A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnes Varda
by: Carrie Rickey

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 272 pages, b&w illustrations. Over the course of her sixty-five-year career, the longest of any female filmmaker, Agnes Varda (19282019) wrote and directed some of the most acclaimed films of her era, from her tour de force Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), a classic of modernist cinema, to the beloved documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) four decades later. She helped to define the French New Wave, inspired an entire generation of filmmakers, and was recognized with major awards at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals, as well as an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards. In this lively biography, former Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey explores the "complicated passions" that informed Varda's charmed life and indelible work. Rickey traces Varda's three remarkable careers-as still photographer, as filmmaker, and as installation artist. Remainder dot to top edge, otherwise clean.