Daguerreotypes
Synopsis
This cinema-direct documentary from French New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda finds the legendary director touring the neighborhood that surrounds her home of over 50 years: the Rue Daguerre in Paris's 14th arrondissement. As she canvasses the shops and shopkeepers populating the area, an image emerges of a subculture and way of life that have since grown nearly extinct.
Source : movies.nytimes.com
Credits
Director (1)
Production and distribution (4)
- Co-production : Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA)
- Foreign production company : ZDF - Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
- Film exports/foreign sales : mk2 films
- French distribution : L'Epée de Bois
Full credits (8)
- Directors of Photography : Nurith Aviv, William Lubtchansky
- Editors : Andrée Choty, Gordon Swire
- Sound Recordist : Maurice Gilbert
- Sound Assistant : Bernard Chaumeil
- Assistant Operators : Christian Bachmann, Denis Gheerbrant, Michel Thiriet
- Sound editors : Jean-François Auger, Antoine Bonfanti
- Narration Writer : Agnès Varda
- Participant : Rosalie Varda
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Media Gallery
Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Documentary
- Sub-genre : Documentary, Portrait
- Themes : The neighborhood, Business and trade , City
- Production language : French
- Production country : France (100.0%)
- Original French-language productions : Yes
- Nationality : 100% French (France)
- Production year : 1975
- French release : 28/02/1978
- Runtime : 1 h 20 min
- Current status : Released
- Visa number : 44.089
- Approval : Yes
- Production formats : 16mm
- Color type : Color
- Aspect ratio : 1.37
- Audio format : Mono
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News & awards
News (2)
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About
Review
The documentary was actually shot in 1976, and first released in 1978. It is having its long overdue US theatrical premiere in 2011, thanks to New York City's exceptional Maysles Cinema, where it has a one week run beginning on December 12, 2011.
With her brilliant storytelling skill, Varda transforms the small details of daily life into larger than life drama. In Daguerreotypes, she employs her cinema verite fly on the wall shooting style to follow several Parisian shopkeepers -- the local perfume maker, butcher, baker and others -- as they go about their well established, well practiced daily routines. She records them as they open their shops, stock their shelves and serve their regular and new customers. And, as they carry out their various tasks before her camera, the shopkeepers seem to grow in stature. They become important personalities, the keepers of local culture and tradition.
Varda's inimitably intimate camera work captures their twitches, their unexpected and nuanced glances and the subtle gestures that reveal their inner thoughts, and illustrate the unspoken tensions of their lives. Nothing of much conseqence happens, but with Varda's observational guidance, the quite ordinary behavior that through lesser eyes might be seen as plain tedium is quite mesmerizing. The shopkeepers are enchanting. They are not inhibited by self-consciousness. Watching them becomes an intense and enjoyable experience.
Then, with her extraordinary vision and skill, Varda adds another dimension to our point of view. She follows the shopkeepers from the safe and familiar environs of their stores into the unknown world of a local magic show where they encounter the unexpected and fantastic. Intercutting the footage of the shopkeepers in their own environments with footage of them experiencing the mysteries of magic reveals even more about their inner lives and aspirations.
They are the people of Paris. This is the street on which Agnes Varda lives. It is 1976. And you are in a mystical time capsule that captures a mixture of the mundane and magical elements of that very specific world for all eternity.
Varda is a brilliant filmmaker, and Daguerreotypes is a magnificent documentary. If it is at all within the realm of possibility and your means, take advantage of this limited opportunity to see it on the big screen. If you can't make it to the Maysles Cinema screenings, by all means see Daguerreotypes on DVD on the largest screen you have available to you.
Source : documentaries.about.com
