Event

Agnes Varda's "Daguerreotypes" preceded by Varda short "Elsa la Rose"

Elsa la Rose
Dir. Agnès Varda and Raymond Zanchi 1965, 20 mins.
This cinematic valentine, narrated by Michel Piccoli and photographed in luminous black-and-white by Willy Kurant and William Lubtchansky, documents the romance between celebrated writers Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet.

Daguerreotypes
Dir. Agnès Varda, 1975, 75 min.
An essential film in Agnès Varda's oeuvre, this classic documentary makes its US theatrical premiere in this week-long engagement at the Maysles Cinema. Daguerreotypes is a portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers on the Rue Daguerre, a picturesque street in Paris' 14th Arrondissement that has been the filmmaker's home for more than 50 years. The title is also a pun, referring to the early photographic process of printing on silver-plated copper that was developed by Louis Daguerre in the early 19th-century. As in her films The Beaches of Agnès and The Gleaners and I, Varda, who narrates the film, gently opens up a fantastic world in microcosm. One by one, viewers meet her shopkeeper neighbors--the butcher, the grocer, the barber and their families--both in their own domains and then at a daring magic show.

ABOUT THE SERIES:
Film curator Livia Bloom's series "Documentary in Bloom" is a monthly and bi-monthly program highlighting challenging, controversial, and though-provoking new documentary films of outstanding artistic merit. The series offers a unique opportunity for audience members to discuss the films with each other and with the films' creators in a community setting.