Agnes Varda’s unwavering influence on Lena Dunham: “A ride or die”
Few shows have captured the millennial zeitgeist as well as Girls did. First airing in 2012, the show ran for five years as the characters, all insufferable twenty-something-year-olds navigating life in New York, came to occupy a special place in viewers’ hearts. They’re all annoying and selfish, but Lena Dunham writes with such self-aware brilliance that you simply can’t look away from the cringe-inducing horrors that play out on screen.
With Girls, Dunham proved that she was able to tap into the contemporary pop cultural climate in a way that wouldn’t simply become dated and unrelatable. Her characters might wear owl necklaces and boho chic, but at the core of the show is fantastic writing and topics that many women coming of age in their 20s can resonate with on a deep (and often uncomfortable) level.
Since then, she has continued to write and direct female-centric stories, like Sharp Stick, Catherine Called Birdy, and the new Netflix series Too Much. But Dunham might not have stepped into the shoes of the feminist filmmaker she has become without the influence of certain cinematic icons, like French New Wave icon Agnes Varda.
The director started her filmmaking career in the 1950s after working as a photographer, making her debut film, La Pointe Courte, on a shoestring budget with little knowledge of cinema. It was Cleo From 5 to 7 that allowed Varda to become internationally recognised, however, with its poignant deconstruction of the male gaze and commentary on female identity, illness, and war.
Varda continued to create politically charged and socially conscious movies throughout her career, constantly innovating and working with different genres, such as documentary, fiction, or a combination of the two. The director often tackled tough themes like abortion in One Sings, The Other Doesn’t, while The Gleaners and I saw Varda explore poverty, ageing, art, frugality, and food as she journeyed across the country interviewing an array of fascinating people.
Dunham is a huge fan of Varda’s work, and she was even lucky enough to hang out with the filmmaker, who cited herself as a big fan of Girls. Talking to Criterion, Dunham revealed her love for Varda, selecting La Pointe Courte, Cleo From 5 to 7, Le Bonheur, and Vagabond as her favourites.
“I always say Agnès Varda was to the French New Wave as Eve is to the Ruff Ryders: a ride-or-die bitch, respected by a pack of tough gentlemen. The first film of hers I saw was Cléo from 5 to 7. My mom had just had a routine but unpleasant dental surgery and was all whacked out on pills, and I read all the subtitles to her in different voices.”
Dunham continued, “I was so impressed by how Varda manages to be both deeply emotional and utterly in control of the technical elements of filmmaking. That had seemed to me to be an impossible line to straddle, and she does it so beautifully. Watch The Beaches of Agnès next, a portrait of a rich life in film.”
Indeed, much of Varda’s work is deeply self-reflexive, like when she films her greying hair and wrinkled hands in The Gleaners and I and compares them to shrivelling potatoes. Similarly, Dunham often incorporates elements of her own lived experience as a woman into her work, with Too Much taking direct inspiration from when she moved from New York to London.
Varda paved the way for female filmmakers, and the current landscape of cinema – where there are more women than ever before making movies – would not have been possible if not for her trailblazing efforts.
