and I (Agnès Varda, 2000) The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000)
was translated as "The Gleaners" in mainland China, which is a very general translation; The translation of The Gleaners is much more accurate. The original title is The Gleaners and I are side by side. This connotation is much broader than the Chinese name, but it can't help but make people suspicious. What is the relationship between the gleaner and "I"?
This is a documentary with a strong self-awareness of the photographer, but this subjective color gives the audience a very convincing feeling. These subjective colors come from the intervention of the photographer. When the photographer enters the film in the first act, she is in the exhibition hall, carrying a handful of grass to contrast with Miller's "The Gleaners" on the wall, and then she puts down the grass and picks up the camera. This action is quite meaningful. From this scene, the photographer's presence to the audience has always existed; moreover, the scavenger has become a person who uses a camera to pick up light and shadow. In the latter sense, the photographer is also a "scavenger". This is the first meaning. Another layer of meaning may be puzzling. In one scene, the owner of the apple orchard picked up an unqualified apple and said: It's like an old and ugly woman, worthless (can't remember the exact words). This seems to be referring to the photographer herself, with age-spotted hands under the camera as she strokes the picture of Rembrandt's self-portrait. (Rembrandt is eternally young in the self-portrait, while she is like a dry branch in the river of time.) The photographers left this dark humor in the editing of the film. She tells people that she is what they call "rubbish," something deemed useless and will be wasted by society. The trinity of scavengers, "garbage" and "relict" exists in the photographer at the same time. If the screening of this film is also counted as a process of gleaning, if we regard the film as a gleaned object, then the dual identities of the audience and the author are also the same as the "graspers" and the scavengers. Pick up the same object exists.
In the traditional concept, "gleaners" refer to those who lean over to pick up the wheat ears in the fields after harvesting, but the photographer gave a new definition of "scavengers" and "gleaners". There are crops left over from the harvest in the farmland, food discarded by vendors in urban markets, and scenery collected by photographers; what’s more, the vegan volunteers taught the migrants a lesson, which is also a way of picking up leftovers. , found some metaphysical content. Among them are farmers, petty citizens who oppose waste, wandering gypsies, street artists, and artists who create with waste. All are gleaners, young and old. The photographer here gives a further symbolic meaning, "I" is a gleaner, and so are they. Perhaps the same is true for those who appreciate what the natural world has to offer and take life seriously. Just like the ending part, the oil painting of gleaners in the sun, after hundreds of years, the image still reminds people today that this situation has not changed. We should all be gleaners.
The title juxtaposes "I" with the gleaner, except that "I" is the gleaner, and "I" is also the object to be gleaned; there should be another meaning. If the gleaner is "I", why should "I" and the gleaner be separated (why not just use the word gleaners)? This may be to highlight the identity of "I": a photographer who criticizes excessive waste, advocates environmental protection, and has a female consciousness. In the film, "I" often swept across the camera like a ghost, as if to show that the audience, the gains you picked up are also mine.
This is the same as the relationship between the film and the author involved. In the implicit sense, she is the film, and the film is her.
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