# Lola (1961 film)
**Lola** is a 1961 French-Italian romantic drama and the first feature film of [Jacques Demy](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacques-demy), set in Nantes and centered on a cabaret singer who waits seven years for the return of her first love while an old friend falls for her again. It stars [Anouk Aimée](https://www.edgepedia.org/anouk-aimee), Marc Michel, and Jacques Harden, with music by [Michel Legrand](https://www.edgepedia.org/michel-legrand) and cinematography by Raoul Coutard.[1](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/23662) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/films/27932-lola)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writer | Jacques Demy, his first feature, made at age 29[1](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/23662) • [3](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Lola/6036) |
| Production | France and Italy; produced by Georges de Beauregard and Carlo Ponti[1](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/23662) |
| Principal cast | Anouk Aimée (Lola), Marc Michel (Roland Cassard), Jacques Harden (Michel), Elina Labourdette, Alan Scott, Annie Duperoux[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/27932-lola) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Raoul Coutard; music Michel Legrand; sets and costumes Bernard Evein; editing Anne-Marie Cotret[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/27932-lola) |
| Shooting | 7 June to 17 July 1960, entirely on location in Nantes and La Baule[4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf) |
| French release | CNC visa 23662 dated 20 February 1961; Paris release 3 March 1961; 87 minutes per the CNC record[1](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/23662) • [4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf) |
| Recognition | Grand Prix de l'Académie du Cinéma, 1961; BAFTA-nominated[4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf) • [5](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/lola/) |
| Restoration | Original negative destroyed in a laboratory fire in 1970; restored by Ciné-Tamaris, with a 2012 digital restoration[6](https://llc.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-08/FFF2013%20Programme.pdf) • [7](https://adrc-asso.org/patrimoine/diffusion/films-et-cycles/lola) |
## Spoilers
### Story
In Nantes, Lola (Anouk Aimée), a cabaret dancer and singer, raises alone the son she had with Michel, who left seven years earlier to seek his fortune and whom she still awaits. She chances upon Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), a childhood friend who cannot hold a job and dreams of leaving for South Africa; he falls passionately in love with her, but she remains faithful to the memory of Michel. One evening she gives herself to Frankie, an American sailor, because he resembles Michel. She lets Roland believe she is leaving for America with Frankie, then admits the lie was meant to keep him from sacrificing himself for her. When Roland returns to the café of Jeanne, he learns that Michel has indeed come back; Michel and Lola leave together with their child, passing Roland on the road, alone with his suitcase.[3](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Lola/6036)
The plot is built on coincidences and rhyming characters rather than a single causal chain. Around Lola orbit three suitors, the American sailor Frankie, Roland, and the returning Michel, while a mother and daughter pair echo her own situation; the teenage Cécile is in effect Lola at fourteen, and Madame Desnoyers Lola at fifty.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3231-lola-demy-s-paradise-found) Several contemporary critics found the narrative slight, calling it a *fait-divers*, a trivial story of the kind found in popular newspapers.[10](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/107760/1/WRAP_Theses_Mulligan_2017.pdf)
## Production
Demy began working on the screenplay in 1957. Early versions carried the titles "A Ticket for Johannesburg" and then "Lola of Johannesburg" before the film became simply *Lola*. He met the producer Georges de Beauregard through his friend [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard). During location scouting in Nantes he invited [Quincy Jones](https://www.edgepedia.org/quincy-jones), whom he had asked to write the score; when Jones became unavailable, Demy turned to Michel Legrand, and Bernard Evein joined for the sets and costumes, beginning long collaborations with both. Raoul Coutard, then cinematographer of Godard's *Breathless*, completed the crew.[4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf)
The film was a small-budget production, smaller than Demy had hoped, shot entirely on location in Demy's hometown of Nantes and at La Baule between 7 June and 17 July 1960.[9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3231-lola-demy-s-paradise-found) • [4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf) The international premiere was held in Nantes on 23 February 1961 at the Cinéma Katorza during a press gala, followed by the Paris release on 3 March 1961, where it was screened at the Rotonde and Biarritz cinemas preceded by two short films, Godard and Truffaut's *Histoire d'Eau* and Godard's *Charlotte et son Jules*.[4](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf)
## Style and influences
The film is dedicated to Max Ophüls, and its conception of a woman displayed as spectacle, its mobile camera, and its title's citation of Ophüls's *Lola Montès* (1955) declare the debt; [Josef von Sternberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/josef-von-sternberg)'s *Der blaue Engel* (1930) stands behind the cabaret iconography of Lola's costume, a black lace corset, black tights, feather boa, and top hat that has become a [French New Wave](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-new-wave) icon.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3231-lola-demy-s-paradise-found) The American musical supplies the ambition to make daily life move as dance, and French poetic realism supplies the port and the sailors; the casting of Elina Labourdette, who had worked with [Robert Bresson](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-bresson), brings Bresson into the film's lineage.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961)
Coutard's black-and-white Franscope widescreen cinematography is at once documentary and lyrical; Demy deliberately left in overexposed shots that look poetic, and the camera tracks and circles with a fluidity that invokes Ophüls. The film was post-synchronized, standard for French location shooting of the period, which gives the dialogue a slightly floated quality suited to the story's half-dreamed tone.[9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3231-lola-demy-s-paradise-found) • [8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) Legrand's score, his first substantial collaboration with Demy, proposes emotion slightly before the drama justifies it, and the film also uses the slow movement of [Beethoven's Seventh Symphony](https://www.edgepedia.org/symphony-no-7-beethoven).[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [11](https://www.cinefileonline.co.uk/la-lz/p/lola-1961)
## Place in Demy's work and the New Wave
*Lola* is the first panel of a loose trilogy with *Les Parapluies de Cherbourg* (1964) and *Model Shop* (1968). Roland Cassard reappears in *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg*, where he recounts in song the Nantes love affair, and Lola herself returns in *Model Shop*, again played by Aimée.[12](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D64968.html) • [8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [13](https://ifi.ie/film/lola-3/)
The film was not a commercial success in 1961, and its critical reception was favorable rather than triumphant; admirers responded to its lyricism while others found it slight beside the more radical debuts of the same seasons, and some highbrow critics worried over its sentimentality and its debt to popular Hollywood genres.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [10](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/107760/1/WRAP_Theses_Mulligan_2017.pdf) Its standing grew retrospectively, helped by the success of *Les Parapluies de Cherbourg* and by restoration work; the Larousse film dictionary notes that today *Lola* appears to many as Demy's best film.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [3](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Lola/6036) Jean-Luc Godard admired it, and portions of its story and dialogue reappear in his *A Woman Is a Woman* (1961).[14](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/demy/)
## Restoration
The original negative of *Lola* was destroyed in a laboratory fire in 1970, along with the optical sound and the internegative.[6](https://llc.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-08/FFF2013%20Programme.pdf) Demy's widow, the filmmaker [Agnès Varda](https://www.edgepedia.org/agnes-varda), undertook restoration through the company Ciné-Tamaris; the film was restored and digitized in 2012 by Ciné-Tamaris with the Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma and the Fondation Technicolor pour le Patrimoine du cinéma.[8](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961) • [7](https://adrc-asso.org/patrimoine/diffusion/films-et-cycles/lola) [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) issued a 2K digital restoration on Blu-ray as spine #714 in its *Essential Jacques Demy* set.[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/27932-lola)
## Reception
Retrospective ratings are strong: Rotten Tomatoes lists a 95% Tomatometer from 20 reviews and a 79% audience score, and IMDb shows 7.4/10 from about 8,600 ratings.[15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lola_1961) • [16](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055093/ratings/) Critics have described it as a "musical without music," a fairy tale shot in luminous black and white in which the minor characters serve as variations on the central couple.[17](https://telescopefilm.com/films/15175-lola) • [15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lola_1961)
## References
1. [LOLA, fiche oeuvre, CNC Visas et Classification](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/23662)
2. [Lola (1961), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/27932-lola)
3. [Lola, Larousse, Dictionnaire mondial des films](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Lola/6036)
4. [Lola press kit, Les Crânes de la Bobine / Ciné-Tamaris](https://www.cramesdelabobine.org/IMG/pdf/dp/lola_dp.pdf)
5. [Lola (1961), Flicks](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/lola/)
6. [French Film Festival 2013 programme, University of Edinburgh](https://llc.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-08/FFF2013%20Programme.pdf)
7. [Lola, ADRC](https://adrc-asso.org/patrimoine/diffusion/films-et-cycles/lola)
8. [Lola (1961), dir. Jacques Demy, Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/40641/lola-1961)
9. [Lola: Demy's Paradise Found, by Ginette Vincendeau, Criterion Current](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3231-lola-demy-s-paradise-found)
10. [Mulligan, PhD thesis, University of Warwick (2017)](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/107760/1/WRAP_Theses_Mulligan_2017.pdf)
11. [Lola (1961), Cinefile](https://www.cinefileonline.co.uk/la-lz/p/lola-1961)
12. [Lola, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D64968.html)
13. [LOLA, Irish Film Institute](https://ifi.ie/film/lola-3/)
14. [Demy, Jacques, Senses of Cinema, Great Directors](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/demy/)
15. [Lola (1961), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lola_1961)
16. [Lola (1961), IMDb ratings](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055093/ratings/)
17. [Lola, Telescope Film](https://telescopefilm.com/films/15175-lola)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1960 to 1965*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license