Product Description
JANE B. PAR AGNES V.: “ I’ll look at you, but not at the camera. It could be a trap ”, whispers Jane Birkin shyly into Agnès Varda’s ear at the start of JANE B. PAR AGNES V. The director of CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 and VAGABOND once again paints a portrait of a woman, this time in a marvelously Expressionistic way. “ It’s like an imaginary bio-pic,” says Varda. Jane, of course, is the famed singer (“ Je t’aime … Moi non plus ”), actress (BLOW UP), fashion icon (the Hermes Birkin bag) and longtime muse to Serge Gainsbourg. As Varda implies, JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. abandons the traditional bio-pic format, favoring instead a freewheeling mix of gorgeous and unexpected fantasy sequences.
In each, Jane inhabits a new character, playing a cat & mouse game with Varda as they explore the role of the Muse and the Artist, all the while showcasing the multifaceted nature of Birkin’s talent. “ I’d like to be filmed as if I were transparent, anonymous, like everyone else, ” says Birkin. But her wish to be a “ famous nobody ” is impossible to achieve; Birkin is simply too magnificent, too mesmerizing. Here, Varda’s signature mix of aesthetic innovation and generosity of emotion results in a surreal and captivating essay on Art, Fame, Love, Children and Staircases. For its first-ever U.S. theatrical release the film has been newly-restored from the original 35mm camera negative, overseen by director Varda herself.
KUNG FU MASTER!: A lovely, bittersweet companion to JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. from director Agnes Varda and star/muse Jane Birkin, KUNG-FU MASTER has nothing to do with martial arts – the film’s title comes from an arcade video game played obsessively in the film by a teenaged boy, Julien. Birkin delivers one of her finest performances as a lonely 40-year old woman who finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age?
KUNG-FU MASTER! is truly a family affair: Varda’s son with the late director Jacques Demy, Mathieu Demy, plays Julien – and Birkin appears here with her two real-life daughters: Charlotte Gainsbourg (from Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA) and Lou Doillon, her child with well-known filmmaker Jacques Doillon. Briefly released in the late 1980s in the U.S. and long unavailable here, KUNG-FU MASTER! has been beautifully restored from the original 35mm camera negative. “ It’s a film in which all the younger actors are the children of the director and lead actress ”, says Varda. “ It was like a picnic, you know? ”
Special Features:
- New Interviews with Director Agnès Varda
- New Essay by Sandy Flitterman-Lewis
- New Interview with Agnès Varda by Miranda July
- Trailer
About the Actor
Jane Birkin was born in London to David Birkin and actress Judy Campbell. She first went on stage at the age of 17, where she met composer John Barry. They married shortly afterwards and their daughter Kate Barry was born in 1967. At twenty, Jane attracted attention for her scandalous role in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up , which won the grand prix at the Cannes Film Festival. In France, she auditioned to play opposite Serge Gainsbourg in Slogan. That was how their mythical love story began. They became inseparable, and a legendary couple after they recorded the album Je t'aime moi non plus. Their daughter Charlotte was born in 1971.
Di Doo Dah , her first solo album, was released in 1973. This same year she established herself as a leading film actress in J. Rouffio's Sept morts sur ordonnance. She also played supporting roles in Claude Zidi's popular comedies La moutarde me monte au nez and La course à l échalotte. In 1975, Serge and Jane were back with Je t'aime moi non plus, the film. Puritan France was again outraged & the critics panned the film, but Francois Truffaut raved about it, and it has since become a film legend. By 1983 Jane had left Serge and was living with filmmaker Jacques Doillon, with whom she had her third daughter Lou. Doillon and Birkin's collaboration, La Pirate, was the official French entry for the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Directors Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda, and Bertrand Tavernier were all impressed by Birkin's performance. In 1985, she made her stage début in La Fausse suivante.
Devoted to her family and humanitarian work, she sang on behalf of Amnesty International, made a short film for the battle against AIDS, and another for Amnesty International, among other efforts. She made her directorial debut with film Oh pardon tu dormais which she wrote and directed and, after her return to the theatre with Electra in November 2006, she directed her second film, Boxes. In 2008, Jane released Enfants d Hiver , the first of her albums featuring lyrics exclusively written by herself.
About the Director
Agnès Varda is a prolific filmmaker and visual artist born in Brussels in 1928. With her four brothers and sisters, she spent her childhood in Belgium. In 1940, WWII pushed the family to Sète in the South of France, where she would return to produce and direct her first feature film. Varda studied art history in Paris at the École du Louvre and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts. She became the official photographer of Jean Vilar and the Théâtre National Populaire. While in Paris, she met her future husband Jacques Demy, a French actor and filmmaker who passed away in 1990.
After founding Ciné-Tamaris, she produced and directed her first feature, La Pointe Courte (1954), which anticipated the stylistic tendencies of the French New Wave, earning her the title Grandmother of the New Wave. It starred Philippe Noiret and Silvia Monfort, both of whom would become critically-acclaimed French actors. 1954 was also the year of her first dedicated photography exhibition. Her best known works are: Cleo From 5 to 7, Le Bonheur, Sans Toit ni Loi, Jacquot de Nantes and The Gleaners and I, and Vagabond.
In 2002, Varda was the recipient of the prestigious French Academy prize, Prix René Clair, for her cinematographic work and in 2009, she was given the highest French decoration: the National Order of the Legion of Honor. In 2008, Varda released her poetic autobiography, The Beaches of Agnes, to much acclaim. The film went on to win the César for Best Documentary in 2009. In December of 2011, her documentary series Agnes From Here to There aired as a five part series on ARTE France. Here, Varda liberally chronicled her travels and encounters with artists, both celebrated and undiscovered, engaging in conversations surrounding contemporary art. In 2013, she was president of the jury Caméra d or at the Cannes Film Festival. Also in 2013, her work was exhibited in Agnès Varda in Californialand at The Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art with the installation My Shack of Cinema, made with 35mm film strips of the film Lions Love (...and Lies), accompanying a cinema retrospective. Sections excerpted from The European Graduate School.
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