The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 34 – Agnès Varda in California

The Eclipse Viewer – CriterionCast

English - September 21, 2015 12:00 - 48.4 MB - ★★★★★ - 20 ratings
TV & Film Arts Performing Arts dvd film movie cinema criterioncast ozu bergman eclipse series criterion Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 33 – Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures

Next Episode: The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 35 – Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys

David and Trevor offer their personal impressions of Agnès Varda's cinematic expressions of life in the Golden State during two distinctly different cultural epochs: the late 1960s and early 1980s.

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 43: Agnès Varda in California.

About the films:

The legendary French filmmaker Agnès Varda, whose remarkable career began in the 1950s and has continued into the twenty-first century, produced some of her most provocative works in the United States. After temporarily relocating to California in the late sixties with her husband, Jacques Demy, Varda, inspired by the politics, youth culture, and sunshine of the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, created three works that use documentary and fiction in various ways. She returned a decade later, and made two other fascinating portraits of outsiderness. Her five revealing, entertaining California films, encompassing shorts and features, are collected in this set, which demonstrates that Varda was as deft an artist in unfamiliar terrain as she was on her own turf.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes.

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links
Agnès Varda

Biography at the European Graduate School
Senses of Cinema “Great Directors” essay by Helen Carter
Agnès Varda: The Punk-Spirited Grand-Mère Terrible – AnOther essay by Laura Havlin
IndieWire interview by Susan Kougell
Interview in The Guardian (2009)
Roger Ebert essay (2009)
Variety archive of Varda coverage
Top 10 Best Varda Films on NewWaveFilm.com

Box Set Reviews

New York Times review by J. Hoberman
IonCinema review by Jordan M. Smith
Metro review by Matt Prigge
DVD Savant review by Glenn Erickson
RogerEbert.com review by Steve Erickson
J!-Ent Online review by Dennis Amith

Uncle Yanco

Not Coming to a Theater Near You review by Evan Kindley
Only the Cinema review by Ed Howard

Black Panthers

Senses of Cinema review by Beth Mauldin
Only the Cinema review by Ed Howard (scroll down)

Lions Love (… and Lies)

New York Times review by Vincent Canby (1969)
Not Coming to a Theater Near You review by Leo Goldsmith
Rupert Pupkin Speaks review by Brian Saur
Brandon’s movie memory review
Review by Dennis Grunes
James Rado, Gerome Ragni and “Hair”
Viva’s account of the shooting of Andy Warhol in 1968
Shirley Clarke’s website