LSC Event Descriptions

November 7, 2003

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(not rated)
82 minutes

The Gleaners and I (2000)
November 7, 2003 at 7:30 and 10:30pm in 10-250.

FOUR STARS! A tender meditation about [the filmmaker's] own life, and life itself ... Varda was the only woman director involved in the French New Wave, and has remained truer to its spirit than many of her male counterparts.
      -- Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times. Read this review.

A touching documentary from the surviving member of a groundbreaking French filmmaking couple. Agnès Varda, a leader of the French New Wave, and wife of Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort), delves into the social and spiritual aspects of an unusual French activity called gleaning.

Gleaning is a legalized form of scavenging, formally written into the French law code and first legalized by King Henry IV in 1554. Immortalized in a painting by Jean-François Millet, gleaning was at one point a communal activity; finding use for the detritus of harvest season. Now, it is a matter of survival for the poor, and a source of spirituality to some.

Roaming through France, Varda has captured the many facets of gleaning. From the antics of a typically Gallic bureaucracy, where legalists determine just where gleaning ends and lawlessness begins, to its impact on modern social outcasts, gleaning is brought to life by the sympathetic eyes of Varda's lens.

This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC).

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