Daguerréotypes

This article is about the 1976 documentary by Agnès Varda. For the photographic printing technique, see Daguerreotype. For the 2016 romantic horror by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, see Daguerrotype (film).

Daguerréotypes is a 1976 French documentary film directed by Agnès Varda. The film consists of vignettes capturing life on Rue Daguerre, a street in Paris where Varda lived.

Daguerréotypes
French theatrical release poster
Directed by	Agnès Varda
Starring	Agnès Varda Rosalie Varda Mystag the Magician
Cinematography	Nurith Aviv
Edited by	Andrée Choty Gordon Swire
Distributed by	ZDF
Release date	1976 (1976)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Production

At the time of filming, Varda was caring for her two-year-old son and could not travel far from her home. Consequently, the entire film was shot within a 90-metre (300 ft) radius of her residence, the maximum length of the electric cables powering her equipment.^[1]

Synopsis

The film profiles various shopkeepers and residents of Rue Daguerre, many of whom came from outside Paris or even outside France. Each subject is asked a series of three recurring questions: "Where did you come from?", "When did you get here?", and "Why did you come?"^[2]

Title and themes

The title Daguerréotypes is a pun referring both to the street Rue Daguerre—named after Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerreotype photographic process—and to the idea of "types". In a voiceover, Varda describes the subjects as her "types", referencing typologies as both a photographic and social concept. The film critiques these systems of classification, and several scenes feature subjects posed in the style of 19th-century portrait photography.^[3][4]