointe Courte (1955), through the unforgettable and always mesmerising nouvelle vague masterpiece Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), to her final self-reflective film, Varda by Agnès (2019), she stood out as the caring, sensitive pioneer of both serious social commentary and cheeky, flippant remarks, which showed her distance to herself and the often-challenging surroundings of the patriarchally structured world of media.

However, Varda’s experiments with intellectual distance, although sometimes sarcastically humorous, were never demeaning. Each of her characters, lines of dialogue, photographs, film frames, or even edits vibrated with a profound sense of dignity she saw in each being. That’s why, we feel, she kept appealing to the aesthetic and social sensitivities of her worldwide audiences and creative peers.

Yes, Varda won acclaim and recognition from critics and festival juries such as only a few female artists during her lifetime could match, but that’s not why we love and appreciate her at MAI. This issue is neither about Agnès Varda, the trophy winner, nor Agnès Varda, the auteur.

Our specialist authors ‘reframe’ her here as a source of constant inspiration, the brave artist who pondered on the surrounding reality not just through stories but through what occupied her frames on the screen and in print. Like Varda’s projects, the contributors to this issue always put her image at the centre of their reflection. A single picture opens a debate on sometimes intangible feelings and thoughts that cannot be verbally captured.

And this is how this focus issue came into being. Rewatching Varda’s work with their colleagues and friends during the lockdown, our guest editors, Nicole Fayard and Erica Sheen, wanted to delve into recent posthumous responses to her films and photography. Later, having secured funding from the University of York, they organised a conference, ‘Reframing Varda’, in September 2022. What you are about to read is a set of fresh philosophical and feminist re-readings of Varda’s output all of which originated from that event.

Item Type:	Journal
ISSN:	2003-167x
eISSN:	2003-167x
Subjects:	Film & Television
Courses by Department:	The School of Film & Television
Depositing User:	Anna Misiak
Date Deposited:	18 Dec 2024 09:54
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2024 09:54
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/5855

View Record (staff only)