| The Umbrellas of Cherbourg | |
|---|---|
_poster.jpg) French theatrical release poster | |
| French | Les Parapluies de Cherbourg |
| Directed by | Jacques Demy |
| Written by | Jacques Demy |
| Produced by | Mag Bodard |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Jean Rabier |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Michel Legrand |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
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Running time | 91 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | French |
| Budget | $0.2 million[1] |
| Box office | $7.6 million[2] |
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French:Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964musicalromanticdrama film written and directed byJacques Demy, with music byMichel Legrand.Catherine Deneuve andNino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city ofCherbourg, separated by circumstance. The film's dialogue is entirely sung asrecitative, including casual conversation, and issung-through like some operas and stage musicals.[3] It has been seen as the second of an informal tetralogy of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall atmosphere of romantic melancholy, coming afterLola (1961) and beforeThe Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) andModel Shop (1969). The French-language film was aco-production between France and West Germany.[4]
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won thePalme d'Or at the1964 Cannes Film Festival. In the United States, it was nominated forBest Foreign Language Film at the37th Academy Awards and four more atthe 38th ceremony includingBest Original Screenplay (Demy),Best Original Score (Demy and Legrand), andBest Original Song for the film's main theme, "I Will Wait for You". It was later adapted into an English-language stage musical.
In 2018, aBBC Culture critics' poll ranked the film at number 51 in the Top 100 Greatest Non-English Films of All Time.[5]
Madame Émery and her 17-year-old daughter Geneviève run a tiny, struggling umbrella boutique in the coastal town ofCherbourg,Normandy. Guy is a young auto mechanic who lives with and cares for his sickly aunt andgodmother Élise. The boutique is saved from bankruptcy when Roland Cassard, a kind, young, very wealthy Parisian jeweler, agrees to buy some of Madame Émery's jewelry. Though Madame Émery disapproves, Guy and Geneviève are deeply in love; they plan to marry and name their first child Françoise. At the same time, Madeleine, a quiet young woman who looks after Élise, is secretly in love with Guy. Guy isdrafted to serve in theAlgerian War. The night before he leaves, he and Geneviève pledge their undying love and have sex.
Geneviève learns she is pregnant and writes to Guy, but his replies are sporadic. Her mother tells her that Guy has forgotten her and she should move on. Geneviève is courted by Roland, who wants to marry her despite her pregnancy. In one of the connections among Demy's trilogy of films, Roland had previously unsuccessfully wooed the title character in the earlierLola (1961); now he relates a version of this story to Madame Émery. Madame Émery urges Geneviève to choose a secure future with Roland. Roland announces that he will be going to Amsterdam for three months, and will wait for Geneviève's answer until his return. Upon his return Geneviève marries him ina great cathedral, but she appears ambivalent about her decision.
Returning injured from the war, Guy learns that Geneviève has married and left Cherbourg. He has a difficult time readjusting to civilian life. After an argument with his boss at the garage, he quits his job, goes drinking in a seedy bar, and spends the night with a prostitute. When he returns to his apartment, Madeleine tells him that Élise has died. Guy sees that Madeleine loves him, and he rebuilds his life with her help. Using his inheritance, he opens a new American-style gas station. Madeleine agrees to marry him, though she wonders whether he is merely on the rebound after losing Geneviève.
Four years later, on a snowy Christmas Eve, Guy and Madeleine are in the office of their gas station with their small son François. As Madeleine and François leave to visitSanta Claus, a now wealthy Geneviève and her daughter Françoise arrive. Guy invites Geneviève into the station's office, where she reveals this is her first time in Cherbourg since her marriage. When asked if he wants to meet his daughter, Guy declines. On her way out, Geneviève looks back at Guy one last time before driving off. Madeleine returns with François, and Guy greets her with a kiss.
Source:[6]
The English dub was done by Oscar Films.
The English adaptation of the songs was produced by Jacqueline Porel and Bruce Johansen.
The English dub was broadcast several times in the USA, on different channels. So far, the only identified VHS release is a Chinese one (early 90s).
The existence of a 16 mm print proves that there were also cinema releases.
This dub has never been released on DVD.[7]
Umbrellas is the middle film in an informal "romantic trilogy" of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall look; it comes afterLola (1961) and beforeThe Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).[8]
The continuous music score and the brightly coloured photography had much to do with the popularity of this film. Formally the work is operatic, with the plot advanced entirely through dialogue sung with accompanying music. The colour photography is bright and vivid. The whole is united by an orchestral score of simple rhythms and tunes that are integrated with the story covering five years.
Since the cast were not trained singers, most of the actors' voices were dubbed andlipsynced.[9]
The film score established composerMichel Legrand's reputation in Hollywood. He later scored other films, winning threeOscars. In North America, two of the film's songs became hits and were recorded by many artists: "I Will Wait for You" (the main theme, also known as "Devant le garage") and "Watch What Happens" (originally "Recit de Cassard", "Cassard's Story"). Both were given new English lyrics by lyricistNorman Gimbel.
"Watch What Happens" was covered by artists such asTony Bennett,[10]Ed Ames,[11] and jazz pianistsOscar Peterson[12] andVince Guaraldi.[13]
The film was very successful in France, and was also shown internationally, introducing Deneuve to a larger audience. It was nominated for severalAcademy Awards, including for Best Foreign Film, Best Song, Best Soundtrack, and Best Original Screenplay.[14][15] It won three awards at the1964 Cannes Film Festival, including its top prize, thePalme d'Or.[16] Jim Ridley has called Cherbourg "the most affecting of movie musicals, and perhaps the fullest expression of [Demy's] career-long fascination with the entwining of real life, chance, and the bewitching artifice of cinematic illusion."[17]
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was met with critical acclaim and is often regarded as one of the best musical films of all time.[18][19] On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Jacques Demy elevates the basic drama of everyday life into a soaring opera full of bittersweet passion and playful charm, featuring a timeless performance from Catherine Deneuve."[20] OnMetacritic, it holds a weighted score of 86 out 100, based on 9 reviews indicating "universal acclaim".[21]
In a review forEmpire magazine, Kim Newman awarded the film 5/5 stars and praised the "depths of operatic emotion under the hum-along singspiel" delivered by the films leads.[22] Nigel Andrews, writing for theFinancial Times awarded the film 4 stars out of 5 calling the film "a body of work slim but exquisitely styled".[23] Kevin Maher forThe Times, in a review of a re-release of the film in 2019, also lauded the film, awarding it 5/5 stars.[24] Significant praise has also been directed to the entirely sung through nature of the film, with bothJames Berardinelli of reelviews andRoger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times praising this aspect of the film in their reviews.[25]
Stanley Kauffmann ofThe New Republic describedThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg as "tired material".[26]
A restored digital version ofUmbrellas of Cherbourg was shown as part of the Cannes Classics section of the2013 Cannes Film Festival.[27]
FilmmakerDamien Chazelle has listed it as one of his favorite films and a major influence on his 2016 filmLa La Land.[28][29]Greta Gerwig cited the film as an inspiration for her 2023 filmBarbie.[30]
In 1979, an English-language stage adaptation, with lyrics translated bySheldon Harnick, premiered at thePublic Theater in New York City.[36]
In 2005 a major revision by Harnick was produced at theTwo River Theatre Company inRed Bank, New Jersey. Musical director/conductor Nathan Hurwitz provided new orchestration. The cast includedMax von Essen as Guy, Heather Spore as Genevieve, and Maureen Silliman as Madame Émery. Other cast members included Ken Krugman, Patti Perkins, Robyn Payne, Jonathan Kaplan, Steven Stein Grainger, Brett Rigby, and Sara Delaney. Direction was by artistic director Jonathan Fox and choreography was by Ginger Thatcher.[37]
In 2011, theKneehigh Theatre Company in London presented the musical, starringJoanna Riding as Madame Émery, cabaret artistMeow Meow as theMaîtresse, andAndrew Durand as Guy.[38] The production was directed byEmma Rice. It was given tryouts at Leicester'sCurve Theatre from 11 to 26 February 2011 and began previews in theWest End at theGielgud Theatre from 5 March, officially opening on 22 March.[38] It was due to run until October 2011, but closed on 21 May 2011.[39]
The West End cast:[40]
The film version released in 2004 on DVD byKoch-Lorber Films is a completely restored version of the original.[9]
The film was originally shot onEastman negative stock, which had rapidly faded and thus had become almost unusable. The various copies of the film used in the cinema circuit gradually lost their quality.Umbrellas thus could not be seen with the rich colours which Demy had originally intended.
Knowing as he did that the Eastman stock would fade over time, Demy had made the three main yellow, cyan and magenta colorseparation masters on black-and-white negative films, which do not fade. These black-and-white separations had greater longevity.[a]
In the 1990s, Demy's wife, film directorAgnès Varda, headed a project to create a new colour-negative film from the three black and white separations. Restored full-color prints were made from this in 2004. The resulting film recaptured Demy's vision of a fantastically colourful Cherbourg.
Composer Michel Legrand assisted in restoring the original four-track stereo sound masters to digital. He remastered his score to produce a higher-quality version, released in 2014.
A digital version of the film was released on Blu-ray by Ciné Tamaris in 2013, on the 50th anniversary of its original release. This version was restored independently of the 2004 version with colour grading supervised by Demy's sonMathieu Demy.[41]
A new 4K restoration of the film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.[42]
The title of the film inspired a musical short subject, released in 1969 and titledLes Bicyclettes de Belsize, which essentially parodied it.Douglas Hickox directed the said short subject, andLes Reed andBarry Mason composed the music and wrote the lyrics to its title song, French and English versions of which charted in 1969 forMireille Mathieu andEngelbert Humperdinck respectively.
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