The Gleaners & I

The Gleaners & I

Agnès Varda tells as much about her own experiences and feelings growing older as she does about the history and practice of gleaning, an occupation that has itself grown old. By placing herself as the documentary’s ultimate gleaner, she collects wisdom about her subjects, her environment and herself and then shares it with her audience. She communicates a deep love for disregarded people and things, juxtaposing her wrinkled hands with images of weathered things that she finds useful and beautiful as if to say in every scene, ‘I’m not ready to be thrown out yet.’ – Ed Bertram (2019)

  1. Directed by: Agnès Varda
  2. Produced by:
  3. Written by:
  4. Music by:
  5. Cinematography by:
  6. Editing by:
  7. Release Date: 2000
  8. Running Time: 82
  9. Language: French

Arts & Faith Lists:

2020 Top 100 — #33

Similar Posts

  • A Moment of Innocence

    In 1974, Mohsen Makhmalbaf stabbed a young police officer while attempting to steal his gun. Makhmalbaf was only seventeen at the time but had already been actively involved for a number of years in organized resistance to the Shah’s government. He served four-and-a-half years of his sentence before being released in 1979, soon after the…

  • The Immigrant

    In a nod to the social realism of American cinema in the late silent era, The Immigrant is an operatic take on a city full of charlatans, pimps, and immigrants. Its citizens are larger than life and drawn as broadly as a sepia photograph in fading newsprint. But like Bruno and Ewa, they are carving out a…

  • The Mill and the Cross

    Appreciation coming.  Directed by: Lech Majewski Produced by: Lech Majewski Written by: Michael Francis Gibson Lech Majewski Music by: Lech Majewski Józef Skrzek Cinematography by: Lech Majewski Adam Sikora Editing by: Lech Majewski Norbert Rudzik Release Date: 2011 Running Time: 92 Language: English, Spanish, Flemis Arts & Faith Lists: 2020 Top 100 — #60

  • The Red Shoes

    The most famous line in The Red Shoes is probably an early exchange between Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer). The director of a prestigious ballet company asks the aspiring ballerina why she wants to dance. Her reply: “Why do you want to live?” The answer impresses Lermontov enough to earn her a small…