Jacques Demy ( French: [ʒak dəmi] ; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut . Demy's films are celebrated for their visual style , which drew upon diverse sources such as classic Hollywood musicals, the plein-air realism of his French New Wave colleagues, fairy tales , jazz , Japanese manga , and the opera . His films contain overlapping continuity (i.e., characters cross over from film to film), lush musical scores (typically composed by Michel Legrand ) and motifs like teenage love, labor rights , chance encounters, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. He was married to Agnès Varda , another prominent director of the French New Wave. Demy is best known for the two musicals he directed in the mid-1960s: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).
30-401: After working with the animator Paul Grimault and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier , Demy directed Lola , his first feature film, in 1961, with Anouk Aimée playing the eponymous cabaret singer. The Demy universe emerges here: Characters burst into song (courtesy of composer and lifelong Demy-collaborator Michel Legrand ); iconic Hollywood imagery is appropriated, as in the opening scene with
60-433: A captive audience. The studio produced a number of shorts, then closed its doors in 1952 following the expense of making La Bergère et le Ramoneur, which was the first feature-length French animated movie. Grimault was part of the agitprop group Groupe Octobre . At this group he met Jacques Prévert , with whom he went on to collaborate on several animated films, most notably Le roi et l'oiseau. Grimault's filmography
90-541: A common stable boy in Paris, lives away from Versailles and the aristocracy and thus is more aware of the plight of the poor. He believes a revolution is needed for all citizens to live as equals and tries to show Oscar, who lives a more secluded and ostentatious life, his point of view. Despite recognizing the difficult situation outside of the castle's walls, Oscar remains loyal to the Crown and starts developing feelings for Fersen. At
120-468: A lucrative offer to shoot his first film in America, he and his wife, film director Agnès Varda , moved to Los Angeles briefly. Demy's movie was a naturalistic drama: 1969's Model Shop . Lola (Anouk Aimée) reappears, her dreams shattered, her life having taken a turn for the worse. Abandoned by her husband Michel for a female gambler named Jackie Demaistre (Jeanne Moreau's character from Bay of Angels ), Lola
150-552: A masked ball, André reveals to Oscar that he is in love with her and even tries to kiss her. Shocked by this, Oscar does not correspond his feelings for her. Despite this, the two remain friends. In 1789, when the French Revolution begins, Oscar receives orders to shoot on the protestors outside Versailles. She and other guards refuse to do this and get sent to jail. Moved by this, André and other revolutionaries free them before their execution. Oscar declares her love for André, and
180-469: A minor role. General Jarjayes' wife dies while giving birth to a baby girl. Frustrated by this and refusing to believe his wife would die without giving him a male heir, the General names the girl Oscar François de Jarjayes and decides to raise her as a boy. He tells his housekeeper that her son, André, will grow up with Oscar and become her best friend, as the General believes the girl should be around men. As
210-514: A personal guard. The Queen, a vain ruler who does not care about the terrible conditions in which the commoners of France live, is unsatisfied with her arranged marriage to the King and does not love him. She decides to have a lover, aristocrat Hans Axel Von Fersen. This secret eventually becomes public knowledge and becomes further proof of the Crown's hypocrisy. The people of France get angrier and their hunger for Revolution gets even stronger. André, now
240-441: A retrospective compilation movie, La table tournante (1988), which is included in the deluxe edition of Le Roi et l'oiseau. For a detailed bibliography, see this reference. In 1936 Grimault founded, with André Sarrut , Les Gémeaux, which was the second significant French animation venture, following the work of Émile Cohl , which had closed years earlier. During World War II, American films being unavailable, its films found
270-522: A student, Demy did not learn any foreign languages. In the 1960s, with the help of some classes, internships, and spending some time in the United States, he learned English. At the time of the Anouchka project, which took many years to complete, he also learned Russian. In the early 1970s, taking after the example of Michel Legrand , he earned his private pilot's license for passenger planes. Jacques Demy
300-455: Is Le Roi et l'oiseau , which ultimately took over 30 years to produce. He began it as La Bergère et le Ramoneur ( The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep ) in 1948 and it was highly anticipated, but Grimault's partner André Sarrut showed the film unfinished in 1952, against Grimault's wishes. This caused a rift between partners and a stop in production. In 1967, Grimault got possession of
330-423: Is as follows; those included in the retrospective La table tournante are marked with a star ("*"). Feature length: Short: Commercials: Other work: Lady Oscar (film) Lady Oscar ( Japanese : ベルサイユのばら Hepburn : Berusaiyu no bara , "The Rose of Versailles") is a 1979 English-language romantic historical drama film , based on the manga The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda . The film
SECTION 10
#1732901481171360-632: Is born female, her father raises her as a male so she can get ahead in 18th-century French aristocracy, and she eventually falls in love with her surrogate brother, a working-class revolutionary). Parapluies de Cherbourg has been color-restored twice from original prints by Demy. In 2014, The Criterion Collection released a boxed set of Demy's "essential" work, with hours of supplements, essays, and restored image and sound. The films include Lola , Bay of Angels , The Umbrellas of Cherbourg , The Young Girls of Rochefort , Donkey Skin , and Une Chambre en Ville as well as most of Demy's early short films. As
390-460: Is scrounging to make enough money to return to France and her child by working as a nude model in a backdoor model-shop on the Sunset Strip . She runs into an aimless, young architect ( Gary Lockwood ), who navigates the streets of Los Angeles; like Lola, he is looking for love and meaning in life. Model Shop is a time capsule of late-1960s Los Angeles and documents the death of the hippie movement,
420-623: The Palace of Versailles . The film was not a commercial success, and Catriona MacColl's portrayal of Oscar, in particular, was criticized. Conversely, Variety described the film as recalling early Hollywood epics, and praised McColl's depiction of Oscar as a "woman waiting to burst out of a man's clothing". Kevin Thomas , writing for the Los Angeles Times, described the film as a typical Jacques Demy film, noting its preoccupation with contrasting
450-452: The Vietnam draft, and the ennui and misery that results from broken relationships. This bleakness and decided lack of whimsy—uncharacteristic for Demy—had a large amount to do with Model Shop' s critical and commercial failure. Peau d'Âne ( Donkey Skin , 1970) was a step in the opposite direction as a visually extravagant musical interpretation of a classic French fairy tale which highlights
480-648: The film and subsequently was able to complete it in 1980 under a new title, Le Roi et l'oiseau , incorporating some footage from the original and re-hiring the original animators, together with some new, younger ones. There are many names for it in English that have been used in various releases, including: The King and the Bird (literal), The King and the Mockingbird , The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird and The King and Mr. Bird (1980). He also collected his best shorts in
510-493: The film was Shiseido , a cosmetics company, and Catriona McColl promoted a red lipstick for the spring cosmetic line that year. Frederik L. Schodt and Jared Cook translated the entire manga series into English as a reference for the producers of this film, but gave the only copy of the translation to them and it was lost. The production was based at Auditel Studios in Paris , with filming locations including Jossigny , Senlis , and
540-459: The lives of the aristocrats and the lives of the poor. Anne Duggan took a similar view when situating Lady Oscar within the context of Demy's other films. Duggan describes Ikeda's Oscar as having "more self-knowledge" in some respects than the Oscar of the film, who therefore has arguably less agency, whereas "Demy goes further than Ikeda in challenging the tradition of the maiden warrior by questioning
570-539: The man in a white Stetson in the Cadillac; 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 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
600-685: 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 a look back at the pressures of second-wave feminism in France and the fears it elicited in men. Lady Oscar (1979), based on the Japanese manga series The Rose of Versailles , has been discussed and analyzed for its queer and political subtext (the title character
630-493: The roulette tables. Demy is perhaps best known for his original musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg ( The Umbrellas of Cherbourg , 1964), with a score by Legrand. 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, shot in saturated supercolour, with every detail—neckties, wallpaper, Catherine Deneuve 's bleached-blonde hair—selected for visual impact. Roland Cassard,
SECTION 20
#1732901481171660-510: The shots of Demy on a beach in Jacquot de Nantes (1991) were taken. The film is a version of Demy's autobiographical notebooks, an account of Demy's childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema. Varda paid homage to her husband in Jacquot de Nantes , Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993), and L’Univers de Jacques Demy (1995). Demy died on October 27, 1990, at the age of 59. Originally, it
690-470: The tale's incestuous overtones, starring Deneuve, Jean Marais , and Delphine Seyrig . It was Demy's first foray into the world of fairy tales and historical fantasia, which he explored in The Pied Piper and Lady Oscar . Although none of Demy's subsequent films captured the contemporary success of his earlier work, some have been reappraised: David Thomson wrote about "the fascinating application of
720-457: The two begin a relationship. She tries to convince her father to join their side before things get worse for the upper class, but the General refuses and even tries to kill her. In the ensuing sword fight, André defends Oscar, and the two escape the house unscathed. During the taking of the Bastille, however, André dies, leaving Oscar to look for his body among all the commotion. The major sponsor of
750-556: The way Les Parapluies did, although he continued to make ambitious and original dramas and musicals. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), another whimsical-yet-melancholic musical, features Deneuve and her sister Françoise Dorléac as sisters living in the seaside town of Rochefort , daughters of Danielle Darrieux . It was shot in color widescreen CinemaScope and featured an Oscar-nominated musical score as well as dance appearances by Gene Kelly and West Side Story ' s George Chakiris . In 1968, after Columbia Pictures gave Demy
780-475: The years go by, the two children grow up to be inseparable friends, while Oscar learns to sword-fight and behaves like a boy. Despite belonging to a different social strata from Oscar, André starts developing romantic feelings for her. However, she does not feel the same way about him and only loves him as a brother. The Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, like many within the aristocracy, is fascinated by Oscar and eventually decides to give her an honored position as
810-478: The young man from Lola ( Marc Michel ) reappears here, marrying Deneuve's character. Such reappearances are typical of Demy's work. Kurt Vonnegut was a huge fan of Les Parapluies , writing in private correspondence: "I saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg , which I took very hard. To an unmoored, middle-aged man like myself, it was heart-breaking. That's all right. I like to have my heart broken." Demy's subsequent films never quite captured audience and critical acclaim
840-595: Was bisexual. In 1958, Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda met at a short film festival in Tours. The two married in 1962. They had a son together, Mathieu Demy (born 1972), and Demy also adopted Varda's daughter, Rosalie Varda (born 1958), whom she had with Antoine Bourseiller in a previous relationship. Together, Demy and Varda owned a home in Paris and another property with an old mill on the Noirmoutier Island in Vendée , where
870-582: Was reported that he died of cancer , but in 2008 Varda revealed that Demy died of HIV/AIDS . He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. On 5 June 2019, on Demy's 88th birthday, he was honored with a Google Doodle . Paul Grimault Paul Grimault ( French: [ɡʁimo] ; 23 March 1905 – 29 March 1994) was one of the most important French animators . He made many traditionally animated films that were delicate in style, satirical, and lyrical in nature. His most important work
900-620: Was written and directed by Jacques Demy , with music composed by his regular collaborator Michel Legrand . The Japanese-French co-production was produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto for Kitty Films , Nippon TV , Toho , and Ciné Tamaris, and was filmed on location in France. Catriona MacColl stars as the eponymous Oscar François de Jarjayes , with Barry Stokes as her lover André Grandier , alongside Jonas Bergström , Christine Böhm , Mark Kingston , Georges Wilson , Sue Lloyd , Martin Potter , and Anouska Hempel . A young Lambert Wilson appears in
#170829