#VARDA!

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Agnès Varda - Pier Paolo Pasolini - New York - 1967 (Agnès Varda, 2022)

[afanofmanyhats]

One of my favorite things about Tolkien's writing is that he has a very specific, recurring trope. For lack of a better term, I'm dubbing this the Tolkien Wife-Guy.

This is mainly obvious in the Silmarillion, but Tolkien loves to write couples where the man is a notable individual- nobility, commits a great deed, or both- but the wife is at least equally notable, if not more beloved or powerful. Manwe is the king of the Valar and Eru's main representative in Arda? Everyone loves Varda more, and Melkor fears her more than his own brother. Elu Thingol is the king of the Silvan Elves? His wife is Melian, whose Girdle is the magic that keeps Morgoth's forces at bay. Beren is a chief among the Edain, who befriends animals and survives one of the most nightmarish places in Beleriand? His wife is Luthien.

Even in Lord of the Rings we see this occur, though the couples are on more even footing. Tom Bombadil is... Tom Bombadil, but Goldberry is the River-daughter, and Tom adores her above everything else, and the hobbits are completely taken in with her when she's their host. Similarly, while Celeborn is a mighty lord among Elves, Galadriel is one of the only Noldor in Middle-earth who saw the Two Trees, and her hair inspired Feanor to make the Silmarils, not to mention her own accomplishments in the war against Morgoth. Aragorn is the king of Gondor and Arnor, but Arwen is the Evenstar of the Elves, the descendant of three(?) different royal Elven lines. And Faramir becomes the Steward of Gondor and is one of the noblest men alive, but Eowyn killed the Witch-king, so you know. She got the grander moment for the saga.

But with (most) of these couples, we never get the impression that the man views his wife as Less-Than, or as a junior partner. Thingol is the main exception to this in how he dismisses Melian's counsel, and that's made out to be his foolishness within the text. Otherwise, Manwe treats Varda as his co-ruler, Beren never tries to downplay Luthien's achievements, and I'm pretty sure most of Tom Bombadil's dialogue is about how gorgeous Goldberry is. It's really sweet.

All of these examples really testify to how much Tolkien loved his wife. People rightly point to Beren and Luthien as the prime example of that, but I think you can find it in these other couples too. Even though Edith is mainly known to history as Mrs. Tolkien, it's evident to me that Jirt saw her as a whole person worthy of admiration outside of being his wife.

[dancyrilkingston]

CLÉO DE 5 À 7 (dir. Agnès Varda, 1962)

[toiich]

Agnès Varda

[davidhudson]

Agnès Varda, Portugal, 1956.

[l-otr]

Sowing stars by Valera Lutfullina

[yuinevo]

Varda redraw

[rinthecap]

Varda Elentári x “L’Étoile Polaire”- Alphonse Mucha

Varda, Queen of the Valar, Lady of the Stars. She was the most beautiful of all the Valar. The Elves loved her the most of all the gods because of her creation of the stars.

[semioticapocalypse]

Unknown. Agnès Varda dans son studio de photographie rue Daguerre [Agnès Varda in her photography studio on rue Daguerre]. 1955

I Am Collective Memories   •    Follow me, — says Visual Ratatosk

[thyinum]

Queen of the Stars

[denastudio]

Details from Jane Birkin's home in Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Mur Murs (Agnès Varda, 1981)

[margotfonteyns]

Dorothée Blanck evoking Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus in a scene from L’Opéra-Mouffe (Agnès Varda, 1958)

"Her body is never entirely still, but she wriggles, moves it naturally, stretching, unselfconscious with her back to the camera, so her body is seen in its lived dimensions even as she is framed in the pictorial setting. The moving of flesh and skin is part of the reclining nude imagined here. She never settles into a fixed ideal so that she is seen as living, as lovelier because she moves and feels. Varda opens the painting to this different apprehension of female nakedness. She references Velázquez and salutes the visual beauty and melancholy of his image, yet also tenderly unfreezes the pose. This mobility is part of the relation to tradition Varda establishes, which is reverent and irreverent all at once. Her work is enriched by the precursor images to which she refers but Varda claims freedom of association and repurposing, a liberty expressed in the very literal movement in and shaking up of the timeless still pose." — Emma Wilson, The Reclining Nude

[wetgeliscasualinterval]

Le Bonheur (1965) dir. Agnès Varda

[covvboytears]

Agnès Varda: ‘I am still alive, I am still curious. I am not a piece of rotting flesh’

[davidhudson]

Agnès Varda, May 30, 1928 – March 29, 2019.

In her studio on Rue Daguerre in 1955.