Slideshow
JANE B. BY AGNÈS V.
France, 1988
Directed by Agnès Varda
Starring Jane Birkin
In French with English subtitles
Approx. 97 min.
To make a portrait of the actress/singer/style icon Jane Birkin, Varda created a cinematic collage, filming her “real” self as well as a multitude of fictional characters in sketches and tableaux vivants, playing characters including Joan of Arc, Stan Laurel, and a femme fatale. A playful and spirited collaboration between two great iconoclasts. “I said [to Jane] we’ll show excerpts of films you haven’t made, films we’ve made up, and we’ll fabricate some interviews.”
Presented with support from The George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema, The Helen Frankenthaler Endowed Fund for Films on Art, and The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund
Reviews
“While the word ‘feminism’ is never uttered in this movie, JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. is an exemplary feminist work, one in which two female artists, self-aware but hardly self-conscious, create beauty by exchanging notes.”
– Glenn Kenny, The New York Times