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Te Harmony’s Sublime: Te Role of Melancholia in Jacques Demy’s Films ALEX POMPILII

In Jacques Demy’s first feature-length film Lola, protagonist Roland Cassard reflects: “I’m the quintessential failure. I did nothing but daydream, now I’m lost and bored.” In a way, this statement summarizes not only all of Demy’s films and characters, but the overall tone of post-war France. Recalling Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961), in which an interviewer asks strangers on the street if they are happy, Demy’s films seem to be reflecting the general consensus. Post-war France could only be described as “headlong, dramatic, and breathless” with its rapid turn to modernization and the French people’s desperate search to feel anything besides constant desolation (Ross 4). Although

35 Demy’s contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and even his own wife Agnès Varda receive more scholarly praise, Demy’s films arguably depict post-war French melancholia most successfully. Trough his films, Demy’s characters explore the universal human experience of love and heartbreak; they make us question our own emotions and mortality just as France as a nation was doing during the 1960s. In Demy’s world, the line between euphoria and melancholia is a thin one; and it can most likely be changed with either a random encounter or a sudden change of heart. Tus, characters come and go from each other’s lives at a swift pace. While some critics dismiss his films as “horrible melodramas” or “shop-girl fantasies,” they are only reading his films on the surface and interpreting them as appealing only to young women (Billard 4). Even on the surface, his films recall the fine arts: paintings, ballet, and opera. For these critics, Demy’s films are understood as silly fairy tales that lack meaning or the substance required to encourage social upheaval. Quite the opposite. Demy’s films center on working-class struggles. It can be said that the artifice of Demy’s world is extravagance surrounding an empty core—that, however, is far from being true. Te factitiousness instead draws the viewer to the real emotion behind it, specifically sadness and melancholy. A moody film noir may capture these emotions as well, but Demy’s contrasting style and substance makes him a unique choice for portraying these emotions. Upon watching Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg for the first time, I was surprised by the ending—it shatters your expectations and makes you reflect on your own life. Former lovers Geneviève and Guy are reunited only to be torn apart once more, their once intense love affair merely a ghost of a distant memory as they ultimately return to their new partners. Te return of Michel Legrand’s sumptuous score, partnered with the swift crane out shot, formulate the perfect jarring ending without having one ounce of exploitative shock. Why we feel such strong emotions is due to Demy’s masterful skill of blending contradictions:

36 the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the light and the dark, which makes his films all the more realistic in bringing out sadness in all of us. Life is not all black-and-white danger, like a noir. It can sometimes feel as bright and uplifting as one of Demy’s sets. Overall, Demy creates a mood of melancholia by unhinging temporality, his mise-en-scène, and his shattering of our known reality. To explore these ideas in Demy’s work, I will be concentrating on his films Lola (1961), Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and Te Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), with some mentions of Bay of Angels (1963), and Model Shop (1969). Te melancholic tone of Demy’s films, in part, comes from his diffusing of temporality. Tis technique derives from melodramas as a genre, where temporality relies on the strange sensation of nostalgia. Coined by Johannes Hofer in the 17th century, nostalgia is “born from a disorder of the imagination, from which it follows that the nervous sap always takes the same direction in the brain and, as a result, excites the very same idea, the desire to return to one’s native land” (DeFalco 3). In Hofer’s findings, his patients that had a serious case of nostalgia fully recovered from the phenomenon once they returned to their homes (DeFalco 4). However, in the case of cinema, “home” cannot as easily be achieved. Nostalgia must be broadened to include a longing for somewhere that does not exist anymore, and perhaps even a place that has never truly existed. In addition, the “nostalgic object” is lost in time and space; unlike the nostalgia homes of Hofer’s patients, it can never be received or grasped by the person who aspires to possess it. For instance, consider Geneviève’s long-suffering mother in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg who longs for her youth by vicariously living through her daughter, or Lola’s longing for her glory years as a performer in Model Shop. Tis results in “an inevitably frustrated longing; though one may return to the homeland, one can never turn back time” (DeFalco 4). Tis plays out in melodramas, particularly in Sirk’s films, by blending fantasy with a “self-conscious constructedness that results in the notoriously ‘unhappy happy endings’ of his films” (DeFalco 4). Tis statement can easily be attached to Demy’s

37 films. In each of the films that I am discussing, temporality is played out through the forbidden nostalgia lens. Te characters all seem bound to their cities, towns, and destinies. Although they express desire to escape, few actually do. Lola is able to escape, but the older Madame Desnoyers cannot. Additionally, Lola’s escape takes a dark toll in Demy’s later films, signifying that it was not a real escape to freedom after all. In Lola, her character is mostly ambitious and free-spirited, yet her fates in both Te Young Girls of Rochefort and Model Shop are extremely dark: in the former she is killed by an axe-murderer and in the latter she is left disillusioned and broken by life. Either way, the character of Lola is a character that has nostalgic ties—and her fate is to stay in the past. In the intertextual world, Lola was both based on Lola Montés of Max Öphuls’ Lola Montés, and Lola- Lola of Josef von Sternberg’s Te Blue Angel (Duggan 21). Both of these inspirations are bound firmly to the past. Lola Montés is a Tradition of Quality film, and Te Blue Angel is a pre-code film starring Marlene Dietrich. As a character, Lola symbolizes and embodies these past cinematic epochs with a dark undertone. In some sense, her dark fates suggest that these movements can never be revived again. It also asserts that the past is never as promising as one imagines it to be. In Model Shop, Lola is sick with nostalgia for her past self, while in Lola, she shows George a photo album of old pictures of herself. However, as noted by Amy Herzog, this Lola is “a false simulacrum, a bad copy” (Herzog 142). For a character or viewer longing for the bygone days once again, Lola’s reappearance may seem like a homesick cure of that nostalgia, but it is a false promise. Temporality is also expanded in Demy’s films through repetition. Lola’s reappearance serves as one example, but his female characters usually serve as mirrors to each other: mothers and daughters in Lola, Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Te Young Girls of Rochefort, and the twins Solange and Delphine in Te Young Girls of Rochefort (Herzog 142). Other mirroring in Demy’s films include his signature iris-in/iris-out which starts and concludes most of his films. On his usage of the iris, Demy

38 commented “It’s as if the film existed before and continues to exist afterwards; it goes on behind the circle” (Hill Demy Monde 393). Te conclusion of one of his films is not actually the end; his characters exist behind the scenes and reappear in other films of his. Te audience is repetitively acquainted with them and reminded of their presence through references and nods to his previous film—like with Lola mentioning that Michel ran off with Jackie of Bay of Angels in Model Shop, or Roland mentioning his lost love Lola in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Te recurring songs and musical score throughout Demy’s films also confuse temporality. Tis is most prominent in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is entirely sung without any spoken dialogue. Although time passes throughout the narrative, the flow of what seems to be one unending song (in reality, it is eighteen songs with recurring melodies) locks the story in an uncanny state of time and space. Te music in Te Young Girls of Rochefort flutters between live performances to personal, aside confessions of love. While Delphine and Solange’s performance at the fair is heard by the in-film audience, their introduction song-and-dance is performed for the audience watching the actual film alone. Te changes in temporality are not signaled by one scene or another, instead they blend and blur throughout the films. Jean-Pierre Berthomé described Demy’s sets as “familiar enough that we recognize it, but so transformed that we venture there with wondrous jubilation, as if crossing the threshold to the fantastic” (Hill Te New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality 39). Te familiar towns with vibrant, artificial colours add to the uncanny feelings of Demy’s films, at the same time contrasting with the overall themes of melancholy. His characters constantly express their unhappiness amidst candy-coloured sets and decor more suited for the bourgeoisie. Tis is, again, in line with American melodramas: “Te obvious artificiality of the sets, costumes, facial expressions, the mise-en-scène in general, points to the constructedness of the underlying social structure that causes the conflict and pain in the film” (DeFalco 28). Demy’s

39 sets all recall the bourgeoisie despite the characters being members of the working class: the dazzling colours, the elaborate furniture, the vases, the mirrors, the curtains, etc. Te costumes in his musicals are composed of dresses and suits coloured like an Easter egg, with prominent appearances of pink and blue. Te mundane jobs that Demy’s characters hold within the glamorous infrastructures that they live and work in point to the film’s artificiality. Lola, Geneviève, Guy, Delphine, and Solange are all absolutely miserable with their jobs and statuses in life, despite appearing glamorous on the surface through Demy’s manufactured sets. Te set of Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg has been described as “a town made of stones seemingly painted by a magician” (Hill Te New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality 39). Te ordinary, the melancholic, combines with the fantastic, the euphoric, through sets alone. Tis blending of space also points to reflexivity, not only by the motif of mirrors or the act of mirroring, but also to other Demy films. For example, the white Cadillac being a symbol of wealth that the characters of Michel (Lola) and Lola (Model Shop) drive, as well as Lola (Lola) and Jackie (Bay of Angels) wearing similar white-and-black outfits (Hill Demy Monde 392). Lola and Jackie are both tragic characters; their matching outfits draw the comparison further. Teir corsets and boas allude to their disillusionment with reality (Sellier 117). Like Lola and Jackie, Geneviève in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg wears specific colours to reflect her mood. Initially wearing bright yellow, her tones become muted as she watches Guy’s train depart. Later in the film her colour scheme starts matching with her mother’s wallpaper as she conforms to her whims, namely to marry Roland. In Te Young Girls of Rochefort, Delphine and Solange have matching dresses throughout the film. Tis not only emphasizes their role as twins, but reflects their mutual desires for love. Teir outfits do not reflect their changing moods, however the framing of the film does. In the finale, Solange, all in white, has found her true love and dances with him in the open-spaced music room, also white. Delphine,

40 who has not finalized her true love, is also dressed in white but squished in a close-spaced between four people, who are all wearing vibrant colours. Delphine is confined while Solange is not. Despite the colour-coding throughout his films, Demy denied the colours had any profound meaning: “I don’t like theories, I believe firmly in impulse. It’s true that each color expresses something, but that is unconscious” (Petrie 47). Te framing and camerawork that portray unhappiness and melancholy is most striking in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg’s final sequence. Guy rejects Geneviève’s offer to see their daughter the camera pulls back from their close-ups to a shot of Geneviève getting in her car and leaving, with Guy in the background. Michel Legrand’s song, “I Will Wait For You,” which the young lovers sing as a profusion of their love at the start of the film, plays hauntingtly. Te lovers have grown disillusioned as their innocent love affair is gone and they cannot have the life they once dreamt of. However, the unsettling nostalgia for their love affair is present in the song. As Geneviève drives away, Guy’s face lights up as a panning shot reveals his new family. Tey happily embrace. Tis ending is the perfect embodiment of the “happy unhappy ending.” Guy seems happy but it does not seem genuine. Te score and camerawork suggests that idea: he is still pining over Geneviève and the life they could have had together. Demy himself found the film to be “a very cruel film and a very realistic one; when they find each other again at the end there’s nothing possible for them any longer” (Petrie 46). His camerawork clearly illustrates this point, as the cold distance between Guy and Geneviève contrasts their earlier scenes of warmth. Overall his mise-en-scène may seem to contrast the tone of his films, but it actually helps reveal the underlying messages and moods throughout the film. Bay of Angels has been analyzed by Camille Tabuolay as a descent into hell for the protagonist, Jackie:

Anyone who has been to a casino knows how easy it is to lose one’s temporal bearings there. Just after winning millions, Jackie notices that her watch has stopped. She has won more money

41 than ever before, but she has ‘lost her time’; and aside from time, what else does one really have in life? In effect, Jackie has lost her soul.” (Hill Demy Monde 391)

Bay of Angels is, on the surface, simply a casino film. It concerns characters winning and losing, getting caught up in the act of gambling. However, it is not simply a casino film—it is a distortion of that reality. Te absence of time, Jackie’s increasing soullessness, and her constant return to the same casino makes the film take on a darker tone than it initially seems to have. Tis scene generates a sense of the uncanny, which can be found in arguably all of Demy’s films. Just as Bay of Angels could be analyzed as a mythological tale into hell, Lola, Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Te Young Girls of Rochefort could all be understood as hellish fairy tales. Despite falling in love or getting married to a mysterious stranger, the female protagonists are left unsatisfied. Not only through Demy’s connecting world, but through his structure is this effect achieved. Lola, Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Te Young Girls of Rochefort all have musical scenes that mobilize the audience’s “histories and memories in concert with the actual and fictional histories on the screen” (Herzog 118). His musicals, unlike American musicals, do not allow the audience to withdraw comfortably and submerge themselves in his films. For example, Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg’s long score “takes on further strangeness when the characters begin to sing about the most banal of subjects: paying bills, disputes at work, what type of gasoline to use” (Herzog 119). Likewise, Te Young Girls of Rochefort has dreamy songs about first love, along with an obscure number about an axe murderer on the loose. Lola has one music number that appears out of the blue, the titular character giving an extremely self-aware performance while breaking the fourth wall with her gaze. When questioned on the musical numbers rejecting reality in his films, Demy stated “I think singing is a natural mode of expression” (Criterion Collection). Demy did not reject reality, rather he was presenting reality how he saw it. Te constant singing and dancing throughout the films pull the audience away from both Demy’s reality and their own

42 reality, and rather thrusts them into the spectacle at times. Gene Kelly’s first dance in Te Young Girls of Rochefort strikes more as the actor making a self-aware, elaborate return to the movie screen rather than a necessary plot point. His choreography with the sailors recalls his infamous dance sequence with Jerry Mouse in 1945’s Anchors Aweigh. Tis was surely a homage to Kelly’s career, and nostalgia fuel for audiences of the film familiar with Hollywood musicals and Kelly. Along with the musical numbers, Demy pulls the audience out of his reality through multiple Brechtian techniques, such as breaking the fourth wall. In Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Te Young Girls of Rochefort, Demy’s protagonists look directly at the camera which “inevitably shocks the viewer momentarily. At times, the technique is accompanied by a brief emotional swelling or outburst, occasionally even an aside” (Hill Te New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality 42). When Geneviève heartbreakingly looks straight at the camera; both in the scene where she is crying over Guy, and later at her wedding, the audience is taken aback by the shattering of the fourth wall. It also generates the emotion of sadness from the screen to the viewer, transmitted directly by Geneviève’s gaze. Te extravagant colours in Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg dull at times, such as the wedding sequence and the end of the film. Tis is due to Geneviève’s gaze determining how she—and the audience—sees the world. Reality is presented as something adaptable that can change at any moment, rather than a cemented official event. Te characters never seem caught off-guard by the singing or non-diegetic music, actually finding it the most natural way to express their feelings. Melancholia cannot be conveyed through straight dialogue, therefore singing and dancing can express the character’s feelings more accurately. Tey are living inside obscure, unstructured fairy tales where anything is possible and, on the same token, doom could be lurking on the horizon. Despite perhaps being dismissed or seen as unsophisticated by critics, Demy’s films really capture the melancholia and mood of post-war France in the 1960s. His

43 tinkering of temporality reveals the sadness of passing time: the fight to relive the past that comes with nostalgia, which can never be truly fulfilled. Trough mise-en-scène Demy uses bright colours and manufactured sets to further expose and bring out the real emotion behind his films, the line between artificiality and authenticity blurring due to this contrast. Furthermore, he deconstructs reality—not to make a political point, like Godard, but rather to present his own reality and how he views the world. When questioned if the melancholy mood of his films and the mise-en-scène are truly contrasting, Demy stated;

I don’t think so, because that’s how life is. We live, we suffer, and yet music is beautiful, colors are beautiful; even though we are going through the worst troubles and sufferings, red is always lovely, blue is always lovely, and the music of Mozart is always beautiful […] Just because my characters may suffer terribly, that’s no reason to surround them with hideous, ugly colors or put in grating music. Tat would be superfluous. (Petrie and Demy 52)

Rather than making his world a hideous, hopeless landscape, Demy offers a glimmer of hope through his films. Although unfortunate circumstances happen and his characters have various downfalls, they still hold onto their faith in the world. His world may be viewed as romantic or magical, however he still portrays the harsh reality of life—just without the expected cynicism to come with it. His characters are allowed to experience sadness without having it claim their lives. In his own words, “Tat’s what cinema is all about, it’s what gives me courage, the desire to live and to go on living. And in my films that’s all I’ve tried to do” (Petrie 53).

44 Works Cited

Billard, Ginette. “Jacques Demy and His Other World.” Film Quarterly vol. 18 no. 1, Autumn 1965, pp. 23-27. DeFalco, Amelia. “A Double-Edged Longing: Nostalgia, Melodrama, and Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven.” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2004, pp. 26-38. Duggan, Anne. Queer Enchantments: Gender, Sexuality, and Class in the Fairy-Tale Cinema of Jacques Demy. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2013. Herzog, Amy. Dreams of Diference, Songs of the Same: Te Musical Moment in Film. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2010. Hill, Rodney. “Te New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality: Jacques Demy’s Te Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 1, 2008, pp. 27-50. Hill, Rodney. “Demy Monde: Te New-Wave Films of Jacques Demy.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video no. 25, no. 5, 2008. Petrie, Graham, and Jacques Demy. “Jacques Demy interviewed by Graham Petrie.” Film Comment vol. 7, no. 4, 1971-72, pp. 46-53. Ross, Kristin. Fast Cars, Clean Bodies. Cambridge: Te MIT Press. 1995.

45 Filmography

Criterion Collection. “Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand on THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG.” YouTube, YouTube, 10 Apr. 2017, http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=vX63VZMVo6c. Chronicle of a Summer. Dir. Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. 1961. La Baie des Anges. Dir. Jacques Demy. Perf. Jeanne Moreau, and Claude Mann. 1963. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Dir. Jacques Demy. Perf. Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, and Gene Kelly. Comacico, 1967. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. Dir. Jacques Demy. Perf. Catherine Deneuve, and Nino Castelnuovo. 20th Century Fox, 1964. Lola. Dir. Jacques Demy. Perf. Anock Aimée, and Marc Michel. Films Around the World Inc, 1961. Model Shop. Dir. Jacques Demy. Perf. Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay, and Anouk Aimée. Columbia Pictures, 1969.

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