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Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) is about as unique a film as one can find. Director Jacques Demy invented a bold and original style for this gorgeous masterpiece that was never fully duplicated in any later film, although his own follow-up film, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) probably comes closest. There are shades of Umbrellas of Cherbourg also in the recent film, Moulin Rouge. Released in France under the title Les parapluies de Cherbourg, it is a film with emotional depth and intensity, though distinctly light-weight in matters of story and dialogue. It is bittersweet candy, with an ending that is neither tragic nor simplistically happy.
The Unique Film Construct: Every word in this beautiful film is sung in the manner of the recitative of opera. There is no spoken dialogue. This is not a traditional musical, nor is it akin to operetta. There are no songs per se, no big numbers, no dance numbers or duets. The dialogue is simply sung rather than spoken (technically, it is lip-synched by the actors). The musical score was written entirely by Michel Legrand; the lyrics by the director, Jacques Demy. The score and the narrative are beautifully integrated. The music carries the main emotional weight of the film. The film’s main theme recurs periodically and consists of a hauntingly beautiful melody suggestive of passionate longing. It is the kind of emotionally powerful theme that will stays in your head for hours or days after viewing the movie. Demy reportedly said about Umbrellas of Cherbourg that he intended it to be a film “in song” in the same sense that we might describe a particular movie as “in color.”
Equally unique in the conception of Umbrellas of Cherbourg is its visual orchestration, especially in relation to color. Every frame is eye candy, splashed with an artificially rich assortment of colors. There are bright pinks and reds, blues and purples, oranges and yellows, especially pastels. Set designer Bernard Evein built this incredible spectrum of colors into all aspects of the film, including the costumes, the wallpaper for the interior settings, and the cars and houses outside. In addition, the color schemes are closely coordinated and matched to changing moods of the story. A section of the buildings of Cherbourg was actually repainted to increase vividness and coordination of the color scheme. Even the drinks ordered by the lead characters in a scene in a café (amber aperitif and canary yellow pastis) were color coordinated. To accomplish this highly stylized explosion of colors, Demy had to use special film that could capture vibrant colors. Unfortunately, that required using a kind of film that degrades more rapidly. Demy anticipated the problem, however, and vaulted away multiple monochromatic negatives which could later be used to recreate the original color scheme of the new film. Demy’s widow, Agnes Varda, supervised a remastering of Umbrellas of Cherbourg in 1995 for a new release and it looks as great as the original.
The choreography and cinematography were also precisely orchestrated. Every movement is designed and the cameras glides like feathers in and out of scenes. The result is a magical world glamorized beyond reality in which the music and color provide an intensity of emotion that contrasts sharply with the banality of the dialogue and the ordinary lives of the characters.
The Story: The time is 1957 (seven years before the film was made) and the place is the French town of Cherbourg on the Normandy coast. Geneviève Emery (Catherine Denueve) is a beautiful seventeen year old girl who works in an umbrella shop of Cherbourg owned by her widowed mother. Geneviève is head over heals in love, as only a teen can be, with Guy (Nino Castelvuovo), a twenty-year-old who works as an auto mechanic. In this town, nobody speaks and everybody sings, from the customers in the umbrella shop to the mechanics in Guy’s “singing garage.” One might hardly notice, at this point in the story that one of the customers in Guy’s place of work is Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), with his black Mercedes, but his presence in this scene is a neat foretelling of things to come. Guy is as much in love with Geneviève as she is with him. He politely refuses to work an extra hour because he has a date to see Carmen with Geneviève. When they are together, we see a couple desperately in love – with all the passionate intensity of pure, innocent first love. They truly have something to sing about.
Guy lives only with his sickly Aunt Elise (Mireille Perry), who has a caretaker named Madeleine (Ellen Farmer). Madeleine is gentle and sweet and secretly loves Guy, but has nothing like the radiant beauty of Geneviève. Geneviève's mother (Anne Vernon) feels that Guy is not good enough for her daughter. He doesn’t make enough money and is only working class while she and her daughter, though financially strapped at present, belong to the middle class. Despite the mother’s effort to keep them apart, the lovers are not to be denied, and arrange clandestine meetings, and they are ultimately even able to consummate their love.
It turns out to be not only their first time but also their last. Guy is soon drafted into the army for a two year stint and will be sent off to fight in the war in Algiers. That particular war had a somewhat similar impact on the French public as the Vietnam War later had for America. It became a source of heartache and soul-searching.
Guy turns out to be a poor correspondent, possibly, in part, due to being wounded in battle. He writes only once in two months. This is all the more distressing for Geneviève when she discovers that she’s pregnant. Geneviève resourceful mother orchestrates frequent visits by Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), a friend and diamond merchant who has already helped the mother with her financial problems. Roland is madly in love with Geneviève. He is also handsome and rich and, when he learns that Geneviève is pregnant, offers to marry her anyway and promises to raise the child as their own. When he is away from Cherbourg, he sends her regular postcards, in contrast to Guy. Geneviève must choose between the dependable Roland and the stability he offers and an uncertain future either as an unmarried mother or with Guy.
NOTE: SKIP THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS TO AVOID SPOILERS
Guy returns in 1959 with a limp and painful memories, only to find Geneviève gone without a trace. He revisits some of their old haunts, which are now emptied of his fond memories. Deeply stung and depressed, he begins to fall into drunken dissipation. Desperately lonely, he spends one night with a prostitute, only to learn on returning home that his beloved Aunt Elise has died. He is further distraught that he had not been there for her. In this state of emotional crisis, Guy is rescued by the loving care of Madeleine. He also inherits enough money from his aunt to buy an Esso station in Cherbourg. He marries Madeleine and together they build a new life together.
It is now Christmas 1963 (just weeks earlier than the film's release date in France). Guy and Madeleine have a delightful little boy named Francois. Together, they trim the Christmas tree that they have put up in the Esso station. The snow is coming down and the dominant colors are now grays, blacks and whites rather than the exuberant full color spectrum of youth. Madeleine and Francois decide to go for a walk and, as luck would have it, Geneviève pulls in for a fill-up in her black Mercedes, with her little girl, Francoise (obviously Guy’s daughter). After recovering from initial shock, Guy invites Geneviève into the office. She informs him that this is her first trip back to Cherbourg from Paris, where she has lived since marrying Roland. Her mother has died. She asks Guy if he wants to meet Francoise, but he replies “I think you’d better go.” They bid farewell politely with only these parting words: “Are things going well with you?” “Yes, very well.” Geneviève drives off just as Madeleine and Francois return from their brief walk. Guy plays a bit in the snow with Francois and all three enter the station together.
Overview: The boldly unique style of Umbrellas of Cherbourg is what makes it a film gem. The singing of the dialogue, vibrant colors, and theme of passionate first love generate an idealism that is then used to illuminate some issues of stark realism – the nature of real love, class issues, and the price of ill-advised national adventurism in foreign lands. The surrealism created by hyper-intense color and sound heightens the meaning of the otherwise mundane lives of the principal characters. Although the dialogue is banal, the story thin, and the characters not especially complex, this is far more than a creamy confection of French pastry. The nourishment is provided by powerful themes enriched by the intensity of the music and color schemes.
The principal theme is the issue of the relative merits of different kinds of love. What is the worth of the passionate first love that existed between Geneviève and Guy compared to the love that exists between Guy and Madeleine, with the care she provided for him when he was in emotional distress and the life and family that they have built together? What is the worth of that same passionate first love in comparison to the devotion, stability, and comfort that Roland has provided for Geneviève? The vast majority of films and books, especially those characterized as “romantic”, focus on and glorify passionate love, but every mature person understands that real love that survives over time has much more to do with care, commitment, working together, and respect. Umbrellas of Cherbourg makes us feel simultaneously the beauty of each kind of love, especially in the bittersweet, poignant, and wise ending that touches the heart deeply.
There is also a less obvious class issue touched on in the film. Geneviève’s mother views Guy as beneath her family based on a distinction of class. By the end of the film, Guy has elevated himself, with Madeleine’s support, into the middle class, but Geneviève has risen to the upper class and the same unbridgeable gulf remains between them. The name of Guy’s Esso station is the “Escale Cherbourgeoise”, which means literally nothing more than the “Cherbourgian Stopover”, but it could also be interpreted as the “middle class escalator”, meaning upward mobility.
Umbrellas of Cherbourg introduced the incomparably luminous Catherine Denueve to the movie world and served as her springboard to stardom. She later appeared with her sister, Francoise Dorleac, and Gene Kelly in the other Demy film of similar style, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Catherine Deneuve also appeared in such films as Indochine (see my review at Indochine) and Belle du Jour.
The director, Demy’s father worked in a garage like the one where Guy works in the film. Demy was either gay or bisexual. One might assume the latter in that he fathered children with his wife, Agnes Varda. He died of complications of AIDS in 1990. Many of Demy’s films feature ordinary life, although the families are often ones with absent fathers. Demy’s success as a director was mixed. He produced some real duds, but also a handful of quality films, including Lola (1961), in which Roland Cassard was also a character, played by the same actor, Marc Michel. Demy was part of the French New Wave of directors, but loved musicals produced by the American director, Vincent Minelli, including An American in Paris and Kismet.
Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964. It was nominated at the Oscars for Best Foreign Film, Best Original Story and Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Score, and Best Song (“I Will Wait for You”). The film has a running time of 91 minutes and is in French with English subtitles.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from France:
In the innovative film THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG Jacques Demy pays loving homage to the Hollywood musical as well as the French melodrama. The film i...More at Family Video
A pregnant French girl chooses between her lover and a wealthy merchant; all the dialogue is sung. Directed by Jacques Demy. Music by Michel Legrand.More at HotMovieSale.com
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