Intermediality as Metalepsis in the “Cinécriture” of Agnès Varda
Intermediality as Metalepsis in the “Cinécriture” of Agnès Varda

Summary/Abstract: In this article I propose to examine the different ways in which Varda’s films accomplish a kind of metaleptic leap between levels of “fiction” and “reality,” of hypermediacy and immediacy, and to present this as an alternative to the techniques involving metalepsis used by the most famous representative of the generation of French New Wave filmmakers, Jean-Luc Godard. I have found that, most of the times, for Varda cinema is defined as an “artifice” between two layers of the “real:” the reality of herself, the personal world of the author-narrator and the reality captured by cinéma vérité style cinematography. Intermediality in these films serves as a “figuration” that on the one hand performs these metaleptic leaps from immediacy to stylized representation/hypermediacy, and on the other hand “figurates” the impossibility of such a leap. Among the films referred to in the analysis are L’opéra-mouffe (an effective collage of photographic flânerie and concept-art), Ulysse (a narrative-dramatic ekphrasis of a photograph), 7p., cuis., s. de b., ... à saisir (inspired by an exhibition entitled The Living and The Artificial), Histoire d’une vieille dame (a sort of cinematic objet-trouvé recovered from the shooting of Sans toit ni loi), Daguerréotypes (a controversial documentary), Happiness (a fiction film that shocked its contemporary audience with its unusual approach to adultery), The Beaches of Agnes (an autobiographical essay film), etc.

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