Peace and Love (Agnès Varda follow up)
Agnès Varda's unrealized Hollywood debut with Harrison Ford.
This is a brief follow-up to the last newsletter, which focused on Agnès Varda's creative process and the diverse range of influences that shaped her film Cléo de 5 à 7.
Today, I’m excited to share something truly special with you - Agnès Varda's unrealized screenplay for Columbia Pictures, which was supposed to co-star a young and unknown Harrison Ford.
In 1967, Jacques Demy received an invitation from Columbia Pictures to direct a Hollywood film, prompting him and Agnès Varda to move to California to pursue the opportunity. The film would later become known as Model Shop.
Gerry Ayres, the producer who had brought Jacques Demy to Columbia Pictures, also presented Agnès Varda with an opportunity to make a film with the studio during their time in California.
The couple stayed at the home of the french film composer Michel Legrand in Los Angeles, where Varda happened to see the dubbed version of her film Cléo de 5 à 7. She was both surprised and amused by the numerous commercial breaks - 12 in total - that interrupted her film, promoting products ranging from shampoo and cigarettes to cars.1
Here's how I imagine it might have looked to watch Cléo de 5 à 7 with commercial breaks in the late 1960s:
Inspired by this experience, Agnès Varda wrote the script for Peace and Love, which incorporates commercials that complement, reflect, or contrast with the film's plot.2
Harrison Ford, who was relatively unknown at the time, was cast to play Ken, an actor who stars in commercials and serves as the partner of the film's lead character, Molly Kennis. Ford had previously auditioned for the leading role in Jacques Demy's film Model Shop, and although Demy favored him, the studio deemed him too inexperienced for the part.3
Columbia Pictures was impressed with the script for Peace and Love, but would not grant Varda the final cut, leading to an abrupt end to negotiations with Varda walking away from the project.
Film critic Manohla Dargis briefly touched on this topic in her New York Times piece covering the Agnès Varda Retrospective 2019 at Film at Lincoln Center:
They loved Los Angeles, where they ate with Mae West and hung out with Jim Morrison. Harrison Ford was going to be in “Peace and Love” and there was talk of money from Columbia. But the studio didn’t want to give Varda final cut, so she did what she always did: She went her own way.4
So she made Lions Love (... and Lies) instead, with her own production company, Ciné-Tamaris. The film interestingly includes some scenes showing negotiations with a head of a Hollywood production company in discussions about creative control and the final cut.
In Varda’s film Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] from 2008, Gerry Ayres provides additional information about this incident:
Agnès had the chance to make a film for Columbia Pictures at the time, but she slapped the hand of the man who pinched her cheek and lost her financing.
In an interview with the Guardian, Varda described it as follows:
“it was disgusting to do this to me. I slapped him. But he deserved it.”5
The backstory of the film is already fascinating, but what is the film actually about?
Set in the late summer of 1967, Peace and Love centers on Molly Kennis, a successful advertising star who works alongside her fellow actor Ken, making one commercial after another under the watchful eye of their agent, Bill Morris.
One day, while filming a commercial for Bank of America, Molly can't take it anymore and leaves the set, losing everything in the process.
She meets a French lawyer named Pierre and spends some time with him before he suddenly has to leave town. Molly then finds herself among a group of hippies and anti-war activists, joining them in a demonstration where she reunites with Pierre amidst police violence.
As the film progresses, it changes locations from L.A. to San Francisco to La Paz, Bolivia, where it reaches a dramatic ending.
Like in her other films, Agnès Varda planned to incorporate documentary elements into her narrative, using real-life events such as anti-war demonstrations and Love-ins to give her fictional narrative a sense of authenticity. The screenplay also touches on topical events of the era, including the Vietnam War and the killing of Che Guevara.
It is just a pity that the film never came to the screen, as it promised to be an intriguing exploration of counterculture and social issues of the era, all packaged with Varda's signature style and built-in commercial breaks.
At least there is the script.
Ibid.
L’Univers de Jacques Demy by Agnès Varda, France, 1993. 35mm/1:1,33/Color, 90 minutes.