Cléo from 5 to 7

(Cléo de 5 à 7, Agnès Varda, France 1962, 90 min., 35mm, French w/subtitles)

Agnès Varda: (Self)-Portraits, Facts and Fiction. The film depicts two crucial hours in the life of Cléo (Corinne Marchand), a pop star waiting for the results of a biopsy. In a moment of crisis, she breaks with gender roles and social expectations; she chooses to wander through Paris and seek solace from the individuals she encounters, including a soldier on leave from the Algerian War (Antoine Bourseiller). The film, praised for its beauty and vivid representation of 1960s Paris, is major work of the French New Wave. The film features a score by Michel Legrand, and cameos by Legrand, Jean-Luc Godard, and Anna Karina. Cléo was selected for the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and presented again fifty years later in “Cannes Classics,” attesting to the film’s continued vibrancy, popularity, and legacy.

“Agnès Varda has chosen a marvelous and cruel subject that she treats with seductive mastery.” – Françoise Sagan

Presented by Dr. Rebecca Scales, Assistant Professor, Department of History, and Dr. Rebecca DeRoo, Assistant Professor, Department of Performing Arts and Visual Culture, Museum Studies Program, RIT.