Cléo is not just looking at herself but also how others perceive her. Cléo says that her fear seems to be gone, and she seems happy, while Antoine starts crying. Cléo tells her friend that she is dying of cancer. The music when her lover, José, comes to her apartment is incredibly romantic and beautiful. On the way to a café, Cléo passes a street performer swallowing frogs and spitting them back out on a huge wave of water. The documentary style of the film allows the viewer to follow Cléo during real-time from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m on June 21, 1961. “Thanks!” Cléo retorts with equal parts alarm and sarcasm. She will be getting the results today at 18:30h. Varda was trying to create a connection with the art of the film (Cléo’s story) and reality (news). BECOME A PATRON THROUGH PATREON. In addition, much of the film is shown through Cléo’s eyes as the viewer sees Paris and meets her acquaintances. While distraught from her visit to the fortune teller, Cléo reminds herself "as long as I'm beautiful, I'm alive" and that death is ugly. Cléo wants to wear the hat home, but Angèle reminds her that it's Tuesday, and it's bad luck to wear something new on a Tuesday. Similar to how Cléo had finally come to terms with her illness and then the doctor quickly found her to giver her the results of her test. The camera creates space between Cléo and her diagnosis. (Cléo, film). There are also protests on the street that Cléo encounters while taking a taxi back to her home. There is a lot of free space in the room. Her work was seen as a refreshing alternative to the intellectual boys’ club of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and other cineastes with a shared obsession with film history and aesthetics. The natural setting highlights the almost documentary format of the film. Antoine also builds on the theme of existentialism that the film conveys, with his claims that the people in Algeria are dying for nothing. To be lugubrious would be admitting to a kind of vulgarity. She wants to be perceived in a positive, beautiful light and alters her outward appearance to do so. The whole family lives happily and likes to sing and to go to the movies. The fortune is fairly accurate – Cléo is a talented musician, she has a strong female presence in her life (likely Angèle), and a generous lover who has aided her career. The lighting is not added on but seems as if the film was actually shot within 5 pm and 7 pm. How long can it last?” she cries out in despair. ( Log Out / The large skirt flows as she walks and creates a anything-goes presence for Cléo. Agnès Varda, photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague, is an institution of French cinema. At the beginning of the film, Cléo feels very. Clothing is also used to characterize Cléo. Cléo struggles with recognizing this throughout the film because of her close relationship with death. PAR AGNES V. The director of CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 and ... See full summary ». The camera cuts to her dismal face, the dirty, dark wall, and the tight, constricting hallways. Cléo’s feelings about each moment in the film are shown, so the viewer is able to see how she grows over the span of two hours. Varda’s use of subjective point of view elides separation from externalities and Cléo. She allows herself to feel happiness once she accepts that death might still be there (Powrie). Varda described the film as “the portrait of a woman painted onto a documentary about Paris” (Martin). For example, when she is looking in the mirror at the hat store, the viewer can hear her think, ”. Cleo from 5 to 7 plucks a single string from a singer's life and by pulling at it, illustrates the fabric of the beautiful and unique, but predetermined world that it is woven into. Dividing Cléo from 5 to 7 into chapters gives the ninety-minute film its fable-like urgency. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Cléo’s nervousness and agitation within the modern world is not an outdated experience; tools and technology have changed, but the loneliness and emptiness that accompany a frightening ordeal like medical illness, or even its mere insinuation, remain. After Cléo meets Antoine, the viewer learns that her real name is Florence. The film centers on the two hours that a young singer, Cleo, must wait to hear from her doctor to find out if she has cancer. She is not alone at the beginning but always surrounded by people and things. Directed by Agnès Varda. It’s serious, isn’t it?” Cléo cries out with alarm. Agnès Varda’s 1961 film Cléo de 5 à 7 is about this headspace, following Cléo Victoire (Corinne Marchand), who is awaiting news about a medical test that will determine whether she has cancer. Like Joyce's Uylsses, it finds parallels between the struggles of a day with the struggles of a life. Varda creates an almost documentary feel as we spend the next 90 minutes following Cléo, a famous pop singer, around the chic streets of ’60s Paris in real time. The color is no longer overly-saturated, sepia tones but completely black and white. Her thoughts sound different from her regular voice as well, almost as if she is whispering to herself. The fear is also enhanced through her dim surroundings. The fortune teller also sees that Cléo has recently met a generous young man, which she confirms, claiming that she doesn't see him too often, but he got her into the music industry. The camera shows this by being in the top corner of the room and focusing on everything in the room. The city’s beauty is highlighted throughout the film. She also asks the fortuneteller to read her palm. François, a young carpenter, lives a happy, uncomplicated life with his wife Thérèse and their two small children. Cleo from 5 to 7 is the story of a pop singer who has been given a dark medical diagnosis, which she waits to confirm throughout the length of the film. At the beginning of the film, she is in a bright, large dress. She used Paris as the film set rather than creating expensive sets as had been done for many films before and after. Finally, Cléo from 5 to 7 deserves credit for treating its protagonist’s pop music career seriously. The film stops so that she can watch a man swallow live frogs. She is most alive when singing the material provided by Bob, her rehearsal pianist and lover, played with gentlemanly understatement by composer Michel Legrand. She no longer relies on the close watch of the males around her but wants to be regarded as an equal (, Varda uses shot-reverse-shots to establish dialogue among the, Her next card, the hanged man, shows suffering and change. Cléo is dependent on the gaze of other people during the first half of the film. Don’t be put off by the gloomy subject matter; Cléo from 5 to 7 is an exuberant and very stylish film that benefits from many lighter moments. Sound is incredibly important in the film as Cléo is a pop artist and much of her work revolves around music. Egged on by her superstitious assistant Angèle (Dominique Davray), Cléo interprets every small sign as sealing her fate: a broken mirror, a man killed in a crowd, and most ominously of all, the tarot reading that opens the film. Also, the crowds at cafés and on the street are shown as they would have actually been at the time. Saying that everyone spoils her but no one loves her, Cléo leaves everyone behind in her home. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Chapter 4: Cléo with Angèle between 5:18 and 5:25. Immediately after this, the camera cuts quickly to the reader, and she asks, “Are you sick?” Cléo responds yes. painted onto a documentary about Paris” (Martin). Throughout the film, Cléo is resistant to the changes indicated by the Death card, but it ultimately accrues a different meaning for her: that a new beginning is afoot. A piano or violin is often heard throughout the film. She realizes that she wants to influence the world rather than just being a pawn in other people’s’ world. Chapter 4: Cléo with Angèle between 5:18 and 5:25 The movie is incredibly fluid and is broken up by twelve chapters that are represented on the screen with the chapter number, time, and characters. Something feels definitively off. There are many mirrors at her apartment to allow her to look at herself. Before Cléo's lover, the man who the fortune teller mentioned earlier, enters the building, Angèle tells Cléo not to tell him that she's ill, because men "hate weakness". When she changes into her robe at the house, she looks almost angelic. However, halfway through the film – after the “Sans Toi” song – she breaks out of the constrictive environment and explores Paris and the parks. With Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blanck. This shows how much Cléo values her outward appearances. Actress in silent film, L'arroseur / This FAQ is empty. The space created by the car is instantly removed as the viewer sees the distraught emotion on her face. Cléo and Angèle proceed to go hat shopping, where Cléo only pays attention to the black fur hats, despite Angèle constantly reminding her that it's summertime. Before leaving, Antoine confides in Cléo about his thoughts on the war, and that in Algeria, they die for nothing, and that scares him. She expects to find the truth of her future through the cards. In the colour credit sequence Cléo (Corine Marchand), a young and beautiful Parisian, is having her future told and the Tarot cards confirm her worst fears as she awaits the results of a medical to detect whether she is suffering from an incurable disease. Like Setsuko Hara in her gallery of exquisite performances for the Japanese director, Cléo uses the smile as mask and tonic. Cléo from 5 to 7 is a 1962 French Left Bank film written and directed by Agnès Varda. Leaving the cinema, Cléo accidentally breaks a mirror, which she claims is a bad omen. She looks into the mirrors to reaffirm that she is indeed beautiful. Varda uses jump cuts throughout the film, and they are most prominent after Cléo receives her tarot reading to show the confusion and emotions that Cléo is facing. She is certain that it will be a terminal cancer diagnosis, her mind fixated on that outcome and what it actually means. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Angèle helps her change into her clothes for rehearsal while Cléo is stretching out on a pull-up bar.