2004-10-30 13:19:02白行
不斷逐夢. 不斷追憶 Jacques Demy & Agnes Varda.
他, Jacques Demy, 積葵丹美, 法國新浪潮導演, 全心全意對 Musical 滿腔熱情, 以音樂和舞蹈交織愛與夢的世界.
她, Agnes Varda, 法國新浪潮導演, 新浪潮中以最激進資態與政府及資本家對抗, 連周恩來都賞識她.
二人以不同方式逐夢, 一同共渡半生.
共渡半生, 他先她而去. 她為他拍了Jacquot de Nantes, 追憶在家鄉他沒有她的前半生.
他幼年經歷二戰, 他被迫入了工業學校, 但他不斷逐夢.
他將用過的菲琳, 放入滾水煮融, 在膠帶上用墨汁好畫成了他第一部的電影.
他用垃圾造了迷你的場景.
他用書本換來第一部 Camera.
他將生活的快樂拍成電影, 並將電影的快樂帶到家人, 朋友, 鄰居, 將電影帶到生活.
他從生活中看見夢想, 他不斷逐夢…….
她透過她的鏡頭, 以近乎病態迷戀, 極度仔細的手法, 將年華老去的他身體每一小吋, 每一個眼神, 每一個動作, 每一陣呼吸…… she is desperately grasping him, as much as possible……她盡力地將他留住, 再而穿插在她幻想出來的他, 沒有她前半生的他.
在她的鏡頭下, 年華老去的他, 那閃爍而慈祥的目光, 告訴我們他依然是在逐夢.
但在拍攝他的她, 只有一直地沉默, 不斷追憶覑不斷逐夢的他.
看畢此片的我, 突然夢想有一天死後, 若能留住一段片段, 我希望那是有如積葵丹美「柳媚花嬌」, 色彩斑斕, 夢想處處的片段.
看來, 我也只剩下追憶罷了.
_________________________________________________________________________
‘Jacquot’ (PG)
By Hal Hinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
August 06, 1993
The French new wave filmmaker Jacques Demy, who died in 1990, was a poet of delirious pleasures. Demy’s was a cinema of fantasy and meringue. And in "Jacquot," his wife, Agnes Varda, has conjured up an appropriately joyous tribute to his memory.
Varda, a prominent director in her own right whose provocative debut feature, "Cleo From 5 to 7," hit theaters in 1961 -- one year after Demy made his much-heralded first effort with "Lola" -- shared the last 32 years of Demy’s life with him. And these filmed recollections originated in the flood of memory that overswept the artist during his later years.
Varda is right to call "Jacquot" an "evocation." With these memories as raw material, she uses staged events from her husband’s past, as well as snippets from priceless Demy baubles like "Bay of Angels," "Lola" and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," to create a work that both mirrors his spirit and -- like his own films -- virtually defies categorization.
Describing the film as "a voyage into childhood, into all childhoods ... " Varda has combined these odds and ends, these fragments of his family’s seemingly enchanted working-class life in the seaside town of Nantes, and slivers from his love of the puppet theater, of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and the French siren Mirielle Balin. Varda has taken all the various rivers of Demy’s past and forced them to flow into a single loving reverie.
The emphasis is on the word "force." Certainly a life’s events have never combined so blissfully as Varda suggests they did for Demy. The translation of his boyhood experience of the war, for example -- or of his mother making an omelet -- into movie images was effortless, the movie suggests. The happy rendering of a contented life. And after a while it strains credulity.
And for all its bigheartedness, the picture feels a little plodding and overdeliberate, especially when you consider that its subject was an alchemist whose movies were so nimble that they seem almost winged, so loosely hedonistic that he could move back and forth between fantasy and reality like a chameleon.
Through all this, Varda also attempts to maintain the same tone of magical ebullience that her subject created, and unfortunately, she is only partly successful. Demy’s best movies were romantic arias to coincidence and fate. By contrast, Varda appears more earthbound and nostalgic; her film’s spirit may have been dampened by its subject’s passing, and the disappearance of the world and the traditions that spawned him.
The result is a genre-busting melange of documentary, family album, essay, memoir and elegy. In "Jacquot," Varda traces Demy’s evolution as an artist -- including the memory of receiving his first camera and the making of his early animations. But she also captures the blossoming of Demy’s uncommonly serene, infatuated verve for movies and life.
Varda’s devotion to the memory of her husband is evident in every frame of "Jacquot," but the weight of her affection may have blinded her some and caused her to idealize her subject. In this case the life has been sculpted to make it fit the films, rather than the other way around.
她, Agnes Varda, 法國新浪潮導演, 新浪潮中以最激進資態與政府及資本家對抗, 連周恩來都賞識她.
二人以不同方式逐夢, 一同共渡半生.
共渡半生, 他先她而去. 她為他拍了Jacquot de Nantes, 追憶在家鄉他沒有她的前半生.
他幼年經歷二戰, 他被迫入了工業學校, 但他不斷逐夢.
他將用過的菲琳, 放入滾水煮融, 在膠帶上用墨汁好畫成了他第一部的電影.
他用垃圾造了迷你的場景.
他用書本換來第一部 Camera.
他將生活的快樂拍成電影, 並將電影的快樂帶到家人, 朋友, 鄰居, 將電影帶到生活.
他從生活中看見夢想, 他不斷逐夢…….
她透過她的鏡頭, 以近乎病態迷戀, 極度仔細的手法, 將年華老去的他身體每一小吋, 每一個眼神, 每一個動作, 每一陣呼吸…… she is desperately grasping him, as much as possible……她盡力地將他留住, 再而穿插在她幻想出來的他, 沒有她前半生的他.
在她的鏡頭下, 年華老去的他, 那閃爍而慈祥的目光, 告訴我們他依然是在逐夢.
但在拍攝他的她, 只有一直地沉默, 不斷追憶覑不斷逐夢的他.
看畢此片的我, 突然夢想有一天死後, 若能留住一段片段, 我希望那是有如積葵丹美「柳媚花嬌」, 色彩斑斕, 夢想處處的片段.
看來, 我也只剩下追憶罷了.
_________________________________________________________________________
‘Jacquot’ (PG)
By Hal Hinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
August 06, 1993
The French new wave filmmaker Jacques Demy, who died in 1990, was a poet of delirious pleasures. Demy’s was a cinema of fantasy and meringue. And in "Jacquot," his wife, Agnes Varda, has conjured up an appropriately joyous tribute to his memory.
Varda, a prominent director in her own right whose provocative debut feature, "Cleo From 5 to 7," hit theaters in 1961 -- one year after Demy made his much-heralded first effort with "Lola" -- shared the last 32 years of Demy’s life with him. And these filmed recollections originated in the flood of memory that overswept the artist during his later years.
Varda is right to call "Jacquot" an "evocation." With these memories as raw material, she uses staged events from her husband’s past, as well as snippets from priceless Demy baubles like "Bay of Angels," "Lola" and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," to create a work that both mirrors his spirit and -- like his own films -- virtually defies categorization.
Describing the film as "a voyage into childhood, into all childhoods ... " Varda has combined these odds and ends, these fragments of his family’s seemingly enchanted working-class life in the seaside town of Nantes, and slivers from his love of the puppet theater, of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and the French siren Mirielle Balin. Varda has taken all the various rivers of Demy’s past and forced them to flow into a single loving reverie.
The emphasis is on the word "force." Certainly a life’s events have never combined so blissfully as Varda suggests they did for Demy. The translation of his boyhood experience of the war, for example -- or of his mother making an omelet -- into movie images was effortless, the movie suggests. The happy rendering of a contented life. And after a while it strains credulity.
And for all its bigheartedness, the picture feels a little plodding and overdeliberate, especially when you consider that its subject was an alchemist whose movies were so nimble that they seem almost winged, so loosely hedonistic that he could move back and forth between fantasy and reality like a chameleon.
Through all this, Varda also attempts to maintain the same tone of magical ebullience that her subject created, and unfortunately, she is only partly successful. Demy’s best movies were romantic arias to coincidence and fate. By contrast, Varda appears more earthbound and nostalgic; her film’s spirit may have been dampened by its subject’s passing, and the disappearance of the world and the traditions that spawned him.
The result is a genre-busting melange of documentary, family album, essay, memoir and elegy. In "Jacquot," Varda traces Demy’s evolution as an artist -- including the memory of receiving his first camera and the making of his early animations. But she also captures the blossoming of Demy’s uncommonly serene, infatuated verve for movies and life.
Varda’s devotion to the memory of her husband is evident in every frame of "Jacquot," but the weight of her affection may have blinded her some and caused her to idealize her subject. In this case the life has been sculpted to make it fit the films, rather than the other way around.