Cléo from 5 to 7
Where the DNA of Cléo from 5 to 7 travels
Films that shaped it
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I watch it all the time... I feel like I'm constantly referencing it, whether it's the structure of it, or the way she builds the central character. The way that she looks at the female gaze, and how it is both subjective and objective, is something that I constantly return to.
Films it shaped
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I think Agnès Varda, especially with Cléo from 5 to 7, was so brilliant at capturing the interiority of a woman, not through voiceover, but through the camera’s gaze, through the very fabric of the film itself. That sense of identification and observation is something I've always aimed for.
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Barry Jenkins has cited Claire Denis's Beau Travail as a foundational influence, the film that showed him how to use the body, light, and music as primary storytelling tools rather than dialogue. Moonlight's fragmented structure, its use of color as emotion, its willingness to let silence carry meaning, these are lessons from Denis and Wong Kar-wai. Beau Travail is streaming on Criterion Channel and is one of the most beautiful films ever made.
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Her films are still having an impact on my generation… Agnès Varda, not only for her movies, but for the way she was in the world, the way she was an artist, the way she was a woman in cinema. Cléo from 5 to 7 is an example of that, and it gives you a lot of freedom for your own work.
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Agnès Varda, particularly Cléo from 5 to 7, taught me a lot about how to observe a character in motion, how to show interiority through exteriority. Her sense of freedom with the form was very inspiring.
