[Program title] Conte et Raconte Ⅰ
[Film title] Peau d’Ane
[Date] January 23 – March 27
[Screen time] 1hr29min
(1970/France/Color/89min./35mm)
Directed by Jacques Demy
Produced by Mag Bodard
Written by Jacques Demy
Charles Perrault (story)
Starring : Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Jacques Perrin, Delphine Seyrig
Music by Michel Legrand
Cinematography Ghislain Cloquet
Editing by Anne-Marie Cotret
Distributed by Janus Films
(c) Cine-Tamaris
Story
On her deathbed, the queen of strange and distant land asks her husband, the king, never to marry again anyone less beautiful than she. In the whole kingdom, only one woman is more beautiful than the dead queen – her young daughter. In respect of his former wife’s wishes, the king asks his daughter to marry him. Shocked, the princess appeals to a garden fairy to help her. The fairy tells the princess to set the king a series of impossible challenges to dissuade him from marrying her. But the King, with his great power, provides every wishes princes asked for. Finaly princess demands the skin of the magical donkey which excretes jewels instead of the usual brown matter. The king obliges and the princess acquires an unusual new addition to her wardrobe. In despair, the princess flees to a nearby farm, wearing the donkey’s skin….
Jacques Demy
1931～1990
Though a contemporary of such Nouvelle Vague filmmakers as Chabrol, Godard and Truffaut, Jacques Demy eschewed their tendency towards heavy, realistic dramas centered the ills of the contemporary world. His best loved films were romantic, lyrical and fairytale like, but always imbued with dark undercurrents of psychological realism. Like other New Wave directors, Demy was passionate about cinema, particularly Hollywood musicals, which he paid specific tribute to in Les Desmoiselles de Rochefort. In the early ’50s, Demy assisted animator Paul Grimault and documentarist Georges Rouquier. He began directing shorts in the mid ’50s with Le Sabotier Du Val De Loire and Le Bel Indifférent. Demy made his feature debut in 1961 with the popular romance Lola. Dedicated to Max Ophuls and his film Lola Montes, Demy’s first film is still considered by many to be his finest. Demy topped that success with the international hit Les Parapluies De Cherbourg (aka The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), a low-key and beautifully stylized romantic musical by Michel Legrand (who had scored Demy’s shorter works) in which all of the players sang their lines against a paradise of quaint buildings painted in pastels. The film was a great success and remains one of Demy’s best known films. In hopes of recapturing that success, he and Legrand again teamed up for Les Desmoiselles De Rochefort (aka The Young Girls of Rochefort) with Gene Kelly. His notable later films include the handsome fairy tales Peau D’Ane (aka Donkey Skin) and The Pied Piper of Hamelin (aka The Pied Piper); the comedy L’Évenement Le Plus Important Depuis Que L’Homme A Marché Sur La Lune (aka A Slightly Pregnant Man) with Marcello Mastroianni; Parking, his Doors-inspired remake of Cocteau’s Orphée; La Table Tournante, a live-action-and-animation mix reteaming Demy and Paul Grimault; and Demy’s last film, the Yves Montand musical Trois Places Pour Le 26. Following Demy’s death in late 1990 of a cerebral hemorrhage, his widow Agnes Varda, a filmmaker in her own right, began making documentary tributes to her beloved and influential husband the most famous of which is the docudrama.