Tender Buttons

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (Agnès Varda, 1977). In her memoir, Varda par Agnès , the French director describes herself as “une féministe de terrain plus qu’une discuteuse,” roughly translated as “a feminist on the ground rather than in theory.” Later in the book, she describes the “feminists” discussing her work, implying that she was outside this group. How feminist she reads from any angle now is unclear. Many would, for instance, find her focus on the body and childbirth essentialist. Her 1975 short, Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe ( Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex ), opens wi