Uncle Yanco (1967)
Jean Varda: Self
Photos
Quotes
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : The night has tremendous charm too. I compare the night to God.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : They call San Francisco "the holy city." It's the city of love.
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[first lines]
Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Heavenly cities float. They have no top or bottom.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Hippie art is psychedelic. It's magnificent. Perhaps it's an explosion of joy.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Between conception and execution, that's where the tragic difference is found. Like between the cup and the lip, there's bitterness. The shadow falls.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : It's important to always be by the sea. The sea is the element of love. The Greeks say so. Aphrodite emerged from the water.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : To the eye that is pure, the world is transparent.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Above all, man is nourished by what's marvelous. It nourishes the soul. Like chlorophyll in a tree, there's this secretion, this desire for Eden.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Everyone calls me Yanco. So call me Uncle Yanco. Sounds good, doesn't it?
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : I'm not into politics. I side with the young people. At all the universities, the men of tomorrow, those who'll govern America, are against the government. They get massacred by the police. It's a wonderful protest against war. Here, basically, it's a revolution without bloodshed. The intellectuals think we should end killing, that killing leads nowhere.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Basically, painting rivals the splendor of a bird, the opulence of the sea or any landscape -- but it surpasses them.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : For me, the goal of painting is to have light penetrate matter and dematerialize it. It's truly the redemption of matter.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Painting is something that grows. When you enter inside a painting, you don't know where it will lead. It's an adventure, an exploration. You discover yourself.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : In the realm of God there are no shadows, only light.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Gold is the color of revelation.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : How do we know that death isn't life and life isn't death? Oh, Life... Death... They're like train wrecks. As Cocteau said, "You can't explain it. You feel it."
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Agnès Varda : What is old age?
Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : What is what?
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Hell is doing what you don't like to do, having to do what you don't like.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : Paradise is the very essence of man's desire.
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Agnès Varda : What is a Greek?
Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : [laughs] A Greek? A Greek? I can't define myself.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : The establishment smells bad, so bad that I can't even talk about it.
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Agnès Varda : Death?
Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : We mustn't ask questions larger than ourselves. Life is steeped in death. No doubt about it.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : The family is what we mustn't be.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : We can't live without color. For me, color is ecstasy and everything but ecstasy is vanity.
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Oncle Jean"Yanco" Varda : I don't like people calling them "collages."