first love
by Douglas Messerli
Jacques
Demy (writer and director) Lola /
1961
Originally,
Jacques Demy wanted to film his 1961 Lola
as a musical
in color—presumably much like later did in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Girls of Rochefort—but did not have
the budget to do so. No matter, since the large-screen black and white picture
has a beautiful silvery-like luster, and the tale reads, as Demy himself
commented, like a “musical without music,” the sailors almost dancing through
the streets and Lola (the wonderful Anouk Aimee) even warbling her “Lola” song
(written by Demy’s wife Agnès
Varda) in the manner of a French Marlene Dietrich performing The Blue Angel’s Lola Lola. Moreover, as
in the musical genre—the genre he used in nearly all of his films—recurrence
and coincidence are rampant.
Although Lola is momentarily involved
with an American sailor, Frankie (Alan Scott), she invites Roland to dinner,
revealing that she has a small son and that her lover, coincidentally the same
son, Michel, of the café owner, left her, feeling unable to financially support
her; she is still very much in love with him, however, and hopes that someday
he might return. Describing her “first love” as the most intense, she tells
Roland how she first met Michel as a 14
year-old-girl when the then sailor took her to the local amusement park for a
joyful afternoon.
Roland, having just lost his job, has
taken on a shady task, as we later discover, to travel to South Africa and
smuggle back diamonds into France; but, falling in love all over again with
Cécile/Lola, he wants to start anew, and is ready to cancel his travels.
For Roland and Madame Desnoyers, alas,
love lets them down, the former being rejected by Lola because of her intense
“first love,” and the later because Roland will not take the widow’s bait. For
Lola, fortunately, Michel (Jacques Harden) has indeed returned and has been
driving around Nantes for several days in search of her, almost comically
crossing the paths of all the other figures, including his longing mother.
Accordingly, while Roland sadly is on his way to crime, Cécile/Lola drives off
into the sunset with her son and now wealthy lover. The young Cécile escapes to
Cherbourg where she intends to become a hairdresser.
For those that have seen Demy’s other
works, however, we know that in The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg Roland has become a wealthy Parisian jeweler, who
steals away Catherine Deneuve from her lover played by Nino Castelnuovo. In The Model Shop, Michel leaves Lola, now
in the USA, for a female gambler, Jacqueline 'Jackie' Demaistre, (Jeanne
Moreau), who in Demy’s Bay of Angels leaves
her wealthy husband (presumably Michel) and falls in love with Jean Fournier
(Claude Mann). Even some of Michel Legrand’s beautiful love tunes from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg appear
already in Lola.
In short, if first love is the most
intense, second or even third love seems to be more successful. If nothing
else, in Demy’s world, love is something that must constantly be sought and
gained again and again.
Los Angeles,
October 12, 2016
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