- Agnès Varda: I'll be discreet in this documentary. a film by Agnès, edited with Marie-Jo, about Jacques's films. It won't be chronological. But more a casual stroll with those who knew him, with friends, actors, and actresses he loved so well.
- Jacques Demy: I had no harsh memories until I was 12, until the war. There was a bombing of Nantes on September 7, 1943. It was a ghastly experience. And when you have memories like that -- and I have a very vivid memory -- that's when nothing matters anymore. After something as horrible as that you have the feeling nothing worse can ever happen. And that's when you start creating a fantasy world.
- Agnès Varda: [referring to "Donkey Skin"] For the procession in this festive film, we had the Three Wise Men, nobles in sedan chairs, nabobs on the elephants with their guards, fairies in helicopters, and visiting friends, like Jim Morrison and Alain Ronay. Jim gladly signed an autograph for Delphine's son. He was a movie buff like François Truffaut. Both loved princesses.
- Françoise Fabian: In Jacques's films, there's always the woman from the past, waiting for a lost love, a love she let slip away because she was too proud or because she lied to him. It's Danielle Darrieux's character with Monsieur Dame in "The Young Girls of Rochefort." It's Lola waiting for Michel. It's a bit like Chekhov's characters who miss out on life. That's what really touches me in Demy's films -- that sensitivity, that nostalgia.
- Dominique Sanda: [referring to "Une chambre en ville"] Edith rebels by doing what's not done in her milieu and not when you're newly married. She's a part-time whore. With Demy, a whore is a Demy-whore. I remember spending long weeks stark naked under a mink coat that I could open only once. It was rather frustrating. So in the scene, I opened it once, and then I did it again. That was my own act of rebellion.
- Jean Marais: Jacques Demy is so human. He's both serious and childlike. There's such purity in his gaze, and in his heart too, and that comes out in the way he works.
- Jacques Demy: It's just love that you send out in a certain manner, a way of communicating that I find more interesting if it's sung. It can be more tender, lavish, violent, aggressive, gentle, whatever. That's what interests me.
- Richard Berry: He was my first great Director. I suddenly belonged to Demy's world -- "The Young Girls" and "Umbrelllas of Cherbourg." It was like a miracle. Jacques was very kind and attentive. He listened, and he was very nice. But at the same time, totally uncompromising. No negotiating, no discussions, about costumes or hairdos or acting or the timing of a scene or any ideas you might have. If I said, "I'd like to pick up my cup right then," forget it.
- Jacques Demy: My deepest influence was Bresson. He really changed my life. He revealed basic things to me about a different kind of filmmaking. Ophuls too. Why? They have nothing in common. One had a solemn touch, the other a light touch, but both equally serious.
- Harrison Ford: So, um, because I was supposed to be in the film, Jacques and I went to visit the "model shop" on Santa Monica Boulevard. A very bizarre exterior all painted with day-glow paint. And we went in and there was one girl... We had to rent one of these cameras and buy some film - 12 exposures of film - for, I think it must be have been $35... So, we chose the bedroom set. It's just like it was in the movie - a long narrow corridor, painted black. We were both very shy - and Jacques and I, neither of us knew what to do. So, the girl sort of said, "I pose like this. And I pose like this."
- Agnès Varda: Jacques fought hard for Ford. Gerry did too.
- Harrison Ford: I'm told that the head of the studio said that - to forget me, that I had no future in this business.
- Agnès Varda: In the end the Studio cast Gary Lockwood, who'd just made "2001: A Space Odyssey," to play Lola's lover.
- Hélène Demy: Jacques loved to learn. When the "Anouchka" project came up, he studied Russian, at 45, on his own, until the project fell through. He also studied color photo processing. He blew up his photos in Cibachrome and did tests, and enjoyed it thoroughly. His favorite themes: wide-open spaces, road signs, and his family. Our mother, known as Milou, our brother Yvon, and me, Agnès and the children, Rosalie, and especially Mathieu, with his many faces. He had Mathieu skate his way through a little film in praise of France and its marvels. At 50, he took up painting like a beginner in a drawing class at the Poussin Academy. At the Louvre, he'd copy details from Poussin. He even learned to fly, like Michel Legrand. He brushed up on his math and read Aviation 2000. He'd take us up for a ride. He amazed me.
- Jacques Demy: "Umbrellas" was my secret passion. It's really a story of love and war. Things that move me, like separation and fidelity. It's also a form that really fascinated me.
- Agnès Varda: [in Hollywood preparing to shot "Model Shop," initially planning to cast Harrison Ford] We'd listen to the Doors, The Mamas & the Papas, Jefferson Airplane, and Buffalo Springfield. Jacques had me shoot some silent screen tests. Jacques looked forward to directing the young Harrison. They scouted locations together. The visited "model shops," innocent forerunners of the sex shop.
- Catherine Deneuve: Meeting Jacques so young was a formative event for me. It was the mold that shaped me. It meant a lot. Very few Directors played that role in my acting career. He was the first real filmmaker I met.
- Jacques Demy: [on "Parking"] I had the Beatles in mind too. John Lennon, Yoko Ono. I can't say why, but mixing civilizations also seemed like an interesting idea.
- Anne-Marie Rassam: Jacques Demy is the pied piper. He can lead anyone out of the city, whether it's into their dreams or away from their troubles. He doesn't say where, so as not to scare you -- which is what a child wants. If I were a child, I'd want Jacques Demy as my father. Picasso said, "It takes a long time to become young." Jacques is a child who grew up without forgetting his childhood.
- Bertrand Tavernier: What struck me in "The Pied Piper," were the lyrical shots, the camera movements, how well the direction meshed with the sets and costumes. It's as if Demy, who didn't always find the means to achieve his goals, found them there.
- Une demoiselle de l'Allée Raffet: You are truly original filmmaker. Only you can mix a harmonious cocktail of varying predilections for painting, music, poetry, cafe philosophy, fairy tales, social critique, opera, American musicals, exotic and spiritual travels. You give expression to a world both true and reinvented. I get high on your films. Excuse my tipsiness.
- Rosalie Varda: My taste for costumes dates back to when Jacques brought me my first Barbie doll with wardrobe. She looked like Marilyn to me. Now I see her more like Catherine in "The Young Girls of Rochefort." I was allowed in the dressing room of the world's two loveliest Barbie dolls. It was like a dream. The two sisters were radiant. They'd spent hours making up. Françoise powdered her body. I found that so extravagant!
- Une demoiselle de l'Allée Raffet: After his death, I wrote an open letter published in the "Cahiers du Cinéma." I had to tell others about the world of Jacques Demy.
- Une demoiselle de l'Allée Raffet: When Demy died, I said, "Damn! Now I have to grow up!" But no, because with his films we reclaim our childhood.
- Une demoiselle de l'Allée Raffet: The Sunday I learned of the death of Jacques Demy, I'd just listened to the song from "Cléo from 5 to 7" that goes, "If you wait too long, I'll have been laid to rest." Now I can't listen to that song.