Interview

BEAR: When World War II broke out, your parents and four siblings joined the exodus from your native Belgium and took refuge on your father's sailboat at Sète, a small port on the Mediterranean. And as a teenager you hung out with the fishermen and learned how to mend fishing nets.

VARDA: That skill came in handy when I ran away to Corsica, much more than my high school diploma. It helped me to get a job. While making Beaches, I got lucky, because in Sète I found a 16mm home movie about the old man who had taught me how to mend nets. It was logical to put that scene in my film.

BEAR: We see you rowing a small dinghy.

VARDA: The original boat was much bigger-it held four guys. The job I got in Corsica was ferrying fishermen out to sea. But at 18, I could row much farther than I can now at 80. Here I wasn't doing an exact reenactment, it was more like evoking the past.

BEAR: Another beach that you filmed on was Noirmoutier.

VARDA: That's an island facing Nantes on the west coast of France where my husband, the director Jacques Demy, grew up. He wanted us to settle there. We converted an old windmill for living and working. We spent a lot of time there. When Jacques died, I made a movie about him, Jacquot de Nantes-as a widow, it was my way of structuring or finding a form for my grief. A lot of sailors and fishermen from those islands die at sea. So some years later I started to talk to and film other widows mourning their husbands. Longtime widows and recent ones. Talking to them was very moving.

BEAR: Your mother bought you your first serious camera, a used Rolleiflex, in Sète.

VARDA: Yes. But in the film I also mention that my mother was losing her memory. I'm losing mine now, more or less. Everyone does. At least what's in the film won't be forgotten. And I'm paying homage to two women: One is the 94-year-old widow of Jean Vilar, the theater director I worked for as a photographer. She can't remember where she is or if she's eaten, but she can recite beautiful poetry by Valéry and Racine. The other is my mother. She would make mistakes, but I would say, "Let her be. She's free." Because forgetting is a form of freedom. Loss of memory is a subtext throughout Beaches. Oh, the cards! [reading another card] "Nausicaa, Gérard Depardieu, beatnik . . ." Well, that film has disappeared. It was shot in 1970, when Depardieu was very young. Handsome, isn't he? Already a great actor. He used to visit our house in Paris a lot and once or twice he babysat my daughter Rosalie.

BEAR: Were some moments of your life hard to revisit in the film?

VARDA: Yes. As I walk backward on the Santa Monica pier I say, "Memories are like flies swarming around me and I'm not sure I want to remember." I had accompanied Jacques to Los Angeles when he was making a Hollywood film, and there were some rough times. Later we made up and decided to grow old together-a great project that was cut short.

BEAR: But in fact you got to make several films in Los Angeles: Lions Love [1969], Black Panthers [1968], and Mur, Murs [1981]. Would you like another card?

VARDA: Yes, one more. I like the cards. I like your game. [Béar puts down more cards.] Don't look at them!

BEAR: I'm not! [Varda chooses. She doesn't recognize the lyrics on the card from a French song about a camel but instead sings a song from her new film about a nightingale.]

VARDA: It's funny asking a nightingale to teach you the language of love, don't you think?

BEAR: Well, it's the most beautiful of bird songs. But now other birds are singing at night because there's too much traffic in the daytime.