Film analyst Leger Grindon, describes five categories to describe interviews in documentary films. Two of these analytical categories are “presence," which describes the extent to which the filmmaker’s presence has on the interview, and “perspective," which concerns the camera’s position and setting in an interview scene. In her 2000 documentary, The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda illustrates both of these categories through her interrogation style and camerawork. Specifically, Varda’s degree of involvement with her interviews as well as the camera’s placement and movement indicates the subjectivity and fascination in her work.
Agnès Varda’s presence as a director is indicated in a number of different ways, even within a single interview. In one interview scene, Varda communicates with a group of people who are gleaning potatoes. Oftentimes, we do not see or hear her ask a question to the people in her film and she allows her subjects to speak for themselves. However, she does interject when something that one of her subjects says moves her, like when the man she is interviewing mentions heart-shaped potatoes.
This unique style of interview allows Varda’s subjects to relay information in their own words as well as incorporate Varda’s unique mindset. Varda’s willingness to include her subjectivity highlights the fascination that both she and the audience feels toward her subjects.
Agnès Varda’s presence in the documentary is underscored through the unique camera perspectives throughout the interview. The interviews are often shot at a medium distance, allowing both the subject and their environment to be visible. Grindon states that this distance “allows its evocative setting to develop its visual dimension.” In other words, shooting interviews at this accessible distance allows the audience to become more engaged with the subjects.
The camera in Varda’s The Gleaners and I constantly follows the action in the film. In the same interview with the people gleaning potatoes, the camera frequently pans toward the subjects of the interview. The camera pans left to follow two young boys singing a song and pans up from a bucket of potatoes to the man who is carrying them. Through these techniques, Varda indicates the importance of her subjects to the audience.
Grindon’s concepts of presence and perspective work together in Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I to deepen the meaning of the film. The mix of first-hand accounts and Varda’s own interpretation, as well as medium-distance interviews in which the camera is always moving, expresses the idea that The Gleaners and I is a cultivated project, in which both the filmmaker and subjects are moved by the topic.