la côte d’azur

Paris: Les Éditions du Tempes, 1961. First and only edition. Oblong 8vo (15×22,5), original laminated photographic boards. Unpaginated 72pp. Text in French. A slightest touch of edge wear with shallow chipping to spine-head. Near fine.

Agnès Varda described her very charming travelogue of the Côte d’Azur as the cousin of her 1958 short film Du côté de la côte, which was released three years earlier. La côte d’azur offers additional information about the film with “new food for reflection”.

La côte d’azur in some ways extends Chris Marker‘s Petite Planète series, which also includes photographs by Agnès Varda. It is one of the many allusions between Agnès Varda and Chris Marker that can be seen as correspondence between friends. In a film review of Du côté de la côte, Jean-Luc Godard remarked that every camera shot in the film was a postcard to Chris Marker.

The book combines beautifully Agnès Varda’s text with her own photographs, archival images and other historical ephemera. The various materials were provided from the Cabinet des Estampes, the Cinémathèque Francais, the Cinémathèque Belgique, the Cahiers du Cinéma and from Chris Marker’s private collection.