The Criterion Collection The Essential Jacques Demy (Criterion Collection)

French director Jacques Demy didn’t just make movies—he created an entire cinematic world. Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who appear or are referenced across titles. The works collected here—made from the sixties to the eighties and ranging from musical to melodrama to fantasia—are triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aimée, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restorations of all six films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks of Lola and Bay of Angels and 5.1 or 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Donkey Skin, and Une chambre en ville Two documentaries by filmmaker Agnès Varda: The World of Jacques Demy (1995) and The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993) Four short films by director Jacques Demy: Les horizons morts (1951), Le sabotier du Val de Loire (1956), Ars (1959), and La luxure (1962) Jacques Demy, A to Z, a new visual essay by critic James Quandt Archival interviews with Demy, composer Michel Legrand, and actors Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin Once Upon a Time . . . “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a 2008 documentary Episode from Behind the Screen, a 1966 series about the making of Young Girls “Donkey Skin” Illustrated, a 2008 program on the many versions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Donkey Skin” and the Thinkers, a 2008 program featuring critic Camille Tabouley New conversation between Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthomé and costume designer Jacqueline Moreau New interviews with journalist Marie Colmant and film scholar Rodney Hill Archival audio Q&A with Demy Archival audio interviews with Legrand and Deneuve Interview with actor Anouk Aimée from 2012, conducted by Varda Interview with Varda from 2012 on the origin of Lola’s song Restoration demonstrations for Lola, Bay of Angels, Umbrellas, and Une chambre PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Ginette Vincendeau, Terrence Rafferty, Jim Ridley, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Anne E. Duggan, and Geoff Andrew, and a postscript by Berthomé