A Complicated Passion

"""A landmark achievement, this deeply engrossing biography of Agnès Varda, the first ever in the English language, fills a major gap in film history, chronicling the life and career of one of world cinema’s most gifted writer-directors. Carrie Rickey’s brisk, jaunty style lends itself perfectly to her peripatetic and multitalented subject."" -- Noah Isenberg, film historian and best-selling author of We'll Always Have Casablanca ""Finally, the definitive biography of a filmmaker whose place in the cinematic pantheon keeps ascending. Carrie Rickey’s writing is vivid and colorful, her judgments judicious and astute, her research impeccable, and she captures Agnès Varda’s spirit, her achievement, her uniqueness in the very act of analyzing her. One could not ask for a smarter or more engaging take on the subject."" -- Phillip Lopate, editor of the Library of America's American Movie Critics ""Agnès Varda possessed an almost superhuman degree of talent and hustle, and as Carrie Rickey vividly shows in A Complicated Passion, she would need it all to make her way in a man’s world. Rickey’s portrait is an enthralling blend of personal and contextual history, stylistic analysis, penetrating insights into the films, a humming awareness of the electric combination of Varda and her husband, director Jacques Demy—all during the most exciting and innovative period of French cinema. This is biography and film scholarship at their combined best—the irresistible story of an indomitable woman!"" -- Molly Haskell, film critic and author of Frankly, My Dear"