Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

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Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
Image:ParapluiePoster.jpg
Directed by	Jacques Demy
Produced by	Mag Bodard
Written by	Jacques Demy
Starring	Catherine Deneuve Nino Castelnuovo
Music by	Michel Legrand
Cinematography	Jean Rabier
Editing by	Anne-Marie Cotret Monique Teisseire
Distributed by	The Criterion Collection and Koch-Lorber Films
Release date(s)	February 19, 1964
Running time	91 min.
Language	French
IMDb profile

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. It is the middle film in a trilogy of sorts, after Demy's 1960 film Lola and before his 1967 film The Young Girls of Rochefort; the three films share some of the same actors and minor characters.

The film is unusual in that literally all the dialogue is sung, even the most casual of conversation. This is an example of the musical form known as recitative.

1 Synopsis
2 Technical details
3 Awards
4 Cast
5 Trivia
6 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Madame Emery and her daughter Geneviève (Deneuve) sell umbrellas at their little boutique in the coastal town of Cherbourg in Normandy, France. Geneviève is in love with Guy (Castelnuovo), a handsome young auto mechanic who cares for his great-aunt along with quiet, dedicated, care-giver, Madeleine (Ellen Farner), a young woman who clearly loves Guy. Subsequently, though, Guy is drafted, and must leave to fight in the Algerian War and seldom writes to his love. Months later, Geneviève is pregnant, lovelorn and feeling forgotten. At her mother's insistence, she marries thirtyish, Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), a quietly handsome Parisian jeweller who falls in love with Geneviève and is willing to wed the younger girl, even though she is bearing another man's child. The society wedding in a great cathedral, with a tiara being placed on the bride's head, symbolizes her upward social and economic movement.

When Guy returns, with a leg injury, from the army and the war, he learns that Geneviève has married, left Cherbourg and that the umbrella store is utterly gone. 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,and a day, drinking excessively in seedy port bars. 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's love is recognized by Guy. who cleans up his life, with her encouragement. With a legacy from his aunt, he is able to finance to own a new "American-style" Esso gas station. He asks Madeleine to marry him, and she accepts, very happily.

The coda is set in December 1963, approximately five years after the earliest events. Guy is now managing the couple's Esso station. He's with his now upbeat, and loving wife, Madeleine, and their little son François. It is Christmas Eve at the new business location. Madeleine and François go for a short walk, leaving Guy briefly, after which a new Mercedes pulls in to the station. The mink-clad driver turns out to be a sophisticated, visibly wealthy Geneviève, accompanied by her (and Guy's) daughter, Françoise, who remains in the car.

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. Her fairly young mother is now dead. She has only her rich husband and child in her family life. The two converse while Geneviève's car is being filled with gas, and Geneviève asks Guy if he wants to meet their daughter. Without comment, and little reflection, he answers "no", and this leads to their exchanging their final goodbyes.

[edit] 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)

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; 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 Agnès Varda, headed a project to put these three black and white copies back together. The resulting film recaptured Demy's vision of a surreally bright Cherbourg. Legrand assisted in the digital remastering of his score and finally produced a high-quality version of the film score, considered by many to be a musical masterpiece.

[edit] Awards

Prix Louis-Delluc, 1963
Grand Prix at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival
Critics' prize for Best Film, by the French Syndicate of Film Critics, 1965
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1964
Nominated for three more Academy Awards in 1966, all three for Legrand and Demy, though it did not win any: "Best Song" (for "I Will Wait For You"), "Best Original Score", and "Best Scoring - Adaptation or Treatment".

[edit] Cast

Catherine Deneuve: Geneviève Emery
Nino Castelnuovo: Guy Foucher
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

[edit] Trivia

Two of the film's songs became English-language hits and were recorded by many artists: "I Will Wait For You" and "Watch What Happens" (originally "Recit de Cassard" ("Cassard's Story")). Both were translated into English by lyricist Norman Gimbel.
An English-language stage version, called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with translated lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, premiered in 1979 at the Public Theater.
Christine Legrand, the wife of Michel Legrand, was the singing voice of Emily. Christine was a member of The Swingle Singers.