A young couple kiss on a bridge, and she leaves.... only to be struck down by a man with a hose.
It would be possible, I suppose, to read some great affirmation of Nouvelle Vague principles into this five-minute short subject directed by Agnes Varda, with other members of the French New Wave. However, analysis must begin with recognition of what the evidence is, and the image that the young man affects is not that of Buster Keaton -- he wore a porkpie hat in any case. No, glasses, straw boater (which is what the young man wears) and business suit and tie is the image of Harold Lloyd. Chaplin wore a bowler. So did Laurel & Hardy.
So, is this Varda and her New Wave friends (including Anna Karina and Michel Legrand) contemptuously mocking the old-fashioned film-making that they thought blight French movie-making, by reaching dimly back to the Lumieres' L'AROSEUR AROSE, without bothering to get their references correct? Because they're not worth getting straight? Or just some friends who love movies and movie-making making a movie.
I'm on the side of the latter interpretation.
It would be possible, I suppose, to read some great affirmation of Nouvelle Vague principles into this five-minute short subject directed by Agnes Varda, with other members of the French New Wave. However, analysis must begin with recognition of what the evidence is, and the image that the young man affects is not that of Buster Keaton -- he wore a porkpie hat in any case. No, glasses, straw boater (which is what the young man wears) and business suit and tie is the image of Harold Lloyd. Chaplin wore a bowler. So did Laurel & Hardy.
So, is this Varda and her New Wave friends (including Anna Karina and Michel Legrand) contemptuously mocking the old-fashioned film-making that they thought blight French movie-making, by reaching dimly back to the Lumieres' L'AROSEUR AROSE, without bothering to get their references correct? Because they're not worth getting straight? Or just some friends who love movies and movie-making making a movie.
I'm on the side of the latter interpretation.