--- name: "Jacques Demy" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jacques-demy" fi1m_id: "jacques-demy" imdb_id: "nm0218840" tmdb_id: 24882 wikidata_id: "Q312258" roles: ["Director","Writer"] born: "5 June 1931" died: "27 October 1990" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 86 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-26T16:21:20.996405+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Jacques Demy ## Identity Jacques Demy - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/jacques-demy - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** jacques-demy - **IMDb ID:** nm0218840 - **TMDB ID:** 24882 - **Wikidata ID:** Q312258 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Demy, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q312258, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0218840/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/24882 Director and writer. Born 5 June 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. Died 27 October 1990. ## Details - **Work:** Director, Writer - **Born:** 5 June 1931, Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France - **Died:** 27 October 1990 - **Active:** 1959–1967 - **Also known as:** 자끄 드미, 자크 데미 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 1 acting, 2 directing - **Frequently works with:** [Catherine Deneuve](https://film.one/person/catherine-deneuve.md), [Gilbert de Goldschmidt](https://film.one/person/gilbert-de-goldschmidt.md) - **Cannes Film Festival:** 1 Cannes prize (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 86, as director, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 91 (1), 1960s 86 (2) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Demy, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q312258, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0218840/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/24882 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*The Umbrellas of Cherbourg*](https://film.one/film/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg.md) (88), [*The Young Girls of Rochefort*](https://film.one/film/the-young-girls-of-rochefort.md) (84) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Jacques Demy > Jacques Demy repainted real French port towns in sweet-shop colours, had people sing about love and filling the tank, and made films about chance and separation that are sadder than they look. We rate him highly, and *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* is where to start. In *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964) a customer asks a mechanic to fill the tank, and he sings it. Nobody in the film finds this odd, and after a few minutes neither did we. That is Demy's method in one scene: take an ordinary Channel port, repaint the shopfronts so they match the wallpaper and the frocks, then let the people inside behave as if life really were this heightened. He told an interviewer in 1964, "I'm trying to create a world in my films," and it remains the plainest description of the work. The world was built over three decades. *Lola* (1961), his first feature, set the pattern: a port town, a chance meeting, a woman waiting, and a character called Roland Cassard who would turn up again in later films. *Umbrellas* followed, every line sung, no dance numbers, no chorus. *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967) went the other way, with dance sequences, Gene Kelly and an open debt to the American musical. Then came a spell in America with *Model Shop* (1969), a fairy tale with Catherine Deneuve in *Donkey Skin* (1970), and *A Room in Town* (1982), an opera-melodrama set during a shipyard strike. His last musical was *Three Places for the 26th* (1988). The look belonged as much to his regular team as to him. Bernard Evein designed the sets and Jean Rabier lit them, so that a street in Cherbourg or Rochefort could be a real street and a painted one at the same time, and the camera tracked through it in long takes rather than chopping it up. Anne-Marie Cotret cut for him across the career; in *Umbrellas* she and Monique Teisseire jump whole months in a single dissolve. Michel Legrand wrote the music for five of the films, and Deneuve appeared in four. Legrand's score for *Umbrellas* circles a few tunes for 93 minutes, which is our one reservation about it, and we still did not mind. *Umbrellas* left us lower than a film that pretty has any right to. The reason is the singing: a girl telling her mother she is pregnant and a man saying goodbye at a station arrive in the same lilting voice as the shopping, so nothing is announced and everything lands late. The war that takes Guy away stays off screen, mentioned in the same breath as the bills. Some critics, then and since, have called that evasion, and have called Demy sentimental and unengaged next to the New Wave directors he started alongside. We think it is how a town talks, and the sadness in his films comes from the things people decline to say out loud. Most critics find the films after 1970 uneven, and we have not reviewed them, so we will not argue either way. What we can say is that *Umbrellas* holds. If the singing puts you off in the first ten minutes, stay for the eleventh; by then you will have stopped hearing it as a device and started hearing it as the way these people live. ## Biography Jacques Demy (5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French film director and screenwriter. He studied at the Technical School of Photography and Cinematography in Paris, then assisted animator Paul Grimault and director Georges Rouquier. His first feature was *Lola* (1961). Demy is best known for the musicals *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964) and *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967), both with music by Michel Legrand and starring Catherine Deneuve. Other films include *Bay of Angels* (1963), *Donkey Skin* (1970) and *A Room in Town* (1982). He was associated with the French New Wave. He was married to director Agnès Varda from 1962 until his death in Paris. *Sources: britannica.com, en.wikipedia.org.* ## On Fi1m (3) ### Performed in (1) - *The 400 Blows* (1959), Fi1m 91, as Policier (non crédité) — [page](https://film.one/film/the-400-blows.md) ### Directed (2) — the average rests on these - *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967), Fi1m 84, Writer, Director, Lyricist — [page](https://film.one/film/the-young-girls-of-rochefort.md) - *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964), Fi1m 88, as Le client égaré / Le serveur (singing voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg.md) ## Complete filmography (33) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Les Parapluies de Cherbourg* (2015), Author - *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (2004), Original Story - *Jacquot* (1991), as Jacques Demy (uncredited) · Author - *Turning Table* (1988), Director, Writer - *Three Seats for the 26th* (1988), Director, Writer - *Parking* (1985), Director, Screenplay - *A Room in Town* (1982), Director, Screenplay - *Break of Day* (1980), Director, Screenplay - *Lady Oscar* (1979), Director, Screenplay, Adaptation - *A Slightly Pregnant Man* (1973), Director, Writer - *The Pied Piper* (1972), Director, Writer - *Donkey Skin* (1970), Director, Screenplay, Lyricist - *Model Shop* (1969), Director, Writer, Producer, Dialogue - *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967), Director, Writer, Lyricist — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-young-girls-of-rochefort.md) - *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964), as Le client égaré / Le serveur (singing voice) · Director, Writer, Screenplay, Lyricist, Scenario Writer, Dialogue, Songs — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg.md) - *Bay of Angels* (1963), Director, Screenplay - *The Seven Deadly Sins* (1962), Director, Screenplay - *Lust* (1962), Director, Screenplay - *Paris Belongs to Us* (1961), as Tied Woman's friend (uncredited) - *Lola* (1961), Director, Screenplay - *Ars* (1960), as Narrator (voice) (uncredited) · Director, Writer - *The 400 Blows* (1959), as Policier (non crédité) — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/film/the-400-blows.md) - *Le Bel Indifférent* (1958), as (voice) · Director - *La Mère et l'Enfant* (1958), Director - *Musée Grévin* (1958), Director - *Le Sabotier du Val de Loire* (1956), Director, Screenplay - *The Wedding in Monaco* (1956), Assistant Director - *Dead Horizons* (1951), as Young man · Director - *Attaque nocturne* (1948), Director, Writer, Animation - *Un regard sur la Hollande* (1946), Director - *La Ballerine* (1944), Director, Writer, Animation - *Le pont de Mauves* (1941), Director, Writer, Animation - *Jacques Demy, A to Z*, Actor ## Gallery - ![Jacques Demy poste la tête légèrement penchée en avant, le corps légèrement tourné vers sa gauche, regarde devant lui, vers la source lumineuse. Il arbore un tr (1956)](https://film.one/media/person/388120/gallery-b9f6e738b637.jpg) Jacques Demy poste la tête légèrement penchée en avant, le corps légèrement tourné vers sa gauche, regarde devant lui, vers la source lumineuse. Il arbore un tr (1956) — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Identite-Demy-1956-Sacem.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Jacques Demy](https://film.one/media/person/388120/gallery-452926ba1f5c.jpg) Jacques Demy — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 4 nominated - 1969: Best Original Musical Score (nominated), for *The Young Girls of Rochefort* - 1966: Best Original Score (nominated), for *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* - 1966: Best Original Song (nominated), for *I Will Wait for You* - 1966: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* ### BAFTA Film Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1963: Best Film (nominated), for *Lola* ### Cannes Film Festival — 1 won - 1964: Palme d'Or (won), for *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* ### Other awards — 1 won, 4 nominated - César Award for Best Director 1983: César Award for Best Director (nominated), for *A Room in Town* - César Award for Best Film 1983: César Award for Best Film (nominated), for *A Room in Town* - Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical 1979: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical (nominated) - Grammy Award for Song of the Year 1965: Grammy Award for Song of the Year (nominated), for *I Will Wait for You* - Louis Delluc Prize 1963: Louis Delluc Prize (won), for *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jacques-demy