introtofilm

Meg Gibson Singley

TMA 293: Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse

11 December 2004

Varda explores the lifestyle of gleaners as well as her own filmmaking style as a gleaner as she films people that often go unnoticed and overlooked—society’s trash, if you will. She also uses the footage other filmmakers would throw away as part of her movie.

The first review I found about Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse read as follows:

“I’m a huge fan of all things French New Wave. I went into this widely touted movie expecting to see a masterful, well-executed documentary about scavengers — a segment of society whose struggles aren’t often chronicled. Instead, I got a rambling, unfocused picture that focused way too much on the director herself. Every time the movie started to get good and really engage my interest, Varda would break away from the subject she was documenting either to film herself or prattle away while filming a bunch of trucks on the freeway. What’s more, she even saw fit to put in footage where she left the camera running as she carried it, calling the scene “The Dance of the Lens Cap,” or some such thing. And while you can make statements that Varda, like her subjects, is using footage other directors just throw away, there’s a reason directors don’t use that footage. It’s almost as if some studio executive has decided to play a prank on snooty French film snobs, handing a camera to a goofball old woman who once upon a time made decent movies. I appear to be one of the few who didn’t fall for it.”[1]

I was kind of shocked to read such a negative review of a film that left me with such positive feelings. It made me reflect on what exactly it was that worked so well for me in this film. Why did Varda inspire me? What made this film so uplifting? What made it a documentary in the first place? Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse is a participatory documentary in which she portrays gleaning on several different levels, each with its own definition and context. The first level is the first words in the title; she goes out and finds people who glean, mostly to meet nutritional needs, asks them questions and films them. On this level it also covers people who collect items and fix them up, also to meet practical needs. On the second level Glaneurs is about finding beauty in unexpected places. These are the collectors of junk who make sculptures and other art. On a third level, Glaneurs is about seeing good in people that society has thrown away. On this level Varda finds people to film, but also becomes a gleaner herself as she films people who would otherwise would not be in a film.

First of all, Glaneurs is a participatory documentary. We could also say that is has an element of the poetic because it focuses on some overlooked beauty in human society. But for the most part, this is a participatory film. Varda becomes our guide as we explore this new world of gleaning—picking leftover fruit from the tree, vine, ground or pile that otherwise will be wasted. We see through her eyes and experience conversations and make observations because she is there. We would not have the same eyes or ears if we were not so acutely aware of Varda’s presence. This film is more than an exploration of the relationship between Varda and the subjects of her film, and even more than a straightforward portrayal of gleaners as our film review expected. This film is more about Varda’s experience with the gleaners she meets and an exploration of herself as a gleaner than a social commentary or historical explanation of gleaning. She narrates it; she appears on screen; she interviews the gleaners; she gleans with them. She creates a single story by drawing together the different accounts of the varied people she meets.[2] This is where the levels come into play.

Gleaners for life. This first level consists of the gleaners Varda makes contact with who glean as a source of food and out of necessity. “Gleaners still humbly stoop to glean,” the French rap soundtrack says. The pauvre and forsaken glean because otherwise, they will not eat. Varda finds them near piles of sorted potatoes; trespassing onto fields and into greenhouses. She goes into their homes to talk to them. Some are dirty and some are outcasts, such as the gypsies she talks to who are being forced to move their camp out of town by the mayor. Where can these people go? It seems more than poetic that another gentleman she talks to lives in a broken-down mobile home with a friend who drinks about 24 beers a day. It is clear that at this moment, they are going nowhere. What can be done for these people? And why does so much food get tossed and wasted when there are hungry children and families who can’t afford to buy it? What should be done about the kids living on the street who vandalize after a grocery store takes preventive measures against their messy gleaning from the store dumpster?

There are also those who glean because they do not like to see good food go to waste. They glean for the sake of economy. They glean on the seashore for shellfish. We meet a young two-star chef who also gleans so that he knows where his food is coming from—he likes to pick it himself. For both the poor and economic gleaners, it often seems to be a tradition passed from generations before. They are not picky about where their food comes from and believe in not wasting any part of nature. They have been the subjects of paintings for centuries. They are the surface representation of gleaners in Varda’s film.

Gleaners for beauty. These are the people who live by “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” There’s the totem builder from Russia, an old man who collects items and puts them together to create harmonious, eclectic towers. Dolls act as characters. His wife doesn’t understand his “art”—she sees only piles of junk. Varda says, “I see it as a cluster of possibilities.” Varda finds 19^th century chronophotographic innovator Marey, an undiscussed cog in the progression of motion picture art. His pieces do not accomplish any real thing or even portray extraordinary events. Marey looked to little, everyday things as subjects and explored them with his special camera, making them shine in a new way. Varda takes us to Poubelle ma belle, an art center or children that uses trash to make pieces of art—some of them are shown and sold in art galleries. After an oil spill, volunteers “glean” birds from the mess, finding these relatively little life forms and trying to save them. Any act of looking for beauty amid ugly refuse becomes gleaning. Varda takes us on a late night scavenger hunt with François, a film composer and friend of Varda who picks through piles of junk on the curb to find what wonders someone else saw fit to throw away. We meet a 100% trash man who has survived on things he finds in dumpsters for 10 years. He has a job; for him, gleaning is a matter of ethics. Finally we meet a vegetarian biologist with a master’s degree who gleans for food at markets, works part time at a nondescript job, and teaches French every night to the Muslim immigrants he shares shelter with. These immigrants are on the outskirts of their new country. They do not know the language and practice a strange religion. Many people wouldn’t give them a second look. This man patiently teaches them. He shows a new way of gleaning beauty—it is within human beings themselves. On a larger scale this is Varda does with this film. This is what makes her a gleaner.

Varda as gleaner. Varda’s film is a figurative eclectic tower of heart shaped potatoes, people, paintings and film footage that form a work of art that explores different kinds of beauty. With this Glaneurs becomes a testament of Varda’s gleaning experience. She is not afraid to try what the people she interviews try, whether it’s collecting potatoes from the pile or taking home two chairs and an empty clock from her scavenging trip with François. She talks to people who don’t usually end up in films. She finds a painting of Gleaners at a thrift store. She includes footage that most directors would be embarrassed to admit the existence of and entitles it “The Dance of the Lens cap.” It lasts for 45 seconds. She lauds the wonder if digital cameras, a format than many directors snobbily ignore or protest. She catches semi-trucks with her hand on the freeway. She discovers Marey, the chronophotographic innovator, among many other fascinating people and artists. Varda becomes a subject herself as she questions her mortality, her age. Most 74 year olds, especially women, don’t feel important in a society that moves faster and faster the older they get. They become invalid and void. But Varda fights this by validating herself. She is still an artist, she is still working in the craft. I think it is because of her age that Varda also becomes a gleaner of moments. She seems to cherish each moment she has, especially when she remembers that her hands are wrinkled and she is now much closer to death than birth. This sheds a different light to her perspective as filmmaker. It is a much different film than anyone in their twenties could make.

I think back on that negative review I read and I have to say, it makes me shake my head a little, because irony often does. He dismisses Varda’s inclusion of herself and simultaneously her dancing lens cap as a cruel joke aimed at “serious” filmmakers. He calls her a silly old woman. I strongly disagree with his conclusions, but does this mean there’s not a place for his somewhat sour opinion? Of course it means exactly the opposite, if I have learned anything from my experience with Varda in Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse. There can be so much more to life if we are willing to look. Sometimes it will demand more, a journey through France, a look inside ourselves. These journeys might prove to be the most rewarding, because those who are willing will find something of value. Varda found it in her subjects, with her subjects, and in herself. I found it in Varda’s film.