The Gleaners, an oil painting by Jean-François Millet.
In her documentary The Gleaners & I (2000), Agnes Varda’s point-of-departure is a 1857 painting by Jean-Francois Millet portraying three women gleaning the fields. The painting, hanging in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, is captured in the film through crowds of onlookers. While in his painting Millet sought to give a voice to the plight of the 19th-century poor, Varda expands the topic and draws a contemporary picture of what it means to glean in the 20th century.
With camera in hand and a small crew, Varda, who was in her 70s at the time, criss-crosses France. On her way from Paris to the northern countryside, to the wine region of Burgundy, to the oyster farms on the seashore and back, Varda meets gleaners of a vast array of agricultural products. Men and women who sift through tons of unmarketable potatoes, apples, and tomatoes, and who take over a deserted vineyard. In the city, she highlights urban excess, market-day leftovers and supermarket waste.
Maintaining a sense of humor, she places magistrates in black robes in the field to inform us that gleaning of food follows 16th-century laws. However, gleaning of rejected objects, images and impressions has no regulations. Artists collect discarded articles to create objects of art, and Varda partakes in the activities and in doing so the factual and the personal intermingle. While narrating the story she takes her own camera and gleans images of her aging hands, of trucks passing by, and of abstract shapes on her wet ceiling. A remarkable film which is as informative as it is entertaining.
The film (in French with English subtitles) can be found on Vimeo and on DVD at Amazon.
— TOVA BECK-FRIEDMAN
nywift
Related Posts
Meet the New NYWIFT Member Gabrielle Schonder
A warm welcome to new NYWIFT member Gabrielle Schonder! Gabrielle is a multi- Emmy Award-winning documentary director who has covered politics, national security, and foreign policy for over a decade at 60 Minutes and FRONTLINE about insider trading by members of Congress led to the passage of The STOCK Act. She had her directorial debut in 2020 with NRA: Under Fire and was a member of the FRONTLINE team that covered the insurrection on January 6th in America After 9/11. Gabrielle is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, East, and a 2022 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. We asked Gabrielle to tell us more about what it’s like to work as a journalist, producer, and director for some of the most respected news programs in the country.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Amanda Ramirez
Let’s all give a warm welcome to our new NYWIFT member, Amanda Ramirez! As an actor, Amanda has appeared in All My Children, As the World Turns, and Fox's Canterbury's Law. As a producer, she has credits in the documentary Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies, the horror film Welcome to Willits, and the holiday feature My First Miracle. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA and the Independent Filmmakers Guild of America (IFGA). Amanda holds a BA in Theatre with minors in Dance and Education from Long Island University - C.W. Post, and an MA in Communications from the New York Institute of Technology, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Check out our full article to learn more about Amanda and her passion for meaningful storytelling!
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Maura Garnett
Welcome to NYWIFT, Maura Garnett! Fresh out of NYWIFT’s internship program, where she played a crucial role on our Muse Awards volunteer team, Maura now joins the NYWIFT community in our Next Wave program. Maura Garnett is a writer/director who is a recent School of Visual Arts graduate. She specializes in directing and casting. Currently, she's in post-production on Treading, about a young woman's quest for belonging in the city, leading to a series of bad dates. Her film Disoriented, about a life-altering phone call, is on the festival circuit. Playtime, addressing date rape and sexual assault, has earned acclaim at over 30 festivals, including Global Indie Film Festival and New York Movie Awards. Aspiring casting director Maura has interned with Stephanie Klapper Casting and Emmy-winning Avy Kaufman. Now, she's a casting assistant for 5-time Emmy nominated Mark Saks. Maura shares what she has learned working alongside some of NYC's top casting directors, how she creatively approaches tough subject matter, and what's coming up on her professional horizon.
READ MOREMeet The New NYWIFT Member: Yixin Cen
Let's welcome new NYWIFT Member Yixin Cen, an NYC-based Associate Producer and Producer specializing in narrative, documentary, and international co-productions. Fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, she has excelled in projects like leading the award-winning film A Father’s Son, which premiered at the Asian American International Film Festival. Her journey from China to New York City has shaped a career dedicated to authentic storytelling and cultural representation. Yixin is a passionate advocate for diversity in film, actively involved with NYWIFT to connect with and support fellow women filmmakers. Currently, she is producing documentaries exploring the legacies of Ping Chong and Basement Workshop, underscoring her commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices.
READ MORE
