Revisited: Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson) Talks with Agnès Varda for the Talkhouse Podcast

To mark the passing of the beloved French auteur, we revisit her vibrant 2017 conversation with Johnson about memory, time and artistic boundaries.

To mark the sad passing of the brilliant Agnès Varda, we are revisiting an old episode of the Talkhouse Podcast in which documentary cinematographer and Cameraperson director Kirsten Johnson sat down with the legendary French New Wave auteur when she was in town in 2017 for a gallery exhibit of her art at Blum & Poe and a French Institute film series. In a wonderfully thoughtful and engaged conversation, the two discuss Varda’s artwork, how her films play with time, finding permission as an artist, Varda’s feelings about New York City, Faces Places, her collaboration with the artist JR, her favorite color (!), and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.

The music featured in the podcast is as follows:
1. Intro / outro underscore: “Plastic Man vs. The Giant Red Phase Of The Sun” – Iced Ink

Episode engineered by Mark Yoshizumi; the Talkhouse podcast producer is Elia Einhorn.

Kirsten Johnson is a cinematographer and director. Her directorial feature debut, Cameraperson, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, won numerous awards and was released theatrically by Janus Films to great acclaim. Her short film The Above premiered at 2015 New York Film Festival in the The Intercept’s Field of Vision launch. Her most recent camerawork appears in Oscar-winning Citizenfour and Very Semi-Serious. Her credits include The Invisible War, Asylum and Fahrenheit 9/11. She lives in New York City. (Photo by Kathy Leichter.)