BUY TICKETS HERE
Join us at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 8, for a screening of Agnes Varda’s “The Gleaners and I” (2000), a self-reflexive documentary in which the French cinema icon explores the world of modern-day gleaners: those living on the margins who survive by foraging for what society throws away. The movie ranked 69th in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of the 100 greatest movies ever made.
THE GLEANERS AND I | 2000) | WRITER-DIRECTOR: Agnes Varda | RUNNING TIME: 1H 22M | IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES | UNRATED No offensive material | PROJECTED in 2K DCP format
Embracing the intimacy and freedom of digital filmmaking, Varda posits herself as a kind of gleaner of images and ideas, one whose generous, expansive vision makes room for ruminations on everything from aging to the birth of cinema to the beauty of heart-shaped potatoes.
By turns playful, philosophical, and subtly political, “The Gleaners and I” is a warmly human reflection on the contradictions of our consumerist world from an artist who, like her subjects, finds unexpected richness where few think to look.
“In “The Gleaners and I,” Varda has a new tool–a modern digital camera. We sense her delight. She can hold it in her hand and take it anywhere. She is liberated from cumbersome equipment. “To film with one hand my other hand,” she says, as she does so with delight. She shows how the new cameras make a personal essay possible for a filmmaker–how she can walk out into the world and without the risk of a huge budget simply start picking up images as a gleaner finds apples and potatoes.
“My hair and my hands keep telling me that the end is near,” she confides at one point, speaking confidentially to us as the narrator. She told her friend Howie Movshovitz, the critic from Boulder, Colo., how she had to film and narrate some scenes while she was entirely alone because they were so personal. In 1993 she directed “Jacquot de Nantes,” the story of her late husband, and now this is her story of herself, a woman whose life has consisted of moving through the world with the tools of her trade, finding what is worth treasuring.” — Roger Ebert
Tickets are $5 and available at link above. Students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout for free admission (must show Cane card at the door).
