The complete works of one of cinema’s most influential voices will soon be available on disc. A press release has announced The Criterion Collection is releasing a 15-disc Blu-ray set containing all 39 of Agnès Varda’s features, documentaries, and shorts. Criterion’s “Complete Films of Agnès Varda” will be available August 11.
All of the films Varda made will be included in the set, from classics such as “Cleo from 5 to 7,” to slice-of-life docs like “The Gleaners & I,” to her last projects, “Faces Places” and “Varda by Agnès.”
The box set will include a 200-page book of notes and essays on the French New Wave icon’s life and career, and selections from her photography and artwork. There will also be “extensive special features — many created by Varda herself — including introductions to the films, interviews with and tributes from family and friends, once-banned and unfinished works, behind-the-scenes footage, archival programs, and more.”
“Agnès Varda was a fiercely independent, restlessly curious visionary whose work was at once personal and passionately committed to the world around her,” the press release describes. “In an abundant career in which she never stopped expanding the notion of what a movie can be, Varda forged a unique cinematic vocabulary that frequently blurs the boundaries between narrative and documentary, and entwines loving portraits of her friends, her family, and her own inner world with a social consciousness that was closely attuned to the 1960s counterculture, the women’s liberation movement, the plight of the poor and socially marginalized, and the ecology of our planet.”
Varda died last year at the age of 90. She received an honorary Oscar in 2018, and nabbed a Best Documentary Feature nomination for “Faces Places.” She was posthumously honored as the face of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. She had screened 13 films at the fest throughout her career, and took home an honorary Palme d’Or in 2015.
“The Complete Films of Agnès Varda’s” programs and pics are below, courtesy of The Criterion Collection, as is a trailer for the box set.
Agnès Forever – Varda by Agnès (2019), Les 3 boutons (2015)
Early Varda – La Pointe Courte (1955), Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1958), Du côté de la côte (1958)
Around Paris – Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Les fiancés du pont Macdonald (1962), L’opéra-mouffe (1958), Les dites cariatides (1984), T’as de beaux escaliers, tu sais (1986)
Rue Daguerre – Daguerréotypes (1975), Le lion volatil (2003)
Married Life – Le bonheur (1965), Les créatures (1966), Elsa la Rose (1966)
In California – Uncle Yanco (1968), Black Panthers (1970), Lions Love (. . . and Lies) (1969), Mur Murs (1981), Documenteur (1981)
Her Body, Herself – One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), Réponse de femmes (1975), Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1977)
No Shelter – Vagabond (1985), 7 p., cuis., s. de b. . . . (à saisir) (1985)
Jane B. – Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988), Kung-Fu Master! (1988)
Jacques Demy – Jacquot de Nantes (1991), The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993), The World of Jacques Demy (1995)
Simon Cinéma – One Hundred and One Nights (1995)
La glaneuse – The Gleaners and I (2000), The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (2002)
Visual Artist – Faces Places, codirected with JR (2017), Salut les cubains (1964), Ulysse (1982), Ydessa, les ours et etc. . . . (2004)
Here and There – Agnès de ci de là Varda (2011)
Beaches – The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
