Model Shop (film)
| Model Shop | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Jacques Demy |
| Produced by | Jacques Demy |
| Written by | Jacques Demy |
| Starring |
Anouk Aimée Gary Lockwood Alexandra Hay |
| Music by | Spirit |
| Edited by | Walter Thompson |
Release dates | 1969 |
| Country |
France USA |
| Language | English Language |
Model Shop is a 1969 American film by French writer-director Jacques Demy starring Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay and Anouk Aimée and featuring a guest appearance by Spirit who also recorded the soundtrack. Demy made Model Shop, which was his first English-language film, following the international success of his film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Aimée reprises the title role from Demy's 1960 French-language film Lola.
Plot summary
Model Shop is set in 1969 Los Angeles. Twenty-six-year old George Matthews (Gary Lockwood) is floundering in life and somewhat directionless. An architect by trade, he is currently unemployed because his aspiration to build grand structures does not match the work of an architect just starting out. In addition, he is unable to make a long term commitment to his live-in girlfriend Gloria (Alexandra Hay), who has given him opportunity after opportunity to show her if she means as much to him as he does to her. Without a steady source of income, he scrounges to find $100 to pay off collection agents who are threatening to repossess his car.
George's life suddenly changes when he receives a draft notice to go fight in Vietnam. For the first time, George comes face-to-face with his own mortality. Lost, he goes to a model shop (or a tawdry studio specializing in erotic photographs), he becomes infatuated with one of the models, a French woman named Cecile working under her stage name "Lola" (Anouk Aimée). She faces similar problems in her life, having been abandoned by her husband Michel for a female gambler named Jackie Demaistre. In a tender night of drinking and lovemaking at Lola's apartment, George and Lola talk of their failed romances, their hopes, their dashed dreams, philosophy, and mortality. Through their conversation, they find the willpower to continue living.
The next morning, when George goes back to his place, he returns to find Gloria has abandoned him for a movie producer. He decides to place a call to Lola's apartment. Instead, however, only Lola's roommate answers, explaining that Lola left early that morning to return to France. George is devastated. As his car is repossessed, George explains to the roommate the reason why he called: "I just wanted to tell her that I love her. I wanted her to know that I was going to begin again. It sounds stupid, I know. But a person can always try."
Reception
Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum views Model Shop as one of director Jacques Demy's most critically underrated and neglected films,[1] writing that "the play between actuality and artifice is the most complex and unconventional" in the film.
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club is also a major proponent of Model Shop, writing that Demy's film is "obsessively escapist" and that "every film [Demy] made, whether it had singing in it or not, was essentially a musical; he could make the sad streets of Nantes into an MGM back lot.".[2] He later includes it in his "Cine-Autobiography", a list of unranked films which "opened doors or made [him] turn a corner.".[3]
Model Shop is included on Sight and Sound 's list of 75 most neglected films. Films on the list were selected by 75 international critics as "unduly obscure and worthy of greater eminence”.[4]
Appearances in other media
A brief portion of the film is seen at the beginning of the season seven episode of Mad Men, "Field Trip," when the character Don Draper is shown watching it in a theater.
See also
References
External links
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