Jacques Demy

Jacques Demy (French: [ʒak dəmi]; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated for their visual style, which drew upon diverse sources such as classic Hollywood musicals, the plein-air realism of his French New Wave colleagues, fairy tales, jazz, Japanese manga, and the opera. His films contain overlapping continuity (i.e., characters cross over from film to film), lush musical scores (typically composed by Michel Legrand) and motifs like teenage love, labor rights, chance encounters, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. He was married to Agnès Varda, another prominent director of the French New Wave. Demy is best known for the two musicals he directed in the mid-1960s: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).

Jacques Demy
Demy in 1956
Born	(1931-06-05)5 June 1931 Pontchâteau, France
Died	27 October 1990(1990-10-27) (aged 59) Paris, France
Resting place	Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris, France
Occupations	Film director screenwriter
Years active	1955–1988
Movement	French New Wave
Spouse	Agnès Varda ​ (m. 1962)​
Children	Rosalie Varda (step-daughter) Mathieu Demy

After working with the animator Paul Grimault and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier, Jacques Demy directed his first feature film, *Lola*, in 1961, with Anouk Aimée playing the lead role."Lola (1961 film)". Wikipedia. Retrieved 14 October 2025.

He is perhaps best known for his musical *Les Parapluies de Cherbourg* (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), with a score by Michel Legrand. The film is unusual in that its dialogue is entirely sung, and it is celebrated for its vivid color palette and integration of song into the narrative."The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". Britannica. Retrieved 14 October 2025.

Demy created a cinéma-style noted for recurring characters, romantic themes, and visual poetry, notably by emphasizing fate, chance encounters, long-lost love, and strong musical and color-driven aesthetics."Jacques Demy". Zeitgeist Films. Retrieved 14 October 2025.

Personal life

As a student, Demy did not learn any foreign languages. In the 1960s, with the help of some classes, internships, and spending some time in the United States, he learned English. At the time of the Anouchka project, which took many years to complete, he also learned Russian.^[1] In the early 1970s, taking after the example of Michel Legrand, he earned his private pilot's license for passenger planes.^[2]

Jacques Demy was bisexual.^[3] In 1958, Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda met at a short film festival in Tours. The two married in 1962. They had a son together, Mathieu Demy (born 1972), and Demy also adopted Varda's daughter, Rosalie Varda (born 1958), whom she had with Antoine Bourseiller in a previous relationship.^[4] Together, Demy and Varda owned a home in Paris and another property with an old mill on the Noirmoutier Island in Vendée, where the shots of Demy on a beach in Jacquot de Nantes (1991) were taken. The film is a version of Demy's autobiographical notebooks, an account of Demy's childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema. Varda paid homage to her husband in Jacquot de Nantes, Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993), and L’Univers de Jacques Demy (1995).

Demy died on October 27, 1990, at the age of 59.^[5][6] Originally, it was reported that he died of cancer,^[7] but in 2008 Varda revealed that Demy died of HIV/AIDS.^[8][9][10] He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.^[11]

Filmography

Film

Year	English title	Director	Writer	Original title
1961	Lola	Yes	Yes
1963	Bay of Angels	Yes	Yes	La Baie des Anges
1964	The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	Yes	Yes	Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
1967	The Young Girls of Rochefort	Yes	Yes	Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
1969	Model Shop	Yes	Yes
1970	Donkey Skin	Yes	Yes	Peau d'Âne
1972	The Pied Piper	Yes	Yes
1973	A Slightly Pregnant Man	Yes	Yes	L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune
1979	Lady Oscar	Yes	Yes
1982	A Room in Town	Yes	Yes	Une chambre en ville
1985	Parking	Yes	Yes
1988	The Turntable	Yes	Yes	La table tournante
1988	Three Seats for the 26th	Yes	Yes	Trois places pour le 26

Short films

Year	English title	Director	Writer	Original title	Notes
1951	Dead Horizons	Yes	Yes	Les horizons morts
1956	The clog maker of the Loire Valley	Yes	Yes	Le sabotier du Val de Loire	Documentary short
1957	The Beautiful Indifferent	Yes	No	Le bel indifférent
1958	Grévin Museum	Yes	No	Musée Grévin
1959	Mother and Child	Yes	No	La mère et l'enfant
1959	Ars	Yes	Yes	Ars	Documentary short
1962	Lust	Yes	Yes	La luxure	An episode in The Seven Deadly Sins

Television

Year	English title	Director	Writer	Original title	Notes
1980	Break of Day	Yes	Yes	La Naissance du Jour	Part of Le roman du samedi. Television movie.

Awards and honors

• 1963 : Louis Delluc Prize for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
• 1964 : Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

On 5 June 2019, on Demy's 88th birthday, he was honored with a Google Doodle.^[12]