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When Agn\u00e8s Varda, 90, and JR, 35, got together to make \u201cFaces Places,\u201d which has the French title \u201cVisages Villages,\u201d the two avant-garde artists created a piece of art in the form of film.<\/p>\n
Artists and film have long been intertwined: think of contemporary artist Julian Schnabel\u2019s movies, or Man Ray\u2019s \u201cEmak-Bakia,\u201d a movie of disjointed images. But we mostly recall the movies of French directors such as Luis Bu\u00f1uel, known for films including \u201cThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie\u201d and \u201cBelle de Jour,\u201d who teamed up with surrealist artist Salvador Dali in 1929 for \u201cUn Chien Andalou.\u201d<\/p>\n
Film as art is one thing; artists making films is another. The directors who were a part of the French new wave\u2014sometimes referred to as nouvelle vague\u2014of the late 1950s-1970s, were pioneers. They brought a new ambiguous sensibility to the medium. A filmmaker since she was in her late 20s, Varda is a filmmaking legend with dozens of movies to her credit.<\/p>\n
Her experimental style stood out from the beginning.<\/p>\n
Varda was the only woman in a group of men such as Claude Chabrol, Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jacques Demy, to whom she was married. Her first film, \u201cLa Pointe Courte,\u201d made for a pittance, set up a style that remains to this day. She retains control over scriptwriting and directing. She only shoots on location, and casts both professional and nonprofessional actors. But, despite her groundbreaking work, Varda and her films are little known outside of France and among cinephiles. Her work, which also includes photographs and art installations, focuses on documentary realism, feminist issues and social commentary.<\/p>\n
JR is known for his gigantic portraits of people taken all over the world that are then shown in situ, on the side of buildings and other large-scale venues.<\/p>\n
Varda and JR are not so different, after all. And their collaboration uses all of her experience while upping the concept by shooting and processing photographs\u2014JR calls himself a \u201cphotograffeur\u201d\u2014using his mobile camera truck.<\/p>\n
Nominated for an Academy Award in 2017, the cross-generational road trip reveals people through rural France\u2014part character drama (with real-life characters), documentary, and part essay-film. Visually, JR\u2019s work transforms the film into a living museum.<\/p>\n
Kristine Bretall, the Sun Valley Center\u2019s director of performing arts, chose the film because of its theme of revealing the art in real life. \u201cFaces Places\u201d was shot in rural France and depicts people who are feeling forgotten or whose work has disappeared, leaving them anxious and nostalgic.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, right now there are protests in the countryside of France, and the Sun Valley Center\u2019s BIG IDEA exhibition is called \u201cWe the People: Protest and Patriotism.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I\u2019m planning our film series,\u201d said Bretall, \u201cI like to hook into the BIG IDEA, but also take the opportunity to bring to the community films that are highly regarded. But I also want to touch on the art world, showing films about art that are also engaging.\u201d<\/p>\n When she booked the film, Bretall could not have foreseen the protests in France, where the theme is of \u201cthe little guy feeling left behind,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile there is no connection, the irony is that protests all over the world are a way for people who don\u2019t have access to power to find a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFaces Places\u201d is a touching, poignant film, and not in any way a \u201cconfusing new-wave French film,\u201d Bretall said, laughing. Instead, it \u201ccelebrates people who live in tiny villages, and shows loss and memory and what happens as we age and change; how life is woven and rewoven.\u201d<\/p>\n Varda and JR met in 2015. They wanted to shoot a film in the countryside of France, while traveling in JR\u2019s photographic truck. Through chance encounters and prepared projects, they met others, listening to them and photographing them. They also appear in the documentary and their friendship evolves throughout the film shoot as they travel to the places that feel forgotten.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing the documentary in a theatre with the community is important,\u201d Bretall said. \u201cBeing able to do this at the Magic Lantern\u2014for two shows\u2014is convenient and comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" French road trip documentary reveals art in the ordinary By Dana DuGan When Agn\u00e8s Varda, 90, and JR, 35, got together to make \u201cFaces Places,\u201d which has the French title \u201cVisages Villages,\u201d the two avant-garde artists created a piece of art in the form of film. Artists and film have long been intertwined: think of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calendar-2","8":"category-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}