The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Musical

DIRECTOR

Jacques Demy

WRITERS

Jacques Demy

STARS

Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo

BEFORE

1931 Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy, Marius, Fanny, and César, inspires Demy’s trilogy of seaside movies.

1958 Vincente Minnelli’s musical Gigi is an American view of France that Demy cleverly parodies in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

AFTER

1967 Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort unites Catherine Deneuve with Gene Kelly.

2001 Baz Luhrmann recreates a French musical fantasy world in Moulin Rouge!

The second in a trilogy directed by Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) is an innovative movie that combines the fantasy of a Hollywood musical with the French New Wave’s focus on the everyday.

Demy’s insight was to see that the ordinary people being filmed by New Wave directors had dreams and aspirations as romantic as anyone’s. He took a simple story of thwarted love in a small town, and turned it into a musical fantasy. The story hinges on such New Wave concerns as teen pregnancy and prostitution, but Demy tells it in song, on cotton-candy sets.

Catherine Deneuve plays Geneviève, the daughter of an umbrella-store owner. She is bursting with love for a young mechanic, Guy (Nino Castelnuovo). When he is shipped off to fight in Algeria, there is an extended train-platform farewell, underpinned by the movie’s soaring theme tune. But Geneviève’s story is a story of real life. She learns that she’s pregnant, Guy fails to write back, and she is persuaded to marry a rich jeweler to save her mother from financial ruin. Years later, she and Guy meet by chance. By this time he is married and has a son. The pair’s exchange is almost mundane, but the swooning music creates a moment of true heartache for the life that might have been.

The beautiful Geneviève works with her mother in their failing umbrella store. The music is by Michel Legrand, and all the dialogue is sung.

What else to watch: Singin’ in the Rain (1952) ✵ Gigi (1958) ✵ The 400 Blows (1959) ✵ The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)