Lola (Jacques Demy, 1961)

Anouk Aimée in Lola

Lola / Cécile: Anouk Aimée
Roland Cassard: Marc Michel
Michel: Jacques Harden
Frankie: Alan Scott
Madame Desnoyers: Elina Labourdette
Jeanne, Michel's Mother: Margo Lion
Cécile Desnoyers: Annie Duperoux
Claire, the Bar Owner: Catherine Lutz
Daisy: Corinne Marchand
Yvon, Lola's Son: Gérard Delaroche

Director: Jacques Demy
Screenplay: Jacques Demy
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Production design: Bernard Evein
Film editing: Anne-Marie Cotret
Music: Michel Legrand

The characters in Lola, as in many of Jacques Demy's films, see life as performance art. They're ready to don the mask and play the role at any moment: Lola even wears her black lace cabaret-performer costume under a trenchcoat when she's out on the street. The film opens with a poseur, the then-mysterious "cowboy" dressed in white and driving a white Cadillac convertible, who is later revealed to be Lola's missing husband, Michel. Everyone, it seems, is putting on an act, especially Mme. Desnoyers, whose constant concern with appearances has begun to rub off on her daughter, Cécile. Sometimes Demy imposes a role on his characters: The young American sailor, Frankie, hangs out with a troupe of sailors that recalls MGM musicals of the 1940s like Anchors Aweigh (George Sidney, 1945) and On the Town (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1949) which starred a famous Frankie. Even the most spontaneous character in the film, Roland, wears his ennui like a costume. To my taste, this constant role-playing gets a little tiresome -- I keep wanting the characters to have an unguarded moment. Although Demy's films often seem to me to be better in retrospect than in the watching, as you work out the playful cross-references -- young Cécile's name is the same as Lola's real one, and so on -- and allusions to books and movies, there is much to be said for what's on screen, particularly Anouk Aimée's giddy, uninhibited Lola, a long way from her role in 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963) as Guido's soignée neglected wife. There's some roughness in this film, Demy's first, such as the odd fact that Alan Scott, an American actor, speaks with a non-American accent when his lines are in English -- I don't think anyone born in New Jersey would pronounce "Chicago, Illinois" the way Frankie does, so I suspect dubbing. But as self-conscious a film as it is, Lola is a rewarding one.

8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)

Marcello Mastroianni in 8 1/2

Guido Anselmi: Marcello Mastroianni
Claudia: Claudia Cardinale
Louisa Anselmi: Anouk Aimée
Carla: Sandra Milo
Rossella: Rossella Falk
Gloria Morin: Barbara Steele
Madeleine: Madeleine Lebeau
La Saraghina: Eddra Gale
Pace, a Producer: Guido Alberti
Carini Daumier, a Film Critic: Jean Rouguel

Director: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi
Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo
Production design: Piero Gherardi
Music: Nino Rota

At one point in 8 1/2 an actress playing a film critic turns to the camera and brays (in English), "He has nothing to say!", referring to Guido Anselmi, the director Marcello Mastroianni plays and, by extension, to Fellini himself. And that's quite true: Fellini has nothing to say because reducing 8 1/2 to a message would miss the film's point. Guido finds himself creatively blocked because he's trying to say something, except he doesn't know what it is. He has even enlisted a film critic to aid him in clarifying his ideas, but the critic only muddles things by his constant monologue about Guido's failure. Add to this the fact that after a breakdown Guido has retreated to a spa to try to relax and focus, only to be pursued there by a gaggle of producers and crew members and actors, not to mention his mistress and his wife. Guido's consciousness becomes a welter of dreams and memories and fantasies, overlapping with the quotidian demands of making a movie and tending to a failed marriage. He is also pursued by a vision of purity that he embodies in the actress Claudia Cardinale, but when they finally meet he realizes how impossible it is to integrate this vision with the mess of his life. Only at the end, when he abandons the project and confronts the fact that he really does have nothing to say, can he realize that the mess is the message, that his art has to be a way of establishing a pattern out of his own life, embodied by those who have populated it dancing in a circle to Nino Rota's music in the ruins of the colossal set of his abandoned movie. The first time I saw this film it was dubbed into German, which I could understand only if it was spoken slowly and patiently, which it wasn't. Even so, I had no trouble following the story (such as it is) because Fellini is primarily a visual artist. Besides, the movie starred Mastroianni, who would have made a great silent film star, communicating as he did with face and body as much as with voice. It is, I think, one of the great performances of a great career. 8 1/2 is also one of the most beautiful black-and-white movies ever made, thanks to the superb cinematography of Gianni Di Venanzo and the brilliant production design and costumes of Piero Gherardi.