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Jacques Demy: Director Jacques Demy
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Jacques Demy was a bit of a happy anomaly among New Wave directors and, as such, his films were dismissed until the fairly recent rediscovery of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Shot in crystalline vivid black and white by Jean Rabier, Bay of Angels is Demy's second film, and it's a little gloomier than the others. Jeanne Moreau stars as Eurotrash Jackie, who loves gambling, she says, for its "stupid mixture of poverty and luxury." This is an early chapter of Demy's courtship with the France of his boyhood, with the most beguiling generation of French actresses, and with movies.
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Though a contemporary of such Nouvelle Vague filmmakers as Chabrol, Godard and Truffaut, Jacques Demy eschewed their tendency towards heavy, realistic dramas centered the ills of the contemporary world. His best loved films were romantic, lyrical and fairytale like, but always imbued with dark undercurrents of psychological realism. Like other New Wave directors, Demy was passionate about cinema, particularly Hollywood musicals, which he paid specific tribute to in Les Desmoiselles de Rochefort. In the early '50s, Demy assisted animator Paul Grimault and documentarist Georges Rouquier. He began directing shorts in the mid '50s with Le Sabotier Du Val De Loire and Le Bel Indifférent. Demy made his feature debut in 1961 with the popular romance Lola.
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Director Jacques Demy said that The Young Girls of Rochefort's plot wasn't of much consequence, and he's right. This is a film about music and color, an impressive follow-up to the similar The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which ... starred Catherine Deneuve as a starry-eyed French girl with love in her heart. In Rochefort she has a twin sister (Françoise Dorléac, who died in a car accident at the age of 25, before Rochefort was ever released in the United States); together they're after a pair of eligible young men of Rochefort, at least when they aren't working on their professions -- one's a dancer, one's a pianist and composer. But really they're both singers, as this musical lurches through one musical dance number after another -- for a movie with no important plot, why must it run beyond two full hours? Ultimately it's a tepid storyline that makes Rochefort pale in the face of Cherbourg, which pretty much had it all. (And damn if these girls don't wear way too much makeup!)
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One of the pioneering directors of the French New Wave, Jacques Demy is remembered in a documentary tribute. Featuring insights from Harrison Ford, Catherine Deneuve, Anouk Aimee, Marc Michel, and others, this program provides an in-depth analysis of the life, work and legacy of the acclaimed filmmaker. Directed by Agnes Varda. AKA: "L' Univers de Jacques Demy." 90 min. Standard; Soundtrack: French; Subtitles: English. In French with English subtitles.
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A year after the untimely death of her husband and fellow filmmaker Jacques Demy, director Agnès Varda produced this film based on Demy's memoirs. Focusing on Demy's childhood, Jacquot de Nantes explores the Les Parapluies de Cherbourg director's burgeoning fascination with film as a boy and introduces viewers to his mother and father, a hairdresser and garage owner, respectively. At different stages of his life, Jacquot is portrayed by young actors Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, and Laurent Monnier. Jacquot de Nantes was ... released as simply Jacquot. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
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Jacques Demy met Agnès Varda in 1958. They raised Rosalie and Mathieu. Rosalie, a costume designer, worked with her father on four of his films. Mathieu, born in 1972, is an actor and film director.
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Director Jacques Demy