May 8, 2018 (XXXVI:14) Jacques Demy LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT/THE YOUNG GIRLS of ROCHEFORT (1967), 125 Min
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May 8, 2018 (XXXVI:14) Jacques Demy LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT/THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967), 125 min. (The online version of this handout contains color images and hot URLs) Academy Awards, USA 1969 Nominated Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture, Michel Legrand & Jacques Demy Director Jacques Demy Writer Jacques Demy Producers Mag Bodard, Gilbert de Goldschmidt Music Michel Legrand Cinematography Ghislain Cloquet Film Editing Jean Hamon CAST Catherine Deneuve…Delphine Garnier George Chakiris…Etienne Françoise Dorléac…Solange Garnier Jacques Perrin…Maxence momentarily, I hope—run dry.” It was so poorly received Michel Piccoli…Simon Dame commercially that Demy’s career never fully recovered, and Jacques Riberolles…Guillaume Lancien audiences had to wait 30 years to see the movie again. Demy Grover Dale…Bill died in 1990, and his widow, the famed New Wave filmmaker Geneviève Thénier…Josette Agnès Varda, began work on the restoration of her late Henri Crémieux…Subtil Dutrouz husband’s films, including tonight’s film which appeared in Pamela Hart…Judith 1996. One of the fruits of her labor in the late 1990s was a total Leslie North…Esther reversal of critical consensus on the film’s merits. The Young Patrick Jeantet …Bouboo Garnier Girls of Rochefort, once dismissed as trivial and decorative, is Gene Kelly…Andy Miller now widely regarded as a masterpiece. Young Girls isn’t Danielle Darrieux…Yvonne Garnier completely sung, as Umbrellas is, but the music by Michel Legrand and the lyrics by Demy are plentiful and wonderful. JACQUES DEMY’s (b. June 5, 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire- Some have complained about the repetitious nature of the score, Atlantique, France—d. October 27, 1990, age 59, of AIDS, in but they miss the point of the echoes. Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Paris, France) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les parapluies de Chicago Reader smartly noted: “The film’s chance encounters Cherbourg, 1964) is one of the most beautiful and richly and missed connections are expressed . in the score and in acclaimed musical films of all time. But when Demy, working Demy’s delicately crafted lyrics. Maxence’s song about his now with a much bigger budget, followed up with The Young search is reprised as Delphine’s song about her own longings; Girls of Rochefort (Les demoiselles de Rochefort, 1967), critics Simon’s account of his lost love becomes, with appropriate balked and American audiences stayed away. Pauline Kael wrote alterations in the lyrics, Yvonne’s own regrets about having in separate articles that “a movie like The Young Girls of abandoned him; Solange’s piano concerto takes on lyrics after Rochefort demonstrates how even a gifted Frenchman who Andy intercepts the score. Many other reprises are less obvious adores American musicals misunderstands their conventions” than these. The song that goes with policing the crowd, for and “it was obvious from Rochefort that [Demy] had— instance, reprises and adds lyrics to a secondary theme from the Demy—THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT—2 opening dance number in the city square. Both sequences musical. Legrand scored Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg emphasize community over individual destiny: here, as (1964), receiving three Oscar nominations including “I Will Wait elsewhere in the film, Legrand and Demy enrich the meaning of for You” which received nomination for Best Original Song. In other scenes by playing with the emotional and thematic effects 1966 Legrand decided to take his chances in Hollywood. His of rhyme.” If songs and dances represent fantasy, and everyday friendship with Quincy Jones and Hank Mancini helped him a activities reality, it can’t be said that Demy ever privileges one great deal, and by 1969 Legrand had won his first Oscar for Best over the other; he’s more concerned with how fantasy and reality Music, Original Song for “The Windmills of Your Mind” for The interact or fail to interact. Filling his film with familiar figures, Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Legrand went on to receive twelve Demy’s wife Varda makes a cameo in the film as a nun who nominations and win two more Oscars. He was also nominated visits a music shop. Demy also planned to make more extensive for a Grammy 27 times and received 5 Grammys in the 1970s for references to Umbrellas by casting Nino Castelnuovo as Bill. his album work. In the 1980s and 1990s Legrand continued When Castelnuovo proved unavailable, Demy had to change the giving live concerts with his own jazz trio. He also led his big script. Additionally, Demy originally thought of casting Brigitte band which he took on several international tours, accompanying Bardot and Audrey Hepburn as the twin sisters, but instead opted such stars as Ray Charles, Diana Ross, and Bjork. for actual sisters. Tonight’s film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Score, but lost to Oliver! GHISLAIN CLOQUET (b. April 18, 1924 in Antwerp, Belgium—d. November 2, 1981, age 57, place unknown) first established himself in the 1950s by shooting several of Alain Resnais’s documentaries. By the 1960s he was considered one of the world's top cinematographers of both black-and-white in such films as Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965) and color as in tonight’s The Young Girls of Rochefort. While, he is most often allied with director Robert Bresson for his work on Au Hazard Balthazar (1966), Mouchette (1967) and A Gentle Woman (1969), his only Oscar and César wins were for Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979). CATHERINE DENEUVE (b. October 22, 1943 in Paris, France) aspired early in life to be an interior designer or an archaeologist. At 13, she took her first acting job, a walk-on in The Twilight Girls (1957), because she needed pocket money. She continued to act in small parts until finally landing a meatier role in Vice and Virtue (1963). Her breakthrough came when Demy casting her in his musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les parapluies de Cherbourg, 1964). At only 19, she played the beautiful ingenue for the French director, however, her next film showed her range for drama (as well choice in auteur directors) in Roman Polanski’s psychological thriller Repulsion (1965). Two years later she played a part-time prostitute in Luis Buñuel's masterpiece Belle de Jour (1967). She also worked with Buñuel in Tristana (1970) and gave a great performance for François Truffaut in Mississippi Mermaid (1969), a kind of apotheosis of her “frigid femme fatale” persona. In the 1970s Deneuve found limited roles until her magnificent work in Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980). In 1992, she earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Indochine (1992). She also auditioned for the role of Francesca Johnson in The Bridges of MICHEL LEGRAND (b. February 24, 1932 in Paris, France) is Madison County (1995) but lost out to Meryl Streep. It is a three times Academy Award-winning French composer, rumored that she liked Breaking the Waves (1996) by Lars von conductor and pianist who composed over 200 film and Trier so much that she wrote a personal letter to him, asking him television scores as well as recorded over a hundred albums of for a role in his next film. The result was his casting of her in jazz, popular and classical music. As a teenager, Legrand Dancer in the Dark (2000). As of 2018, she has 14 César Awards attended a concert by Dizzy Gillespie and caught a jazz bug. He nominations; 13 nominations for Best Actress and one for Best eventually collaborated with Gillespie on several albums and Supporting Actress. She’s the second-most nominated actress, film scores. In 1954 Legrand became an overnight star after his only behind Isabelle Huppert, with 16 nominations. album I Love Paris became a hit, going on to sell over 8 million copies. In the late 1950s and 1960s Legrand transitioned to film GEORGE CHAKIRIS (b. September 16, 1934 in Norwood, being caught up in the French New Wave. He scored seven films OH) started dancing an early age, often joining his sister in for Jean-Luc Godard, in addition to making ten films with Demy, impromptu routines in the family’s living room. It was only upon and became responsible for creating a template for the French entering college that he began to see this hobby as a career. After Demy—THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT—3 moving to Hollywood in 1949, by 1951, he was appearing as a Leos Carax (Bad Blood, 1986). He won the Best Actor Award at dancer or chorus member in numerous musicals, including his the Cannes Film Festival for A Leap in the Dark (1980) and the performance as one of the tuxedoed male dancers surrounding Silver Bear in Berlin for Strange Affair (1981) in 1982. In an Marilyn Monroe for the iconic “Diamonds Are A Girl's Best inspired casting choice, Agnès Varda chose Piccoli to Friend” number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Most of impersonate Mr. Cinema in One Hundred and One Nights Chakiris' early appearances were uncredited, though in films like (1995). The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) and Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), he was billed as George Kerris. He finally rose from the chorus to the role of Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, in the celebrated film version of West Side Story (1961). His fiery turn won him an Academy Award but did not translate into lasting fame. After a sporadic career in Hollywood as heroic young men of various nationalities in Diamond Head (1963) and Kings of the Sun (1963), he made a handful of fine if little-seen European films, including tonight’s film, before settling into character turns as heels or middle-aged Lotharios on American primetime and daytime television.