Why The Huge Glean?

In her film, The Gleaners and I, Agnes Varda explores the contemporary gleaning culture in France. Gleaning, in its various forms, has a long and expansive history, which can be certified to the 19th century through famous paintings of landscapes ripe with gleaners. The majority of the paintings that portray the gleaning culture are representative of traditional gleaning in which the less fortunate, poverty stricken members of society (usually women) swept through fields after harvest, collecting the leftover materials. The practice, though, has been transformed over the years, most notably in its expansion to urban areas. Varda implies that it had been largely non-existent, or significantly less visible, for many years; in the early 20th century, gleaning was imperative because people were starving, but the efficiency and effectiveness of technologically advanced machines used in agriculture resulted in decreased gleaning. However, it has recently regained its popularity in the wake of capitalist economic changes, most especially: the overproduction of goods, increased economic hardship, and, in some cases, enhanced awareness of and opposition to western habits of overconsumption.

Varda’s film follows a variety of gleaners through their work. She surveys both rural and urban gleaning, as well as “pickers” and oyster gleaners. Her subjects’ motivations are diverse, but the majority are driven by need, by their inability to provide for themselves and their families in other ways. Despite their circumstances, and the reality of their lives that have resulted in their need to subsist on food and goods that have been thrown away by others, Varda insists there is “no shame, just worries.” Her stories are deeply touching, and converge to paint a portrait of society that is simultaneously sympathetic and disheartening.

One of her subjects, a former trucker living in a mobile home on the side of a freeway, is shown gleaning from potato dumps. Potatoes are one of many crops that are massively overproduced; the industry only sells the aesthetically pleasing potatoes, those that are of a particular size and shape, and the rest are dumped. Varda’s camera shows us that the majority of the dumped potatoes are perfectly good and edible, but they are among the rejected and dejected members of society that have been deemed useless and valueless (just like the gleaners that collect them). If they are left for too long after being dumped, however, they turn green and cause sickness; the potato companies do not care if their waste is gleaned, but they also do not particularly care about the health if the gleaners, as they make no effort to alert people to the times or locations where they will be dumping. This attitude is indicative of a mainstream culture/society/set of laws that would rather criminalize and vilify gleaners than confront the systems that result in the staggering (consumable) waste created by the country. Many gleaners, among them the former trucker, live almost entirely on items that someone else has thrown away; this reality should lead us to question the cultural and economic constructions that allow for perfectly good materials to be labeled waste. Who decides what does and does not have value? Varda contends that gleaners are not only consuming and utilizing useless items, but they themselves have been labeled valueless to society; and, instead of confronting the structures that separate and characterize and attach value to physical bodies, the more successful perpetuate the systems that facilitate the maintenance of their positions in society, the systems that prevent their affinity with their disadvantaged brethren. The steadfast adherence to capitalist means of production and exchange speaks to our discussion in class of the characteristics inherent in capitalism, an economics that insists on the exclusion of certain members of society but, by successfully characterizing the prohibited as useless, guarantees their continued attempts at inclusion. The desire for both achieving and maintaining this inclusion is vividly performed in the film by the shopkeeper who bleached his trash bin to prevent urban gleaning and the vineyard keepers in Burgundy who leave their leftover grapes on the ground to dry out. The producers and sellers took these actions in order to maintain their relevance in a capitalist marketplace because, as we discussed in class, if gleaners can acquire materials for free, why would they ever pay money for them? Why would they strive for inclusion in a system that mandates they accumulate capital to purchase things they previously obtained for free?

I found a video on YouTube of an organization in Portland of modern day gleaners who provide fruit to the less fortunate. It is incredible to me that it is not simply the ‘norm’ in our society or Varda’s to collect and consume leftover food that would otherwise be thrown away. It is striking that we are not collectively incessantly demanding more efficient, effective and just use and distribution of food and other materials. Perhaps, with any luck, organizations like this one in Portland are helping to change the ways our society consumes, produces and disposes.