Eric Rohmer on Jacques Demy 1958

In the 1950s, a monthly feature of Cahiers du Cinema was "le petit journal of cinema" a medley of short pieces on various aspects of film. The last item in that section would often appear be under the rubric "Photo of the Month". In the April 1958, this page featured a photo of Jacques Demy on the set of his short film Le Bel Indifference directing his star Jeanne Allard. Beneath that photo was this write-up by Eric Rohmer. (page 50 my translation).


This black-and-white photograph offers only the remote idea of a film whose color is, not the ornament, but the method of essential expression.
We know the synopsis of Jean Cocteau's sketch written for Edith Piaf: in a hotel room, a woman soliloquizes piling reason on reason, trying to convince him that she loves him, she loves him, that they love each other. The man is not listening.
In such an endeavour, the task of the metteur-en-scene is, above all, a matter of choice: Choice of decor, of color, of wardrobe, of tone, of predisposition of style. Jacques Demy whose second film this is, following the excellent documentary Le Sabotier du Val de Loire, shows himself as not just felicitous, the work is of such a precision that it is impossible to conceive of others.
The red of the wallpaper could not be a different red, nor could the blue of the tiles in the bathroom, deviate from the blue chosen here. The bed and the mirror-faced wardrobe take their assigned places to the precise millimeter and we can't imagine another bed or wardrobe, nor any other bedspread or window curtains or door bolt.Highlighted by an admirable photography in tint plate. (accomplishing the feat of conciliating maybe, and without contest, for the first time, the point of view of the painter and the filmmaker). A electric wall-socket, a light-switch, a hat-rack and a coat hanger, are the impassable and cocteauesque Furies of this drama which its author might have filmed differently, but surely not more faithfully to his own mythology. The male interpreter himself, an unknown scooped up off the street, seems to emerge directly from a drawing of Opium.
This respect, not only praiseworthy, but necessary in the occurrence, can not be attributed to the least timidity. That the general allure of the direction rather leans towards the side Visconti, parallel to that of Rossellini 's The Human Voice, quite naturally invites us. Or more exactly, -- for, from the first seconds, we perceive the feeling of a personality already fully assured -- let's conjecture, without too much risk, that on this same fixed theme, Visconti would not have done better. That speaks pretty much of the esteem in which we hold Le Bel Indifference and its director, upon whom, among the cohort of young filmmakers, Cahiers determines to bank on with no delay and with more speed than it has done for anyone.

The Reception of Jacques Demy's "Lola" at Cahiers du Cinema

Much like Breathless, Jacques Demy's first feature Lola was not reviewed in the Les Films section of Cahiers du Cinema. For the main - Sommaire - section of the March 1961 issue, François Weyergans contributed a seven page article Lola au pays des hommes which considered Demy and his film. Reviews in the Les Films section of Cahiers generally ran two or three pages. Weyergans wrote,

"There is still a lot to say, but also there is nothing left to say. Let's hope that a lot of hogwash does not dog this fragile work. That they do not reproach Jacques Demy for having dedicated his work to Ophuls: in that, he takes part in the modern movement which sees Stravinsky reinvent Pergolese, Picasso Velazquez, and even earlier Mozart "borrow" from Handel. Demy and Cocteau: I find in the diary of the making of Belle notes which suit Lola. "the characters do not live, but live a life retold; a mood which corresponds more to feelings than to facts." "Lola is a film as beautiful, as fictional, as true, as ephemeral, as graceful as the wings of a butterfly."

In the conseil des dix
4 stars -- Henri Agel (Etudes cinématographiques), Jean Domarchi (Cahiers de Cinema), Pierre Marcabru (Arts/Combat) 3 stars -- Michel Aubriant (Paris-Presse), Jean de Baroncelli (Le Monde), Morvan Lebesque (Arts), Jacques Rivette (Cahiers du Cinema), Eric Rohmer (Cahiers du Cinema)
2 stars -- Claude Mauriac (Le Figaro), Georges Sadoul (Les Lettres françaises)

Jacques Demy the unknown young turk

Jean-Luc Godard ends chapter 3 (b) of his Histoire(s) du Cinema which is titled “A New Wave”,

“nevertheless
Becker
Rossellini
Melville
Franju
Jacques Demy
Truffaut
you knew them
yes, these were my friends”

Demy – Godard -- Cahiers du Cinema.

Jacques Demy and Cahiers du Cinema

I have often read some variation of this sentence “Jacques Demy did not write for Cahiers du Cinema” and have gone on to realize that the writer of that sentence had missed the point. You see, they seemed to be saying that “Jacques Demy did not write for Cahiers du Cinema” when the truth is that “Jacques Demy did not write for Cahiers du Cinema”. Put differently, Jacques Demy did not write for anyone. He was not a journalist. It must be said, however, Jacques Demy did contribute to Cahiers du Cinema. He certainly fraternized with the group remembered as “les turcs jeunes” He could be referred to as the “jeune’ turk who did not write. A squib published in July 1958’s edition of Cahiers in “Le Petit journal du cinema” entitled “Cahiers au pied du mur” (Cahiers getting a foothold) lists seven Cahiers contributors and talks of their progress in getting their film careers in motion. Those seven were Pierre Kast, Jacques Donoil-Valcroze, Claude Chabrol. Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy. It read, “Jacues Demy whose Le Bel Indifferent was far from having passes unnoticed is writing and preparing a film on la foi.”

Les conseil des dix – the counsel of ten

Jacques Demy twice was empaneled on Cahiers’ conseil des dix in May 1958 and June 1959.

May 1958 les conseil des dix
Demy served that month with, among others, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Charles Bitsch. How does Demy’s choices stack up against the other three “Turcs Jeunes”
All four gave 4 stars to The Seventh Seal
Rivette, Rohmer, and Bitsch each gave 3 stars to George Cukor’s “Les Girls”. Ironically, Demy who is best remembered for his musicals one of which “The Young Girls of Rochefort” would star “Les Girls” star Gene Kelly gave the film only 2 stars.
Demy along with Rivette and Bitsch gave “Montparnasse 19” 3 stars. Rohmer gave it only 1 star.
Demy gave “The Young Lions” 1 star. Rivette and Bitsch both bulleted the film while Rohmer abstained.
Demy along with Rivette and Bitsch gave “Les Bijoutiers de clair de lune” 1 star while Rohmer bulleted the film
Demy bulleted a film called “Les Désert de Pigalle” which Bitsch awarded 1 star. Rivette and Rohmer both abstained.

By the next time – June 1959 - Demy participated in the conseil, he had made a short appearance in “Les Quatre cents coups” sharing the screen with fellow panelist Charles Bitsch. This time there were five critics who could be referred to as “turcs jeunes” – Rivette, Rohmer, Godard, Bitsch and Luc Moullet. The summing up:

Demy as Rivette and Moullet gave “The Wild Strawberries” 3 stars. Godard, Rohmer and Bitsch gave the film 4 stars.
Jacques Baratier’s “Goha” was given 3 stars by Demy. Rivette and Godard also gave the film 3 stars. Rohmer and Bitsch gave the film 2 stars. Luc Moullet bulleted the film.
“Les Tripes au soleil” was given 2 stars by everyone except for Moullet who gave it only 1 star.
The panel also considered two films from Edouard Molinaro. “Un Temoin de la ville” was given 1 star by Demy and Rohmer. Godard, Rivette and Moullet bulleted the film while Bitsch abstained. “Des Femmes disparaissant” was bulleted by Demy and also Godard, Rivette and Moullet. Bitsch and Rohmer both abstained.

Jacques Demy -- Ten Best Films 1958-1963

Jacques Demy contributed ten best film lists to Cahiers between 1958 and 1963. He chose to laureate
Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim)
Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, Contempt, Les Carbiniers, Vivre sa Vie)
Claude Chabrol (Les Bonnes Femmes)
Jacques Rivette (Paris Belongs to Us)
Eric Rohmer (Le Signe du Lion)
Claude de Givray (Une Grosse Tete)

Jean-luc Godard and Jacques Demy

When Jacques Demy’s short film Le Bel indifférent was booed at the Tours Short Film Festival in 1958, Jean-Luc Godard stepped up to defend that film. He published an article in Arts for 10 december 1958 and another in the January 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.
from Godard on Godard: critical writings; edited by Jean Narboni; [edited and translated from the French by] Tom Milne; with an introduction by Richard Roud

Arts 10Dec1959 “Ignored by the jury”

“A setting of fantastic beauty, carpeted by the blood of a poet or tiled with the azure that enfevered Rimbaud. A setting created by Bernard Evein has enabled Demy to back three winners with absolute rigour, the beauty of inevitability, palpable tragedy. It is the most sensational treble in the whole history of French cinema. His Le Bel indifférent is Piero della Francesca plus Picasso (cf. Jeanne Allard‘s decoratively tortured face) plus Bérénice. What a collection! people will say. What a confection! say I. Jacques Demy really has entered cinema as Raymond Queneau’s Pierrot has entered literature. And talking about Jacquot my friend will now let me move on to Chant du Styrene.”

Cahiers du Cinema Feb59 Each One his Tours

“I only like films which resemble their creators. With Jacques Demy,
it takes half an hour to navigate the Place de L’Etiole in a car. So it takes half an hour to watch a cobbler make a shoe and half an hour to share a woman’s realization that her lover really is indifferent.”

Once Godard had made it with Breathless, He made it a project to leverage his success to obtain a cahnce at a first feature for Demy (and Agnes Varda and Jacques Rozier). Godard hounded Georges de Beauregard into producing Lola and he was instrumental in seeing that Raoul Coutard came on as director of photography.

Also Godard referenced Demy's first feature Lola in both A Woman is a Woman and A Married Woman.

Jacques Demy -- 10 Best Films -- Cahiers du Cinema 1958-1963

Though most film historians tend to paint a picture of their being two separate strands to the "New Wave" -- the right bank Cahiers click and the Left Bank group (Resnais, Marker, Varda and Demy) , the actuallity seems to have been somewhat different. Though the "Left Bank" directors did not contribute articles to Cahiers in the 1950s, excluding Chris Marker (who was sometines credited as "Christian" Marker) who contributed six articles to Cahiers in that period, the editors and staff at Cahiers certainly considered those four aspiring directors. A short article in [Cahiers] "Petit Journal" in the July 1958 issue, which was headlined "Cahiers at the foot of the wall" and which details the tentatives of seven members of the Cahiers family to break into film production, ends on this note:
.
Jacques Demy, whose “Le Bel Indifferent” went far from passing unnoticed, is writing and preparing a film on “la foi".
.
Selections are color-coded to selections at the end.
.
1958
1........Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
..........White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
3........Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
4........Les Girls (George Cukor)
..........Montparnasse 19 (Jacques Becker)
..........Secrets of Women (Ingmar Bergman)
..........Une Vie (Alexander Astruc)
..........The Quiet American (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
..........Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle)
..........Il Grido (Michelangelo Antonioni)
.
1959
1........Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
2........Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
..........Au Coté de la Côte (Agnes Varda)
..........Hiroshima, mon Amour (Alain Resnais)
..........Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
..........Ossessione Luchino Visconti)
..........The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
..........Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
..........Head against the Wall (George Franju)
..........Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
.
1960
1........Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
2........The Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau)
3........L’ Amerique Insolite (François Reichenbach)
..........L’ Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
..........Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol)
..........Sansho the Bailiff(Kenji Mizoguchi)
..........Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
..........Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)
..........Le Trou (Jacques Becker)
..........Zazie dans le Metro (Louis Malle)
.
1961
1........Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
..........The Horse That Cried (Mark Donskoy)
3........The Criminal (Joseph Losey)
..........Description D’un Combat (Chris Marker)
..........Paris Belongs to Us (Jacques Rivette)
..........A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
..........Le Monocle Noir (George Lautner)
..........La Pyramide Humaine (Jean Rouch)
..........The Sacrigeous Hero (Kenji Mizoguchi)
..........Last Year in Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
.
1962
(in disorder)
Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan)
Vivre sa Vis (Jean-Luc Godard)
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda)
Jules and Jim (Françcois Truffaut)
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel)
Hatari (Howard Hawks)West Side Story (Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins)
Une Grosse Tete (Claude de Givray)
The Trial (Orson Welles)
Le Signe du Lion (Eric Rohmer)
.
1963
(alphabetical in French)
Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy)
Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
Cleopatra (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)Muriel (Alain Resnais)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
.
.
.
Francois Reichenbach on his deathbed told Daniele Thompson that he wished to be buried in Limoges. When Thompson protested to him that Limoges was too far away for his friends to attend his enterment, he said to her, "Those who love me can take the train" and voila the beginnings of the film with that title written by Thompson and directed by Patrice Chereau
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Rare appearance on a Cahiers ten best list for this successful director of films de commande (programmers)
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