Haptic Vision and the Experience of Difference in Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000)

• Authors: Romain Chareyron
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article investigates how, in her documentary The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000), French director Agnès Varda relies on the establishment of haptic vision in order to merge the experience of her own body with the representation of another “body,” that of people living at the margins of society and gleaning for food. In so doing, the article will bring out the director’s social and aesthetic concerns by positing that Varda turns to a sensuous depiction based on the textural properties of the image to deter any form of instrumental vision regarding the representation of the body and its connections to pre-determined norms of conduct. The article will show that, in its portrayal of a socially and economically alienated group of people, as well as in the rendering of her aging body, Varda’s miseen- scène brings forth a tactile form of knowledge that calls for a humanistic approach, thus defusing any form of mastery of the gaze over the image.

Keywords

EN

Agnès Varda; The Gleaners and I; haptic vision; documentary

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 83-96

Dates

published

2013-11-01

online

2014-05-30

Contributors

author

Romain Chareyron

• University of Kansas

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ausfm-2014-0016