Agnès Varda creates the signification of ‘gleaning’ during the documentary. The starting point is the dictionary’s entry. The source’s definition is not capable of presenting meaning that is able to capture all the underlying and new significations the word has acquired in the contemporary society. For Agnès Varda, gleaning is an act in which the political discourse is disguised. A strong political statement lay within her definition of gleaning. In the creation of her documentary, the selection of material points to the act of gleaning as the (re)consideration of signifiers. What is considered waste for someone can mean many different things to another person. In line with postmodernism, the meaning of gleaning is not anymore subjected to a monolithic category with specific characteristics that consider the act as a female activity done after the harvest. Now, gleaning is deprived from the rigidity of a dictionary definition and is contextualize. Gleaning is urban, rural, collective, personal, optional, and many other attributes since it is not a fix identity anymore. Gleaning, as shown by Agnès Varda, is the act of giving value to objects that were not longer consider valuable.
The link between the postmodern ideals and the documentary can be seen by various meanings that gleaning adopts depending in the subject that is doing it. The director present different modalities of gleaning, with the underling notion that regardless of the reasons they are gleaners they all are creating new meanings to objects ones considered waste. The first gleaner presented is herself as the director and creator of meaning within the documentary framework. She gleans from paints of gleaners, but also from old films and celluloid from old movies that she happens to find appropriate for her work. She gleans through people's personal stories, selecting the subjects that would appear and have voice in her documentary. The methodology of the filming, which exposes traveling, presents a gleaning of spaces selected in order to deliver a message. Also, the edition process presents her as a gleaner that does not discard what she has recorded, instead present to the audience that she is also a gleaner that does uses what for other directors would seem as a waste.
Agnès Varda presents gleaners and they have a voice on the documentary. One type of gleaner that she presents responds to the quality of life in a post-industrial city. For him, gleaning is an act of survival, since the urban gleaner does it in order to have they everyday food. In contrast to him, she display a chef that is also a gleaner since he wants to save money by selecting spices, but also does it as a commemoration to his ancestors that were real gleaning. In this specific case, gleaning is a celebration to ones past. Agnès Varda also presents a gleaner that does it as a political statement. During his presentation, there are shots about the birds that were affected during an oil spill. A connection to resent events and the necessity for a political responds finds a parallel with the following news:
Sea creatures flee oil spill, cluster along coast.
The gleaner that does it as a reflection of the political situation presents a posture about waste. In the same line, the gleaner that teaches to refuges is also a political approach to the act of gleaning. He could be working in another space, earning money and using his M.A in Biology to do research, instead he proudly does volunteer work in order to help people. Gleaning can also be a collective activity, as Salomon shows the way in which they all share meals.
Finally, she presents gleaners that appropriate objects to subject it to different meanings and create art. Gleaning is art. The use of waste to deconstruct its implications and, in line with the postmodern thought, calling upon the liberation of the dichotomy of elitist and popular art. An interesting link can be made to Street Art, where the space is also calling upon a reflection of the meaning of art. The following link would address the reader to one of the most amazing Brazilian street artist, Os Gemeos:
Os Gemeos
Agnès Varda presents her own body. In the documentary, a constant remainder that waste is a construction that needs to be reconsider from a different perspective is parallel with her position regarding her own body. As some consider waste a potatoes that is too big, the aging body is seen with disregard and as devaluation. Big potatoes lost value as aging bodies do. But, if she is presenting alternative meanings for waste, she is doing the same thing with her body. She is not ashamed of her body, she is proud and films with one hand the other one. The documentary wants to create conscience on the values that are attributed to youth and waste. She vindicates the aging process by relating it with the meaning she creates on gleaners.
The link between the postmodern ideals and the documentary can be seen by various meanings that gleaning adopts depending in the subject that is doing it. The director present different modalities of gleaning, with the underling notion that regardless of the reasons they are gleaners they all are creating new meanings to objects ones considered waste. The first gleaner presented is herself as the director and creator of meaning within the documentary framework. She gleans from paints of gleaners, but also from old films and celluloid from old movies that she happens to find appropriate for her work. She gleans through people's personal stories, selecting the subjects that would appear and have voice in her documentary. The methodology of the filming, which exposes traveling, presents a gleaning of spaces selected in order to deliver a message. Also, the edition process presents her as a gleaner that does not discard what she has recorded, instead present to the audience that she is also a gleaner that does uses what for other directors would seem as a waste.
Agnès Varda presents gleaners and they have a voice on the documentary. One type of gleaner that she presents responds to the quality of life in a post-industrial city. For him, gleaning is an act of survival, since the urban gleaner does it in order to have they everyday food. In contrast to him, she display a chef that is also a gleaner since he wants to save money by selecting spices, but also does it as a commemoration to his ancestors that were real gleaning. In this specific case, gleaning is a celebration to ones past. Agnès Varda also presents a gleaner that does it as a political statement. During his presentation, there are shots about the birds that were affected during an oil spill. A connection to resent events and the necessity for a political responds finds a parallel with the following news:
Sea creatures flee oil spill, cluster along coast.
The gleaner that does it as a reflection of the political situation presents a posture about waste. In the same line, the gleaner that teaches to refuges is also a political approach to the act of gleaning. He could be working in another space, earning money and using his M.A in Biology to do research, instead he proudly does volunteer work in order to help people. Gleaning can also be a collective activity, as Salomon shows the way in which they all share meals.
Finally, she presents gleaners that appropriate objects to subject it to different meanings and create art. Gleaning is art. The use of waste to deconstruct its implications and, in line with the postmodern thought, calling upon the liberation of the dichotomy of elitist and popular art. An interesting link can be made to Street Art, where the space is also calling upon a reflection of the meaning of art. The following link would address the reader to one of the most amazing Brazilian street artist, Os Gemeos:
Os Gemeos
Agnès Varda presents her own body. In the documentary, a constant remainder that waste is a construction that needs to be reconsider from a different perspective is parallel with her position regarding her own body. As some consider waste a potatoes that is too big, the aging body is seen with disregard and as devaluation. Big potatoes lost value as aging bodies do. But, if she is presenting alternative meanings for waste, she is doing the same thing with her body. She is not ashamed of her body, she is proud and films with one hand the other one. The documentary wants to create conscience on the values that are attributed to youth and waste. She vindicates the aging process by relating it with the meaning she creates on gleaners.
The oil spill article is AWFUL!! What’s even worse is that these spills are becoming more and more common. I think it’s a fascinating paradox to think that some of the most effective ways for us, as a part of a very global community, can sustain our world is to revert back to what we have socially deemed “less than.” Particularly in capitalist societies, we have been so deeply conditioned to think that more is always better. Now that we have begun to see what “more” actually can do, I feel like we are finally going to humbly experience the brunt of the force that we keep attempting to exert.
ReplyDeleteI remember being interested in the "boots" man's explanation as to why he gleaned, and trying to make the various connections in my mind between the birds that fell victim to the oil spill and his gleaning. While I had some indication of what he was saying, your post and Kenny's comment really helped me to find my "a-ha" moment. After today's discussion, it is much easier for me to connect this "lack of sustainability" directly to gleaning, and the necessity to curb the outrageous amounts of waste and surplus that are such key elements of our capitalist/consumerist societies. I was especially interested in Kenny's comment of reverting to what we have coded "less than", especially after spending my last two winter breaks traveling to some remote locations in Southeast Asian countries. No matter where I went, how urban or rural, it seemed to me that the culture was much more in tune with concepts of reuse, re-purposing, and low to no waste scenarios when it came to just about everything. While I know part of this was necessity, as I traveled in some extremely poverty-stricken areas, when I asked about some of the practices the answers were generally in agreement with the reasons many of the gleaners in the film gave: Waste is bad for everyone, and makes no sense in nations where so many go hungry. While our society relegates such places and peoples as "primitive" or "less than", it seems to me that they have a much more sustainable, and just, way of life when it comes to this area- a way of life we would be wise to take note of, and learn from.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post about how new meanings are generated by gleaners, both of themselves and the objects they transformed. Varda herself has definitely created an exemplar of documentary as a critique of the capitalist ideologies.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, while watching the film I conflicted over accepting her association of gleaning on field with that of artistic act. No doubt Varda is trying to restore the value and beauty of gleaning, but to a certain extent I feel like she isn’t presenting a real picture of those who really glean to survive. All the gleaners she documented are decently dressed and at least apparently healthy. Perhaps they suffered not physically but in being marginalized, but I guess we should also remember in so many places in the world, some don’t even have the chance to glean to survive.