Maternity, Sexuality, Fantasy: Women and the City in Jacques Demy\u27s Lola

The central question I will explore in my research paper is: “How does French New Wave filmmaker Jacques Demy’s portrayal of women relate to his portrayal of his hometown of Nantes, France in the film Lola (1961)?” I will provide background on Demy’s relation to the New Wave movement, the important narrative points in Lola and spatial information on Nantes relevant to shot analysis. In my paper, I will work with texts discussing Lola, New Wave cinema and French society in the 20th century that I obtained through the University of the Pacific Library, such as: Garson Charlotte’s “Jacques Demy et ses oeuvres complètes: \u27Super ou ordinaire?\u27,” Rodney Hill’s “Demy Monde: The New Wave Films of Jacques Demy” and Geneviève Sellier’s Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema. Preliminary research suggests that as an idealized figure both of maternity and sexuality, Lola functions as a personified representation of Nantes as seen by a male child. By referencing Sellier’s psychoanalytic work on Lola, I will explain how Demy’s childlike mentality plays out on screen in the protagonist Roland, and how the filmmaker’s portrayal of Lola and the other female characters does not conform to the thencontemporary New Wave and French feminism movement’s ideas of gender. In my presentation, the audience can expect a brief reading of my research findings and analysis on the correlation between the patriarchal presentation of women and the fantastical aesthetics of Lola situated in Nantes