L'univers de Jacques Demy

Agnès Varda has over the past 20 years or so turned the lives and careers of both herself and her late husband Jacques Demy into something like a cottage industry; by my count at least 9 of her features and shorts from 1988 on have been directly autobiographical/biographical or essays on previous films. Many cineastes - particularly those allergic to nostalgia or to the filmmaker-as-critic might think such explorations to be excessively narcissistic - but they would be wrong I think. Each of the films that I've seen - "Jacquot de Nantes", "The Gleaners and I...Two Years Later", the short documentaries accompanying the Criterion disc of "Le bonheur", and this film - explore new ground, both intellectually and emotionally, and the careers of both filmmakers at this point stand as testaments to the value of intimate and repeated coverage of the same filmic territory - "film what you know." Most Americans will know only a few of Demy's films - "Lola", "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", "The Young Girls of Rochefort", "Donkey Skin" for example are the only ones I've seen - if they know any at all, so it was wonderful for me to learn that he had lived with his family in America for several years and made as many films in English as he did - given how generally unavailable - and poorly reviewed - much of his work is, I'd never bothered to look into much of it. Not that I wasn't interested, it was just a low priority, but Varda's film really gives one an idea of how much Demy's personality and obsessions - the city of Nantes, the American musical, fidelity, the tragedy of unrequited love - infuse even his lesser works; this reinvigorates my interest in getting hold of the other stuff, like his serious non-musical "Bay of Angels" (1963) or his serious political musical "Une chambre en ville" (1982). I'm also more interested in "Model Shop" (1969) knowing that it's the sequel to Lola, and that a very young Harrison Ford (interviewed for this film talking about his experience going into an LA sex shop with Demy as "research") was originally set to star in it.

Whereas Jacquot was more specifically autobiographical and explored Demy's early life before he became a filmmaker through extended clips of a few of his films and recreations of his early life, L'universe de Jacques Demy is a more straightforward examination of Demy the filmmaker, with, as Varda says a meandering, achronological approach that flits from one famous film from the 60s to a flop from the 80s, back to Demy's early animations and then forward again to a TV commission from the late 70s. It's beautifully edited, Varda has a talent for getting her interview subjects to focus briefly on one film and then move on to another time frame, where she can only follow. Most of the reminiscences are from Demy himself (shot apparently before he got sick, probably in the early 1980s) and his most significant collaborators (Varda herself, Michel Legrand, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, etc), but there are also loving recollections of his films from "ordinary" people and some personal observations from his sister and his and Varda's children. There's also a wonderful tying-together of the beginning and ending with three young women, seen separately at different points in the film and then together at the finish, talking about what this filmmaker they never met meant to them, with the camera finally panning to his grave. It's a tribute to Varda's restraint and control that this is one of the few moments designed to provoke emotion - but by the time we get to it, it's certainly well-deserved.

I suppose I couldn't recommend this to anyone not already a fan of Demy and/or Varda, but to those few reading this who are, it's a must.

L'univers de Jacques Demy (1995) was shown in the U.S. with the translated title The World of Jacques Demy. It was written and directed by Demy's widow, Agnès Varda.

Varda is, herself, a fine director. Demy was a also a fine director, and was famous, at least in France. He's know best in the U.S. for his film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Demy was noted for his use of dialog sung to music, and his incredible utilization of primary colors.

He also chose the most beautiful women in France as his stars--Anouk Aimée, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau. All of these actors appear in the movie giving their views about Demy as a director and as a person. Of course, Varda does this as well.

I think that this is a brilliant documentary, I believe that it will be of real interest to people who know Demy's work. If you don't know Demy's work, it will be a useful introduction, because Vara has added many film clips to the interviews.

We saw this movie on DVD, where it worked well enough. I think all of Demy's films are better seen in a theater, but that's rarely an option.

If you care about movies this is the film for you. It's wonderful to see a great director give us a loving portrait of another great director.

Varda's second film on her late husband sticks closer to documentary than the fascinating Jacquot de Nantes, and is perhaps closer to a kind of (Demy-esque!) affirmative bittersweetness than the desperate sadness of the footage of Demy dying (though this was never spelt out till years later) of AIDS-related complications. Varda is unsurpassed at the apparently free-wheeling, but in fact beautifully and painstakingly crafted, 'documentary' style she increasingly made her own: the film thus not only captures a good part of what makes Demy's work so compelling, but also tells us much about Varda's own approach to film. The title should be taken as a key--as much as Demy's biographical world, Varda means the world that his films create, and the worlds of his audience that they in turn enable and participate in. This is her main, gently unfolding thesis: Demy's films, which, for Varda, appeal in particular to women and children, are uniquely open in their approach. Demy (and Varda) make generous offerings that offers viewers space for fantasy, illusion, and the play-making that, for Varda, is so central to filmic creation. Yet they both know--Varda perhaps more so than Demy (who could never have made a film like Vagabond)--that this play-making arises from, and as a way to make certain kinds of sense out of, a world marked by inequalities fostered by war, by gender and by class relations. And Varda, of course, expresses this with far greater subtlety, delicacy and telling detail than can be mustered in a few hundred words here.

This film is a marvelous tribute to an excellent director not well- enough known in the States. It is in French and the French moves very, very fast and the subtitles sometimes chop of some of the dialogue, be warned. It is a charming valentine from Agnes Varda to her late husband with many interviews of actors and actresses who worked with him. There is also, of course, the director discussing his own work and ideas. It's particularly interesting to hear what the director had in mind to film before each film starts and how he found it. This is NOT Nouvelle Vague material at all. First, it appeals to a large public and second, the characters don't all die at the end. It is not presented in chronological order, however...just reminiscences of a life well-spent in the company of many famous people who adored working for him and with him. What a rare pleasure!