Product Details

• Directors: Agnes Varda
• Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Restored, Subtitled
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion Collection
• DVD Release Date: January 22, 2008
• Run Time: 345 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000XQ4HQO
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,670 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Four by Agnes Varda (La Pointe Courte / Cleo from 5 to 7 / Le bonheur / Vagabond) (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

4 by Agnes Varda is one of Criterion Collection's finest releases, so packed is it with supplementary material. Each of the four films included in the set have illuminating critical essay accompaniments and at least three additional bits on their prospective DVDs ranging from the "remembrances" of cast and crew to amazing interviews with Varda from various decades. Of course, the films are in themselves quite extraordinary, but this package collects together so much enlightening footage and reading that to comb through it is like taking a Varda history class. It is difficult to choose favorites amongst the four films included: La Pointe Courte (1956), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Le Bonheur (1965), and Vagabond (1985). Each illustrates rigorous experimental challenges, and each film succeeds according to its own set of criteria. Perhaps the most exciting two films in the set, simply because fewer viewers may have seen them, are La Pointe Courte and Le Bonheur. La Pointe Courte, Varda's first film and the film attributed to launching the French New Wave, stars Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret who bring a stark formalism to the story of their conflicted love in a scenic seaside village. Shot in high contrast black and white, La Pointe Courte is filled with odd visual and sonic edits that lend this film an otherworldly, Carl Dreyer-esque quality though it points to Varda's future directing tact, namely making films that scrutinize tragic personal relationships with deep compassion and zeal. Le Bonheur, filmed in a vivid primary color palette, similarly features a married couple, François (Jean-Claude Drouot) and Therese (Claire Drouot), who experience both bliss and utter sadness within the film's timeframe. In this case, the sense of isolation is replaced by an overload of happiness, namely when François cheats on his wife with a young postal worker (Marie-France Boyer) and finds himself so happy that the viewer suspects it cannot last.

The two abovementioned films contextualize Cléo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond, both films starring strong females who face life with bravery and finesse. Filmed in "real-time," Cléo from 5 to 7 stars a young pop singer (Corinne Marchand) whose wit and sex appeal carry her through a fearful day, while Vagabond recounts the end of ravishing Mona's (Sandrine Bonnaire), life as a vagrant in search of freedom. Seeing La Pointe Courte, for example, foreshadows Varda's breakthrough casting of non-actors in Vagabond. Filmic experiments and acting experiments abound in each film. On the whole, it becomes clear that each crew member on a Varda film enters a new artistic world forged by this auteur, aimed at exploring daily life to uncover those moments encompassing sadness, hope, and beauty with grace, character, and exquisite technique. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

Agnès Varda used the skills she honed early in her career as a photographer to create some of the most nuanced, thought-provoking films of the past fifty years. She is widely believed to have presaged the French new wave with her first film, La Pointe Courte, long before creating one of the movement s benchmarks, Cléo from 5 to 7. Later, with Le bonheur and Vagabond, Varda further shook up art-house audiences, challenging bourgeois codes with her inscrutable characters and effortlessly beautiful compositions and editing. Now working largely as a documentarian, Varda remains one of the essential cinematic poets of our time and a true visionary. DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FOUR-DISC SET FEATURES:

New restored digital transfers, supervised and approved by director Agnès Varda
Three short films by Varda: L Opéra Mouffe (1958), Du côté de la côte (1958), and Les fiancés du Pont Macdonald (1961)
On La Pointe Courte: new video interview with Varda
On Cléo from 5 to 7: a 2005 documentary on the making of the film; a short film from 2005 in which Varda retraces Cléo s steps through Paris; Varda speaking with Madonna about the film in 1993
On Le bonheur: new interviews with the three actors from the film; a 2006 discussion with four scholars about the film; footage of Varda on-set; 1998 interview with Varda; 2003 interviews on the concept of happiness
On Vagabond: a 2003 documentary on the making of the film; a 2003 interview with composer Joanna Bruzdowicz; a 1986 radio interview with writer Nathalie Sarraute; a 2003 interview with actress Marthe Jarnias
Theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translations
PLUS: New essays by Chris Darke, Adrian Martin, Amy Taubin, and Ginette Vincendeau; plus, a foreword on each film by Varda herself

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two new Criterion DVD's, two rereleases, March 8, 2008

By 

Ted "Ted" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Four by Agnes Varda (La Pointe Courte / Cleo from 5 to 7 / Le bonheur / Vagabond) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

This 4 disc box set by Criterion contains four movies by Agnès Varda.

La Pointe Courte, Cleo from 5 to 7, Le bonheur, and Vagabond. Cléo from 5 to 7 and vagabond are releleases and I have already written reviews for those when they were released separately, I will be more brief on the reviews.

La Pointe Courte is Varda's first film and is about a couple in coastal southern France experiencing marital woes. The film is thought to have inspired the new wave movement in French cinema and is one of her most popular films. The special features are an interview with Agnès Varda and scenes from a 1964 French television appearance by Varda.

Cléo from 5 to 7 is about a young woman who strolls around Paris for two hours while she awaits the results of a biopsy. The film was way ahead of its time for it being in real-time just like the television series 24 or the film "Phone Booth."
The special features are a theatrical trailer, a 2005 documentary on the film's production titled "Remembrances" It focuses on continuity isues for the real-time sequence fo the film including the clocks which are seen various times in the film, a slide show of Hans Baldung paintings which inspired the title character of the film, a 1993 television special featuring Agnès Varda and Madonna, a short retracing Cléo's trip through Paris on motorcycle, the 1961 short by Varda titled "Les fiancés du pont Macdonald" which was featured in the film, and Varda's short film "L'opéra Mouffe".

Le bonheur (French for "Happiness") is about a young couple with two children. The wife travels often and while she is away her husband has an affair with a postal clerk.
The special features are a theatrical trailer, a look at the two main actresses in the film, a talk between four film scholars about the film, two short films where Varda asks random people their definition of happiness, a retrospective on the film featuring lead actor Jean-Claude Drouot, scenes from an archival television program featuring Varda shooting the film, a 1988 interview with Varda, and a documentary by Varda about the Côte d'Azur.

Vagabond released in France as "Sans toit ni loi" is about a homeless woman who is found dead at the beginning of the film and is a flashback look at the last days of her life.
The special features are a theatrical trailer, a docomentary on the film's production, a look at the actress Marthe Jarnias, who plays the old lady in the film, a conversation between Varda and the film's composer, Joanna Bruzdowicz, and a 1986 radio interview with Varda and writer, Nathalie Sarraute.

This is a great release and the films are all excellent.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic box, June 21, 2008

By 

MarkusG "Markus" (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Four by Agnes Varda (La Pointe Courte / Cleo from 5 to 7 / Le bonheur / Vagabond) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

If You like Varda, or the french new wave, or french film, then this box is well worth buying. My favourite films of the four are Cleo and Le Bonheur. Lots of extra material, and the box is well designed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Paris: A woman's view, a woman's film, January 17, 2012

By 

Dr René Codoni (Kuala Lumpur) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Four by Agnes Varda (La Pointe Courte / Cleo from 5 to 7 / Le bonheur / Vagabond) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Cléo de cinq à sept (Agnès Varda, 1962)

After Jacques Demy's Lola, his wife's Agnès Varda's Cléo de cinq à sept (1962), is the second Nouvelle Vague Rive gauche (Left Bank of the Seine River) production review, to be followed by Alain Resnais' La guerre est finie (1966), and finally short films by Rive gauche auteurs (Marker, Varda and Resnais).

There is a famous production shot of Cléo: The heroine on a bed in her studio, attended by about twelve men (technicians und beauticians at all levels), behind her Agnès Varda at the camera. So what appears as a first woman's movie is actually still in the man's world of the movies, where women are just the stars. I do not remember how women's lib reacted to it, but it remains an amazing film, and Agnès Varda, a very feminine figure, an exception to the rule. It also gives us a view of pre-1968 Paris, and is a deeply personal, never voyeuristic event.

Cléo, in a way like High Noon, the Western (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), is a real time movie, from five to seven. The lead, intelligently played by beautiful Corinne Marchand, is a singer who, this late afternoon, in understandable anxiety, awaits her specialist doctor's verdict on a detailed cancer test. With her servant and a friend, she runs various errands to kill time, visits a fortune teller, and, finally, is on her walk through Paris towards the hospital to collect the doctor's verdict. She is accompanied by a soldier on leave from the Algerian war, a chance meeting. The doctor's verdict is clear, but he sees considerable chances to heal by treatment.

What Jacques Demy's Lola (1962) addressed in a lighter form is here a more explicit, quasi an urban form of existentialism, with the themes of self-obsession (hence the many mirrors), mortality, despair. The film has a strong feminine viewpoint, asking how women are perceived. Cléo finds herself questioning the doll-like image people have of her, and is overcome by a feeling of isolation from her nearest. It is typically only in the company of a stranger - a soldier, who is regularly exposed to death - that she is able to have a sincere conversation that eventually put her problems in perspective.

The film includes a short silent slapstick strip with cameos by Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, Eddie Constantine and Jean-Claude Brialy as characters. While full of cinematographic quotes - like Lumière's L'arroseur arose - it reminds you of the dream sequence insets in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1958). Most unusual, but fitting very well into the wider Dance des morts-motif of the film.

53-18/1/2012