Details by Film
Lola
Streaming Options
Bay of Angels
Streaming Options
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Streaming Options
The Young Girls of Rochefort
Streaming Options
Donkey Skin
Streaming Options
Une chambre en ville
Streaming Options
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner's delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through the lilting songs of the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.
The Young Girls of Rochefort
Jacques Demy followed up The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), dream of big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, and Gene Kelly), The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinema’s preeminent dreamer.
Lola
Jacques Demy’s crystalline debut gave birth to the fictional universe in which so many of his characters would live, play, and love. It’s among his most profoundly felt films, a tale of crisscrossing lives in Nantes (Demy’s hometown) that floats on waves of longing and desire. Heading the film’s ensemble is the enchanting Anouk Aimée as the title character, a cabaret chanteuse who’s awaiting the return of a long-lost lover and unwilling to entertain the adoration of another love-struck soul, the wanderer Roland (Marc Michel). Humane, wistful, and witty, Lola is a testament to the resilience of the heartbroken.
Bay of Angels
This precisely wrought, emotionally penetrating romantic drama from Jacques Demy, set largely in the casinos of Nice, is a visually lovely but darkly realistic investigation into love and obsession. A bottle-blonde Jeanne Moreau is at her blithe best as a gorgeous gambling addict, and Claude Mann is the bank clerk drawn into her risky world. Featuring a mesmerizing score by Michel Legrand, Bay of Angels is among Demy’s most somber works.
Donkey Skin
In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposal—from her own father, the king (Jean Marais). A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable with songs by Michel Legrand, Donkey Skin creates a tactile fantasy world that’s perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.
Une chambre en ville
In this musical melodrama set against the backdrop of a workers’ strike in Nantes, Dominique Sanda plays a young woman who wishes to leave her brutish husband (Michel Piccoli) for an earthy steelworker (Richard Berry), though he is involved with another. Unbeknownst to the girl, the object of her affection boards with her no-nonsense baroness mother (Danielle Darrieux). A late-career triumph from Jacques Demy, Une chambre en ville received nine César Award nominations and features a rich, operatic score by Michel Colombier.
Release Information:
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Once Upon a Time . . . “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a 2008 documentary
- French television interview from 1966 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the music for the film
- Interview with actor Anouk Aimée from 2012, conducted by filmmaker Agnes Varda
- French television interview from 1962 with actor Jeanne Moreau on the set of Bay of Angels
- French television interview from 1970 with director Jacques Demy and actors Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin on the set of the film
- Jacques Demy, A to Z, a new visual essay by film critic James Quandt
- Interview from 2014 with film scholar Rodney Hill
- Conversation from 2014 between Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthomé and costume designer Jacqueline Moreau
- Interview with Agnes Varda from 2012 on the origin of Lola’s song
- New interview with journalist Marie Colmant, coauthor of the book Jacques Demy
- “Donkey Skin” Illustrated, a 2008 program on the many versions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale
- Q&A with Jacques Demy from the 1987 Midnight Sun Film Festival
- French television interview from 1964 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the film
- Episode from Behind the Screen, a 1966 series about the making of the film
- Four short films by director Jacques Demy: Les horizons morts (1951), Le sabotier du Val de Loire (1956), Ars (1959), and La luxure (1962)
- Restoration demonstration
- “Donkey Skin” and the Thinkers, a 2008 program on the themes of the film, featuring critic Camille Tabouley
- Filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 1995 documentary The World of Jacques Demy
- Audio recordings of interviews with actor Catherine Deneuve (1983) and Michel Legrand (1991) at the National Film Theatre in London
- Agnès Varda’s 1993 documentary The Young Girls Turn 25
- Agnès Varda’s 1993 documentary The Young Girls Turn 25
- Restoration demonstration
- Trailer
- Audio Q&A with Jacques Demy from the American Film Institute in 1971
- Restoration demonstration
- Trailer
- Trailer
- Restoration demonstration
- Trailer
- An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
- Trailer
- A booklet featuring essays by critics Ginette Vincendeau, Terrence Rafferty, Jim Ridley, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Anne E. Duggan, and Geoff Andrew, and a postscript by Jean-Pierre Berthomé