User:Cbamber/sandbox

My Response to Review on Agnes Varda

From Peers

Taken from Nina's response on the talk page of my Agnes Varda article:

"The edit's made to Agnes Varda's seem to really enhance the page. I liked the descriptions of each of her most prominent films, which was informative while also remaining subjective. I imagine it was difficult to find a lot of sources about Varda, so I appreciated that all the important information on the page that needed to be cited was. The citations in the bibliography all seemed very credible as well as diverse, and the formatting and grammar of the page seem to be carefully done and correct. One possible edit that could be made on this page, if possible, would be to flesh out the sections on her involvement in the French New Wave and her Style. I actually think that they could be combined into one longer section on her style of filmmaking and then include information on how the French New Wave was a part of that style and wear her films made during that time fit into the French New Wave movement as a whole."

Thank you, Nina. Per your suggestions, I'm looking forward to adding more to the French New Wave and Style sections.

From Professor Schreiber

"Cayla - These are great additions. Varda does have a fairly solid site but you have managed to make it stronger through this discussion of the Left Bank and her recent honorary Oscar. Be sure to cite your sources using the correct format."

Will do! Thank you for your feedback Professor Schreiber.

Peer Reviewing Others

Peer Reviewing Leni Riefenstahl

Hi Sophie! Your draft seems like it's off to a great start.

Everything that you have included seems very relevant to your topic. I see no distractions throughout your work.

You do a great job at remaining neutral in your writing, even about a topic that brushes with a subject as heavy as Nazism and Hitler. I would just be careful, as you continue to write, that when you discuss "whether or not she should be appreciated for her art," you balance both sides of the argument and speak in factual terms—as I have no doubt that you'll be able to do! I especially commend you on recognizing that a "section negatively associates Riefenstahl with the atrocities committed by Hitler, rather than separating her filmmaking skills." This seems very important in representing all viewpoints!

Your sources look very solid and all your information appears to be up to date.

Peer Reviewing Maya Deren

Wow, you've found a lot of information already.

I think your additions to the Early Life and Early Career sections add a great touch to what was already on Deren's page. I also think that your inclusions of Director's Notes and Possible Influences add a lot to the discussion of her most famous film, Meshes in the Afternoon. All these edits seem very relevant to your topic.

If possible, you might want to consider including more information on her other films.

You also do a great job of approaching your topic from a neutral point of view, speaking with an encyclopedic voice that represents multiple viewpoints throughout your writing.

I don't currently see your sources on your Sandbox page, but I know there's been some mix-up throughout the weeks about where to post assignments, so as long as you have those elsewhere, your project looks great!

Draft your article: Improving an existing article

Though Agnes Varda's existing article is more extensive than those belonging to various other female filmmakers, there is content missing from the current form of the entry. To identify a few, I am primarily interested in expanding upon Varda's participation in the Left Bank Cinema group, involvement in feminist filmmaking, and most recent accolade—the 2017 Academy Honorary Award.

Passion for Photography

Varda began her career as a stills photographer before becoming one of the majors of the Left Bank Cinema and the French New Wave. She holds the interrelationship between photographic and cinematic forms: “I take photographs or I make films. Or I put films in the photos, or photos in the films.” 

Varda explains of her beginnings with the medium, “I started earning a living from photography straightaway, taking trivial photographs of families and weddings to make money. But I immediately wanted to make what I called 'compositions.' And it was with these that I had the impression I was doing something where I was asking questions with composition, form and meaning.”

Varda’s photography could sometimes inspire her subsequent films. She recounts: “When I made my first film, La Pointe Courte -- without experience, without having been an assistant before, without having gone to film school -- I took photographs of everything I wanted to film, photographs that are almost models for the shots. And I started making films with the sole experience of photography, that's to say, where to place the camera, at what distance, with which lens and what lights?” Furthermore, she recalls another example:  “I made a film in 1982 called Ulysse, which is based on another photograph I took in r954, one I'd made with the same bellows camera, and I started Ulysse with the words, "I used to see the image upside down." There's an image of a goat on the ground, like a fallen constellation, and that was the origin of the photograph. With those cameras, you'd frame the image upside down, so I saw Brassaï through the camera with his head at the bottom of the image.”

Left Bank Cinema

The French New Wave movement was broken into two subgroups: the Cahiers du Cinema group and the Left Bank Cinema group. Because of her literary influences, and because her work predates the French New Wave, Varda's films belong more precisely to the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. Categorically, the Left Bank side of the New Wave movement embraced a more experimental style than the Cahiers du Cinema group; however, this distinction is ironic considering the New Wave itself was considered experimental in its treatment of traditional methodologies and subjects.

Left Bank Cinema was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature. The members of the group had in common a background in documentary filmmaking, a left wing political orientation, and a heightened interest in experimentation and the treatment of film as art. Varda and other Left Bank filmmakers crafted a mode of filmmaking that blends one of film’s most socially motivated approaches, documentary, with one of its most formally experimental approaches, the avant-garde. Its members would often collaborate with each other. According to scholar Delphine Bénézet, “Varda has resisted norms of representation and diktats of production… She has elaborated a personal repertoire of images, characters, and settings, which all provide insight on their cultural and political contexts.” 

Feminist Filmmaking

Varda has been quoted stating, “I'm not at all a theoretician of feminism, I did all that—my photos, my craft, my film, my life—on my terms, my own terms, and not to do it like a man.” Though she was not actively involved in any strict agendas of the feminist movement, Varda often focused on women’s issues thematically and never tried to change her craft to make it more conventional or masculine.

Historically, Varda is seen as the New Wave’s mother. Film critic Delphine Bénézet has argued for Varda’s importance as “au feminin singulier,” a woman of singularity and of the upmost importance in film history. Varda embraced her femininity with distinct boldness.

Recent Awards

Along with writer-director Charles Burnett, cinematographer Owen Roizman, and actor Donald Sutherland, director Agnes Varda most recently received an honorary Oscar. The prizes were presented at the annual Governors Awards ceremony in 2017. As explained by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president John Bailey, the award is intended to “reflect the breadth of international, independent and mainstream filmmaking.” The Honorary Award, an Oscar statuette, is given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”

In response, Varda was quoted, “I’m totally honored, I’m totally pleased, I’m touched to tears that they did such a long trip to be with me.” She has also joked that she is “not so excited” to be presented with lifetime achievement awards, which “make me think [that the industry is saying], ‘Okay, stop now. Get this and go home.'”

Plans to edit Agnes Varda's Wikipedia entry

In the upcoming couple of months, I am planning to do a substantial edit of Varda's article for an academic project.

First and foremost, there are several spelling and grammatical issues in the text that I would like to fix.

Moreover, the article could benefit from more detailed information on the French New Wave, particularly regarding the Left Bank Cinema group. As it stands, there is only a three-sentence section on Varda’s interactions with the movement. I hope to include more on how Varda fits in and inspired many aspects of the trend.

The article could also use an expansion of the discussion of Varda as a feminist filmmaker. The two sentences under the section of “Style” do not encompass all that she did within the topic. Somewhat related, I am also interested in expanding the personal life section, especially the discussion of her contribution to the Manifesto of the 343.

In addition, I want to expand the coverage of Varda’s 2017 Academy Honorary Award. It currently exists as a mere bullet point, and I’d like to add more detail.

Lastly, the article lists a few of Varda’s publications without any descriptions, so I’d like to fill in that missing information.

Bibliography

1. Bénézet, Delphine. The Cinema of Agnès Varda: Resistance and Eclecticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
2. Bonner, Virginia Ann. Cinematic Caesuras: Experimental Documentary and the Politics of Form in Left Bank Films by Resnais, Marker, Varda. Atlanta, GA: Thesis, Ph.D., Emory University, 2003.
3. Darke, Chris. “Agnes Varda.” Sight & Sound, vol. 25, no. 4, April 2015, pp. 46-50. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 2018).
4. Mouton, Janice. “From Feminine Masquerade to Flâneuse: Agnès Varda's Cléo in the City.” Cinema Journal 40, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 3. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 2018).
5. Talton, Jana Meredyth. “Agnes Varda: Ahead of the avant-garde.” Ms 3, no. 6 (May 1993): 78. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 2018).

Article Evaluation

Task: Choose an article on Wikipedia related to one of the women filmmakers in the handout attached to the course syllabus to read and evaluate. As you read, consider the following questions (but don't feel limited to these):

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Topic: Leontine Sagan

I found that everything in the article seemed relevant to the subject, with no distractions along the way.

The article is mostly neutral, but the writer does look at Sagan's career and her film Mädchen in Uniform (1931) through a particular frame. The article does not mention other ways of interpreting the film, namely the more conservative viewing of Manuela's infatuation with Fräulein von Bernburg as the search for a maternal figure that we discussed in class. Though I'm inclined to side with the Wikipedia writer's interpretation, I do think that others are underrepresented.

Most of the citations at the bottom of the page are functional and unbiased, but the article only references nine sources, one of which is defunct ("Film Directors Site," citation #6). The sources support the claims in the article, but more could definitely be done. Furthermore, not everything is cited properly. For example, the article reads "In February 1948 she directed the NTO's first English production Dear Brutus by J.M. Barrie, followed by An Inspector Calls. Directed In Theatre Street for the East Rand Theatre Club in 1950. (Leontine Sagan - ESAT. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.)" This citation is incorrect and should be at the bottom of the page and instead footnoted in the text. In addition, some claims, like "Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with helping to revoke its censorship in the US," are left without citation and therefore debatable.

No information appears to be out of date. Some information could be better researched, for example, under 'Personal Life' where it says "Born in either Budapest or Vienna in 1889." From looking at more sources, this information could be properly listed in Sagan's Wikipedia page.

On the Talk page of the article, one person seems interested in Sagan's sexuality, though no one seems to be in conversation with this individual. The article is rated "Start Class." It is a part of four WikiProjects: WikiProject Biography / Actors and Filmmakers, WikiProject LGBT studies, WikiProject Austria, WikiProject Women's History.