"In order to inch closer to the creative spirit, to the genius, many filmgoers want directors to talk about their art. Film festivals are a popular forum for such exchanges. While some of the answers in those Q & A exchanges can be fascinating, others fall somewhere in the 'less than interesting' department. Serendipity often has an enormous role in creativity but is sometimes hard to accept. I think sometimes the director disappoints a fan by saying, 'Oh, that happened by mistake.' 'That came about through a strange sequence of events.' Or 'I don’t know, it just happened.'

"In THE GLEANERS & I, Agnès Varda doesn’t wait for the questions, she talks freely about her work, her inspiration and her feelings about herself particularly when it comes to aging. Varda to some extent demystifies the creative experience in ways that many viewers would prefer not to witness. She makes it all seem quite simple, serendipitous, and even childlike. Her dance of the camera lens and close ups of her fingers framing trucks on the autoroute are examples of her whimsy, yet both tie into her subject at hand: discovery.

"Inspired by Millet’s famous painting, The Gleaners, and by Breton’s portrait of a single gleaner, Varda examines the art of gleaning from the 16th century to the present. Gleaning first was the act of picking the fields of wheat chaff after the harvest was over. Gleaning is established in French law which allows people to trespass and gather what otherwise would have been wasted. Gleaning, however, is not restricted to wheat.

"THE GLEANERS & I examines many forms of gleaning in modern times. People who rely on gleaning for sustenance scour potato fields, vineyards, wheat fields and - in the case of the urban gleaners - dumpsters and refuse remaining after the marchés shut down. Gleaning has its place in the art world, too. Artists who work with objets trouvés are interviewed. One of them, Bodan Litnanski, insists that everything discarded has potential for becoming art.

"Some gleaners do so for the sake of gleaning, just because they can. One man has been eating off food found on the streets for ten years. He has a job plus a pension so he certainly does not glean out of necessity. Another man with a master’s degree lives in a shelter and gleans; he offers his teaching services free of charge in a program that teaches French to immigrants. Varda considers him her best discovery while making the film.

"As much as it examines the practice itself, THE GLEANERS & I ponders the cultural contradiction in a modern world that allows yet abhors the gleaning. Gleaning as seen by Varda is about survival, discovery, honoring and savoring the past, recycling and self-examination. The film is a remarkable autobiographical and sociological essay.