Jacques Demy
Encyclopedia
Jacques Demy was one of the most approachable filmmakers to appear in the wake of the French New Wave
. Uninterested in the formal experimentation of Alain Resnais
, or the political agitation of Jean-Luc Godard
, Demy instead created a self-contained fantasy world closer to that of François Truffaut
, drawing on musicals, fairytales and the golden age of Hollywood.
and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier
, Demy directed his first feature film, Lola
, in 1961, with Anouk Aimée
playing the eponymous cabaret singer. The Demy universe here emerges full-fledged. Characters burst into song (courtesy of composer and lifelong Demy-collaborator Michel Legrand
); iconic Hollywood imagery is lovingly appropriated as in the opening scene with the man in a white Stetson in the Cadillac, daringly set to Beethoven's "Seventh Symphony"); plot is dictated by the director's fascination with fate, and stock themes of chance encounters and long-lost love; and the setting, as with so many of Demy's films, is the French Atlantic coast of his childhood, specifically the seaport town of Nantes
.
La Baie des Anges
(The Bay of Angels, 1963), starring Jeanne Moreau
, took the theme of fate further, with its story of love at the roulette tables.
Demy is best known for his original musical, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), with a score by Legrand. Although the subversion of established genres was a typically New Wave obsession (notably Godard's playful thriller-cum-sci-fi, Alphaville), Demy was unusual in actually recreating them literally. The whimsical concept of singing all the dialogue sets the tone for this tragedy of the everyday. The film also sees the emergence of Demy's trademark visual style: whereas Lola, filmed by Godard's cinematographer Raoul Coutard, has a New Wave black and white austerity, Les Parapluies is shot in saturated supercolour, with every detail — neck-ties, wallpaper, even Catherine Deneuve
's bleached-blonde hair — selected for maximum visual impact. Interestingly, the young man, Roland Cassard, from Lola (Marc Michel) reappears here, marrying Deneuve. Such reappearances are typical of Demy's work.
Demy's subsequent films never quite captured audience and critical acclaim the way that "Les Parapluies" had, although he continued to make ambitious and original dramas and musicals. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
(1967), another whimsical musical, features Deneuve and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac
as sisters living in the seaside town of Rochefort, daughters of Danielle Darrieux
. It has stunning color photography, some of the best French songs of the period (it was nominated for an Oscar for best musical score), and breathtaking dancing by Gene Kelly
and West Side Story
's George Chakiris
. Lola reappears in the naturalistic drama Model Shop
(1969), his first American film, starring Gary Lockwood
as a confused young architect navigating the streets of Los Angeles looking for love and meaning in life. Peau d'Âne
(Donkey Skin, 1970) is a visually extravagant musical interpretation of a classic French fairytale which highlights the tale's incestuous overtones, starring Deneuve, Jean Marais
, and Delphine Seyrig
.
Subsequent films are less highly regarded, but may well be due for reappraisal: David Thomson wrote about "the fascinating application of the operatic technique to an unusually dark story" in Une chambre en ville
(A Room in Town, 1982). L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (1973) ("A Slightly Pregnant Man
") is an interesting look back at the pressures of second-wave feminism
in France, and the fears it elicited in men. After years of neglect, Demy's strengths have been recognized, and Parapluies de Cherbourg was digitally restored and reissued to great acclaim in 1998.
Demy was the husband of fellow director Agnès Varda
, whose Jacquot de Nantes
, a film version of Demy's autobiographical notebooks, is a loving account of Demy's childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema. Demy himself appears in the film in the opening and closing sequences, and at several points throughout.
Jacques Demy died of AIDS (information given in Agnès Varda's 2008 autobiographical movie Les Plages d'Agnès) in 1990 at age 59 and was interred in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Montparnasse
.
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
. Uninterested in the formal experimentation of Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
, or the political agitation of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, Demy instead created a self-contained fantasy world closer to that of François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, drawing on musicals, fairytales and the golden age of Hollywood.
Career
After working with the animator Paul GrimaultPaul Grimault
Paul Grimault was one of the most important French animators. He made many traditionally animated films that were delicate in style, satirical, and lyrical in nature....
and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier
Georges Rouquier
Georges Rouquier was a French actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in 12 films between 1942 and 1982. He also directed ten films between 1942 and 1983.-Selected filmography:...
, Demy directed his first feature film, Lola
Lola (1961 film)
Lola, is a 1961 film, the debut film directed by Jacques Demy as a tribute to director Max Ophüls and is described by Demy as a "musical without music". Anouk Aimée starred in the title role...
, in 1961, with Anouk Aimée
Anouk Aimée
Anouk Aimée is a French film actress. Aimée has appeared in 70 films since 1947. She began her film career in 1947 at age 14. In 1958 she portrayed the tragic artist Jeanne Hébuterne in the film Les Amants de Montparnasse...
playing the eponymous cabaret singer. The Demy universe here emerges full-fledged. Characters burst into song (courtesy of composer and lifelong Demy-collaborator Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
); iconic Hollywood imagery is lovingly appropriated as in the opening scene with the man in a white Stetson in the Cadillac, daringly set to Beethoven's "Seventh Symphony"); plot is dictated by the director's fascination with fate, and stock themes of chance encounters and long-lost love; and the setting, as with so many of Demy's films, is the French Atlantic coast of his childhood, specifically the seaport town of Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
.
La Baie des Anges
La Baie des Anges
-External links:*...
(The Bay of Angels, 1963), starring Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director.She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française...
, took the theme of fate further, with its story of love at the roulette tables.
Demy is best known for his original musical, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a 1964 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand...
(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), with a score by Legrand. Although the subversion of established genres was a typically New Wave obsession (notably Godard's playful thriller-cum-sci-fi, Alphaville), Demy was unusual in actually recreating them literally. The whimsical concept of singing all the dialogue sets the tone for this tragedy of the everyday. The film also sees the emergence of Demy's trademark visual style: whereas Lola, filmed by Godard's cinematographer Raoul Coutard, has a New Wave black and white austerity, Les Parapluies is shot in saturated supercolour, with every detail — neck-ties, wallpaper, even Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
's bleached-blonde hair — selected for maximum visual impact. Interestingly, the young man, Roland Cassard, from Lola (Marc Michel) reappears here, marrying Deneuve. Such reappearances are typical of Demy's work.
Demy's subsequent films never quite captured audience and critical acclaim the way that "Les Parapluies" had, although he continued to make ambitious and original dramas and musicals. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
The Young Girls of Rochefort is a 1967 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve, her sister Françoise Dorléac, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Grover Dale and Gene Kelly. The choreography was by Norman Maen.Michel Legrand composed...
(1967), another whimsical musical, features Deneuve and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac
Françoise Dorléac
Françoise Dorléac was a French actress. Born in Paris, she was the daughter of screen actor Maurice Dorléac and Renée Deneuve, and was the elder sister of Catherine Deneuve. The two sisters starred together in the 1967 musical, The Young Girls of Rochefort...
as sisters living in the seaside town of Rochefort, daughters of Danielle Darrieux
Danielle Darrieux
Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux is a French actress and singer, who has appeared in more than 110 films since 1931. She is one of France's great movie stars and her eight-decade career is among the longest in film history....
. It has stunning color photography, some of the best French songs of the period (it was nominated for an Oscar for best musical score), and breathtaking dancing by Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
and West Side Story
West Side Story (film)
West Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
's George Chakiris
George Chakiris
George Chakiris is an American-Greek dancer, singer and actor.-Early life:Chakiris was born in Norwood, Ohio, to Steven and Zoe Chakiris, immigrants from Greece. Chakiris studied at the American School of Dance....
. Lola reappears in the naturalistic drama Model Shop
Model Shop (film)
Model Shop is a 1969 film by French writer-director Jacques Demy starring Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay and Anouk Aimée and featuring a guest appearance by Spirit who also recorded the soundtrack...
(1969), his first American film, starring Gary Lockwood
Gary Lockwood
Gary Lockwood is an American actor probably best known for his iconic 1968 role as the astronaut Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.-Early life:...
as a confused young architect navigating the streets of Los Angeles looking for love and meaning in life. Peau d'Âne
Peau d'Âne
Peau d'Âne is a 1970 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy. It is also known by the English titles Once Upon a Time and The Magic Donkey. The film was adapted by Demy from Donkeyskin, a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a king who wishes to marry his daughter...
(Donkey Skin, 1970) is a visually extravagant musical interpretation of a classic French fairytale which highlights the tale's incestuous overtones, starring Deneuve, Jean Marais
Jean Marais
-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....
, and Delphine Seyrig
Delphine Seyrig
Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig was a stage and film actress and a film director.-Early life:...
.
Subsequent films are less highly regarded, but may well be due for reappraisal: David Thomson wrote about "the fascinating application of the operatic technique to an unusually dark story" in Une chambre en ville
Une chambre en ville
Une chambre en ville is a 1982 French film directed by Jacques Demy. It is a musical in which every line of dialogue is sung. The film won the Prix Méliès, and was nominated for nine César Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Most Promising Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best...
(A Room in Town, 1982). L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (1973) ("A Slightly Pregnant Man
A Slightly Pregnant Man
A Slightly Pregnant Man is a 1973 French-Italian comedy film directed by Jacques Demy.-Cast:* Catherine Deneuve - Irène de Fontenoy* Marcello Mastroianni - Marco Mazetti* Micheline Presle - Dr...
") is an interesting look back at the pressures of second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
in France, and the fears it elicited in men. After years of neglect, Demy's strengths have been recognized, and Parapluies de Cherbourg was digitally restored and reissued to great acclaim in 1998.
Demy was the husband of fellow director Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
, whose Jacquot de Nantes
Jacquot de Nantes
Jacquot de Nantes is a 1991 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda. It was screened out of competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival....
, a film version of Demy's autobiographical notebooks, is a loving account of Demy's childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema. Demy himself appears in the film in the opening and closing sequences, and at several points throughout.
Jacques Demy died of AIDS (information given in Agnès Varda's 2008 autobiographical movie Les Plages d'Agnès) in 1990 at age 59 and was interred in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Montparnasse
Montparnasse
Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...
.
Select filmography
- ArsArs (film)Ars is a 1959 French film short written and directed by Jacques Demy....
(1959) - LolaLola (1961 film)Lola, is a 1961 film, the debut film directed by Jacques Demy as a tribute to director Max Ophüls and is described by Demy as a "musical without music". Anouk Aimée starred in the title role...
(1960) - La Luxure, episode in Les Sept péchés capitauxLes Sept péchés capitauxLes Sept péchés capitaux is a 1962 film composed of seven different segments, one for each of the seven deadly sins.- External links :...
(1961) - La Baie des AngesLa Baie des Anges-External links:*...
(1962) - Les Parapluies de CherbourgLes Parapluies de CherbourgThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a 1964 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand...
(1964) - Les Demoiselles de RochefortLes Demoiselles de RochefortThe Young Girls of Rochefort is a 1967 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve, her sister Françoise Dorléac, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Grover Dale and Gene Kelly. The choreography was by Norman Maen.Michel Legrand composed...
(1967) - Model ShopModel Shop (film)Model Shop is a 1969 film by French writer-director Jacques Demy starring Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay and Anouk Aimée and featuring a guest appearance by Spirit who also recorded the soundtrack...
(1969) - Peau d'ÂnePeau d'ÂnePeau d'Âne is a 1970 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy. It is also known by the English titles Once Upon a Time and The Magic Donkey. The film was adapted by Demy from Donkeyskin, a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a king who wishes to marry his daughter...
(The Donkey Skin or The Magic Donkey) (1970) - The Pied PiperThe Pied Piper (1972 film)The Pied Piper is a 1972 British-American directed by Jacques Demy and starring Jack Wild, Donald Pleasence and John Hurt and featuring Donovan and Diana Dors. It is loosely based on the legend of the Pied Piper.-Cast:* Donovan ... The Piper...
(1972) - L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (The slightly pregnant man) (1973)
- Lady OscarLady Oscar (film)Lady Oscar is a 1979 film, based on the manga The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda. The film was written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music composed by his regular collaborator Michel Legrand...
(1979) - La Naissance du Jour (made for TV, 1979)
- Une chambre en villeUne chambre en villeUne chambre en ville is a 1982 French film directed by Jacques Demy. It is a musical in which every line of dialogue is sung. The film won the Prix Méliès, and was nominated for nine César Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Most Promising Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best...
("A room in town") (1982) - ParkingParking (1985 film)Parking is a French fantasy film from 1985. It was directed and written by Jacques Demy, starring Francis Huster, Laurent Malet, and Jean Marais...
(1982) - La table tournante (1988)
- Trois places pour le 26 (1988)