Printed 2015
Paper Size: 30 x 40 cm
Edition of 20

 
Each photograph is signed and numbered by the artist.

Actress Anouk Aimee filming Lola in Nantes.

Director Jacques Demy was often considered along with the established New Wave directors such as Truffaut and Godard, but was also somewhat of an outsider.

As Demy explains in Varda's l'univers de Jacques Demy (The World of Jacques Demy, 1995), made Lola thanks to Godard. Jean-Luc was the first to find a fellow named Beauregard.'

Georges de Beauregard was a producer and also the financier for many of the French New Wave productions. Demy pitched his idea for Lola to Beauregard, but it would cost at least $400,000 with colour, costumes, and musical numbers. 'Beauregard told me Look, it's a sweet project but Breathless cost $65,000. If you can do yours for $70,000 it's a deal.Demy shot silent, in five weeks, with mostly available natural light and a very small crew.

Lola did not do well commercially, selling only 43,000 tickets in France. For its international distribution package, the movie was grouped with Adieu Philippine (Goodbye Philippine) and Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman). Thus, foreign audiences often saw these candid, sexy films one after the other, reinforcing the perception of a unified movement of French films.

Moreover, Lola fit much of what one expected of New Wave films. Described by Demy as a 'musical without music', the film centres around cabaret singer and single mother Lola (Aimee). Taking place in the costal French city of Nantes, a young man Roland (Marc Michel) is living unremarkably until a chance encounter with Lola leads to him vying for her affection, and they become lovers. However, Lola is preoccupied with her former lover Michel, who abandoned her and her son years earlier. In the end, against all odds, Michel returns to Nantes for Lola, apparently very successful and hoping to marry her, just as she is leaving for another job in Marseille and Roland is also leaving town. Their paths do not cross.

Cinematographer for A bout de souffle (Breathless), Raoul Coutard's rich black and white images underscore the narrative of the importance of luck and chance in love. The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnes Varda.