It took years for Agnès Varda, the so-called godmother of the French New Wave, to command respect in the male-dominated world of directing. Yet by the time Varda died, in 2019, at age 90, she had risen to sainthood and was internationally celebrated by three generations as a pioneer and disrupter of cinema.
Progressives venerated Varda’s films for showing the ways society is tilted against women, refugees, the underfed, and the unhoused. Fashionistas kvelled over her whimsical, two-toned bowl haircut and coordinating fuchsia ensembles. Critics and other directors rhapsodized about her films, which blurred boundaries between documentary and fiction.
