Jacques Demy

Donkey Skin

Donkey Skin

In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposal—from her own father, the king (Jean Marais). A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable with songs by Michel Legrand, Donkey Skin creates a tactile fantasy world that’s perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1970
  • 90 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #718

Special Features

  • New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • French television interview from 1970 with director Jacques Demy and actors Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin on the set of the film
  • “Donkey Skin” Illustrated, a 2008 program on the many versions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale
  • “Donkey Skin” and the Thinkers, a 2008 program on the themes of the film, featuring critic Camille Tabouley
  • Audio Q&A with Demy from the American Film Institute in 1971
  • New English subtitle translation

Available In

Collector's Set

The Essential Jacques Demy

The Essential Jacques Demy

Blu-ray Box Set

6 Discs

$99.96

Special Features

  • New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • French television interview from 1970 with director Jacques Demy and actors Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin on the set of the film
  • “Donkey Skin” Illustrated, a 2008 program on the many versions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale
  • “Donkey Skin” and the Thinkers, a 2008 program on the themes of the film, featuring critic Camille Tabouley
  • Audio Q&A with Demy from the American Film Institute in 1971
  • New English subtitle translation
Donkey Skin
Cast
Catherine Deneuve
The first queen/The princess
Jean Marais
The first king
Delphine Seyrig
The Lilac Fairy
Jacques Perrin
The prince
Micheline Presle
The red queen
Fernand Ledoux
The red king
Henri Crémieux
The doctor
Sacha Pitoëff
The prime minister
Credits
Director
Jacques Demy
Written by
Jacques Demy
Original music by
Michel Legrand
Cinematographer
Ghislain Cloquet
Set designs by
Jim Léon
Art direction
Jacques Dugied
Editor
Anne-Marie Cotret
Costume designers
Augusto Pace
Costume designers
Gitt Magrini
Sound
André Hervée
Producer
Mag Bodard

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Explore

Catherine Deneuve

Actor

Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve

One of cinema’s great beauties, Catherine Deneuve (born Catherine Dorléac in Paris in 1943) is also an icon of the transformative cinematic 1960s. The daughter of two actors and the sister of three (one of whom, Françoise Dorléac, died in a car crash in 1967), Deneuve has acting in her blood. After her major breakthrough in Jacques Demy’s poignant 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Deneuve continued to prove she was more than just a pretty face in Roman Polanski’s thriller Repulsion and Luis Buñuel’s surreal erotic daydream Belle de jour. Those films may exploit Deneuve’s crystalline loveliness for its seeming inscrutability, but her portrayals of sexual repression in both (and her shocking embodiment of schizophrenia in the former) make for two of the most vivid performances of the era. Those roles set her on the path to becoming a full-fledged movie star, and she went on to act for François Truffaut, Alain Cavalier, Marco Ferreri, and Jean-Pierre Melville. Her performances have grown richer as she’s aged; today, she is a true grand dame of the cinema, and her compellingly enigmatic looks—once interpreted as fragile—have taken on a mature imperiousness, as evidenced in such films as Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale (in which she costars with her daughter with Marcello Mastroianni, Chiara Mastroianni).

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