Cléo de 5 à 7

by Valerie Orpen

'Cleo de 5 a 7' chronicles, in real time, 90 minutes in the life of rising pop singer Cleo Victoire, played by Corinne Marchand."

Genres: Film

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Joe M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a critical analysis of “Cléo from 5 to 7,” the only film of the 60s French New Wave to have been made by a woman director (Agnes Varda). Despite this singularity, author Valerie Orpen states in her introduction: “Although I realize it has become quite commonplace for a female film scholar to discuss a film made by a female director and concerning a female protagonist, this was not something that I set out to do. My intention was simpler in that I wanted to analyze a film that I, as well as others, both male and female, enjoyed, and found rewarding to teach and study.” In the movie, Cléo Victoire, a rising pop singer in Paris, anxiously awaits the results of a biopsy as to whether or not she has cancer. Agnes Varda, unlike many of her male cinephile colleagues in the Nouvelle Vague, had not been a movie-watcher, but this seems to have served her well in making a film that is consistently fresh and innovative. This film pioneered a strict adherence to ‘real time’ (i.e., it is broken up into 13 ‘chapters’ that follow Cléo for 90 minutes on a Parisian summer evening, and the film itself is exactly 90 minutes long). Within this time, we witness the beautiful Cléo’s transformation, represented primarily by her hair and dress, from a hysterical and at times irritating objectified pop-star who ostensibly ‘has it all’ in the first half of the movie, to an everyday woman anonymously wandering the streets and parks of Paris in search of deeper meaning. In addition to the obvious themes of the film (i.e., personas and ‘masks,’ superstition), Orpen provides additional insights, for example: its ties to the dominance of Existentialism in France at the time; Cléo as a female embodiment of the ‘flâneuse’ (an active, solitary wanderer-observer), a hitherto male-only concept; its likeness to the structure of Virginia Woolf’s novels. Enthusiastic, intelligently written, and well-researched (there is even a Paris map provided that charts Cléo’s journey in the film), this makes an excellent read for fans. (originally written May 22, 2008)

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orpen approaches Varda's film from countless directions—almost too many—and sometimes it's hard not to wish she had spent a bit more time fleshing out some of her ideas in more detail (I personally found the comparison to Mrs. Dalloway the most evocative and intriguing). But if sheer excess of analysis is this volume's main weakness, it's also its great strength as well: so many new ideas, impressions, possibilities, it's impossible to not want to return to the film immediately to see what surfaces this time...

[Dan Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little companion to the film.