Jacquot de Nantes

Screening on Film

Directed by Agnès Varda.
With Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, Laurent Monnier.
France, 1991, 35mm, color and b&w, 118 min.
French with English subtitles.

Interviews with the director Jacques Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Young Girls of Rochefort), a recreation of his childhood in Nantes, and wonderful clips from his films make up this loving and intelligent tribute by Varda to her recently deceased husband. This film, which hovers between fiction and nonfiction, is one of the great screen biographies and a compelling example of the creative documentary. Varda’s personal relationship to both the man and the work emerges powerfully, and Demy’s artistry is newly edified by the filmmaker who understood it best.