Jane B. for Agnes V. (1988)

"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 ... See full summary »

Director:

Agnès Varda

Writer:

Agnès Varda

Stars:

Jane Birkin, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Philippe Léotard

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jane Birkin	...	Calamity Jane / Claude Jade / Joan Arc
Jean-Pierre Léaud	...	L'amoureux colérique
Philippe Léotard	...	Le peintre / Murderer
Farid Chopel	...	Le colonial
Alain Souchon	...	Le lecteur de Verlaine
Serge Gainsbourg	...	Self
Laura Betti	...	Lardy
Monique Godard	...	La sous-maîtresse
Ian Marshall	...	L'huissier
Les enfants Tooke	...	Les pauvres de Dickens
Charlotte Gainsbourg	...	La fille de J.
Mathieu Demy	...	Le fils de A.
James Millard	...	Tarzan
Pascale Torsat	...	Le modèle du Titien
Henri Piednoir	...	Le boulanger

Storyline

"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 ...

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Plot Keywords:

female nudity | full frontal female nudity | f rated | family photo | singing | 

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Genres:

Biography | Fantasy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Connections

References Gone with the Wind (1939)

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Soundtracks

Canzonetta
Music by Claudio Monteverdi (as Monteverdi)
Performed by Leonhardt Consort
avec l'aimable autorisation des Société Teldec/Pathé Marconi/EMI

User Reviews

Spreads images

This is in a format I wish we would get more of, the cinematic portrait. Marker and Godard would work out examples in a few years time, several of Herzog's work are portraits. The added benefit with these is that, while we're still looking for life, they don't have to step through the structured formalities of drama to get to the person, the format permits an improvised reach, one of a few formats that do.

But someone still has to pose for them and a filmmaker has to take it down with his brush, apply colors. This is uneven in both respects. One reason why lies in a fundamental mismatch I perceive here. It's actress Jane Birkin posing for Varda; Birkin is outgoing, sad or lonely in the mannered way of someone accustomed to the presence of a camera, used to grooming a self. Varda on the other hand is drawn to the enigmas of ragged women, introverts or haunted in some way, or at any rate does her best work in the whirl of what is not fully controlled. She manages to find no interesting entry here.

Not having found that entry, we get various enactments on a stage instead, Birkin as Tarzan's Jane or Joan of Arc, in a picnic with her French idol, coteries of costumed people enacting tableaux, poses for the camera and blathering vignettes. At so few points do we pierce through cute play-acting to get the elusive stuff that life is made of, at something not rehearsed because a camera will film it, ending up with the equivalent of a surreal magazine spread on a known face. So when it sorts itself out, it's less than the sum of its colors, merely a face.

A miss. Still, Varda manages to come up with flashes of inspiration in all this, she's always adept with pouring images, stirring flows of them. Above all the whole segment of Birkin rehearsing with Serge Gainsbourg - Birkin's ex-lover - is a small gem of intricately edited resonance, the only instance where Varda can hint at something on the other side of images.

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

2 March 1988 (France)

Also Known As:

Jane B. for Agnes V.

Filming Locations:

Rue Daguerre, Paris, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ciné-tamaris, La Sept Cinéma

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1