Power Point for Cleo from 5 to 7

1. Discussion Questions
• 1. In many ways, Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 constitutes a feminine response to
the films made by male directors during the 1950s and 1960s in France. Read
this way, what elements of the “male” films is Cleo responding to? What is the
nature of this feminine response (in other words, what does the film argue)?
• 2. Like the films from the New Wave, Cleo from 5 to 7 violates many of the
rules of classical narration and the classical Hollywood style. What examples
of these violations can you find in the film? How do they function within the
film? What messages or themes are conveyed through such violations?
• 3. One of the thematic leitmotifs of this film is the process of story telling and
performance. What examples of storytelling and performance can you find in
the film? How does each example function in the film? What is the overall
effect of the embedding of so many narratives about narrating within the
context of the film?

2. Cleo from 5 to 7
Agnes Varda

3. Settings

4. Interior (traditionally feminine)
spaces
• The Tarot Reader
• The Hat Shop
• The Apartment

5. Spaces of Liberation / Freedom
• Paris (the street)
• The park
• The artist’s atelier
• The film (the
freedom of the
camera)

6. Art and Freedom

7. Themes

8. • Women’s liberation
• Female self-discovery
• Women aiding rather
than repressing other
women
• Algeria (war in Algeria)
• Search for liberation /
liberty (in life and art)
• Love among equals as
liberation

9. Revolutionary Elements
• Absence of narrative /
plot
• Self-referential nature of
film
• Mobility of the camera
• Female gaze
• Eschewing of classical
narration / (lack of)
editing
• Pervasive use of mise-en-
abyme (self referencing)

10. Mise-en-abyme