Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Cast

Cléo	Corinne Marchand
Antoine, the soldier	Antoine Bourseiller
Dorothée	Dorothée Blank
Bob	Michel Legrand
L'amant	José-Luis de Villalonga

Credits

Director	Agnès Varda
Screenplay	Agnès Varda
Producer	Carlo Ponti and Georges de Beauregard
Cinematography	Jean Rabier
Editing	Janine Verneau and Pascale Laverrière
Music	Michel Legrand

Disc Features

New, restored digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Agnès Varda
Remembrances (2005), a documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with Varda and actors Corinne Marchand and Antoine Bourseiller
Gallery of paintings by Hans Baldung Grien, whose work inspired the character of Cléo
Excerpt from a 1993 French television program featuring Madonna and Varda talking about the film
Cléo’s Real Path Through Paris (2005), a short film retracing, on a motorcycle, Cléo’s steps through Paris
Les fiancés du pont Macdonald (1961), a short film directed by Varda, featuring some of her new wave colleagues, with Varda explaining why the film was featured in Cléo
L’opéra Mouffe (1958), an early short by Varda, with a score by Georges Delerue
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by Adrian Martin and a written introduction by Agnès Varda

From the Current

Cléo From Screen to Stage

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Agnès Varda’s 1962 New Wave masterpiece Cléo from 5 to 7 has gotten a dramatic reinterpretation from Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, stage directors and founders of New York’s Big Dance Theater...

AGNÈS’S SANDS OF TIME

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This week, Agnès Varda’s beguiling new film, the autobiographical documentary The Beaches of Agnès, makes its U.S. premiere at New York’s Film Forum, and for the occasion A. O. Scott has profiled the indefatigable eighty-one...

Cléo from 5 to 7: Passionate Time

by Adrian Martin Jan 21, 2008

There have been many films, from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) to Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002), devoted to the challenge of capturing or reconstituting the experience of “real time.” Agnès Varda’s 1961 Cléo from 5 to 7—an account of an hour and a half in the life...

Cléo from 5 to 7

by Molly Haskell May 15, 2000

Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, the first fully-achieved feature by the woman who would become the premiere female director of her generation, dazzled when...