Movies - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

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	Movies - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) is a musical film made in 1964. It was directed by Jacques Demy, and starred Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand.

The film is unusual in that literally all the dialogue is sung, even the most casual of conversation.

Synopsis

Madame Emery and her daughter Geneviève (Deneuve) sell umbrellas at a boutique in Cherbourg. Geneviève is in love with Guy (Castelnuovo), an auto mechanic who cares for his great-aunt along with Madeleine (Ellen Farner), a young woman who obviously loves Guy. Subsequently, though, Guy must leave to fight in the Algerian War. Months later, Geneviève is pregnant and lovelorn. At her mother's insistence, she marries Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), a wealthy jeweller who is in love with Geneviève and who is willing to wed her even though she is bearing another man's child.

When Guy returns from Algeria, he learns that Geneviève has left Cherbourg and that the umbrella store has been sold to a new owner. He attempts to ease back into his old life, but becomes rebellious due both to the war and to the loss of Geneviève. One day, Guy quits his job after an argument with his boss, and spends a night on the town drinking. He winds up sleeping with a prostitute named Jenny, whose real name turns out to be also Geneviève. When he returns to his apartment, Madeleine tells him tearfully that his great-aunt has died. Eventually, Madeleine helps Guy clean up his life. With her counseling, he eventually is able to purchase an Esso gas station. He asks her to marry him, and she agrees happily.

The coda is set in December 1963, approximately five years after the preceding events. Guy is now managing the Esso station with his wife Madeleine and their son François. On Christmas Eve, Madeleine and François are going for a walk when a car pulls up to the station. Guy goes out to help when, unsurprisingly, it is Geneviève and her (and Guy's) daughter, Françoise.

They go inside, at first shocked to see each other, and Geneviève explains this is the first time she has returned to Cherbourg since her marriage. After stilted and awkward conversation, during which Geneviève's car is being filled with gas, Geneviève asks Guy if he wants to meet their daughter. He says no. After the most banal of goodbyes ('Is everything going okay?' 'Yes, it is') Geneviève drives off as we see Madeleine and François returning and Guy hugging his family. In a (pessimistic) sense, the movie can be described as the tale of two people settling for second best. It can also be viewed as the story of a person finding fulfillment after releasing youthful, naive ideals of relationships and beauty.

Technical Details

Director: Jacques Demy
Music: Michel Legrand
Debut: February 19, 1964
Format: 35 mm, 1.66:1 aspect ratio, Color
Genre: Musical Drama
Length: 91 minutes (per IMDB.com)

It is interesting to note that the current version of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg released on DVD is a completely renovated version of the original. The film was shot on Eastman negative stock which rapidly faded and became almost unusable. The various copies of the film doing the cinema circuit also gradually lost their quality and it seemed that the vivid colours and fantastic contrast of the original film had been lost, only to be engraved on the memories of those lucky enough to see it in the 1960s. Very fortunately, Demy realised the short shelf-life of the original negative, and made negative black and white copies of the original in the three colour bands. (See Technicolor for a technical explanation of how the three-strip process works]]. In the 1990s, Demy's wife, film director Agnes Varda, headed a project to put these three black and white copies back together. The resulting film was an astonishing transformation - once again Demy's vision of a surreally bright Cherbourg was made available for the viewing public. Legrand assisted in the digital remastering of his score and finally produced an extremely high-quality version of the filmscore, considered by many to be a musical masterpiece.

Awards

Prix Louis-Delluc, 1963
Palme d'or (Golden Palm) at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival
Critics' prize for Best Film, by the French Syndicate of Film Critics, 1965

Cast

Catherine Deneuve: Geneviève Emery
Nino Castelnuovo: Guy Fouchet
Anne Vernon: Madame Emery
Mireille Perrey: Aunt Élise
Marc Michel: Roland Cassard
Ellen Farner: Madeleine
Jean Champion: Aubin
Pierre Caden: Bernard
Jean-Pierre Dorat: Jean

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg ]

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