424 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, France, 1964. Dir. Jacques Demy.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

424 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, France, 1964.  Dir. Jacques Demy.

L'Infidelite, ou Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Before there was La La Land, there was Ooh La La Land.  The French version.  More than fifty years before.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.  An explosion of color and sound and romantic sentiment and lyrical beauty and joy and sadness.

Catherine Deneuve is twenty.

Nino Castelnuovo, her costar, is twenty-eight.

Jacques Demy, their director, is thirty-three, and working on his fourth feature film.

And he has an idea that seems to spring from both a youthful heart and an old soul.

What makes a musical?

A story with songs.

What if we remove the songs but keep the singing.  And tell the entire story only with singing.  Every line of dialogue sung.

And begin by looking down on those colorful umbrellas as the water falls around us from above.

Talk about singing in the rain.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is the shop around the corner.  The umbrella shop owned by Genevieve's mother Madame Emery.  The sixteen (seventeen!) year-old Genevieve works there to help her mother, and she is secretly in love with a guy named Guy.

Guy Foucher works at the nearby gas station, and he has a dream of owning his own one day.  Of having a family.  A wife and children.  And taking care of them.  As the owner of the store.

The guys talk (or sing) about what they are going to do after work.  The theater.  The cinema.  Dancing.  Guy is going to see Genevieve.  This evening.  Every evening.  Every day.  For the rest of their lives.

Genevieve's mother is in debt.  They may have to close the store.  They are in grave financial trouble.  She tries to sell her pearls to her jeweler but he is in not position to buy them.  He can only put them on sale on consignment.  But she needs the money now.  A man named Roland Cassard is in the jewelry store.  He overhears them.  He offers to buy the pearls.  He saves Madame Emery.  He sees Genevieve.

Guy's Aunt Elise is dying.  A girl named Madeleine stays there to help her.  Guy loves his Aunt Elise.  His Aunt Elise loves him.  Guy tells his Aunt Elise about Genevieve.  She supports him.

Genevieve tells her mother about Guy.  Madame Emery does not support her.  She resists.  Genevieve is too young.  She needs to wait.

Guy and Genevieve are in love with each other.  And determined to be together no matter what.  They sing about it.  They dance together.  They love.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg follows the lovers over the next few months and the next few years.  How will it all turn out?

We will let them sing it for you themselves.

In their touching and heartfelt way.


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When you think of a musical, you typically think of a normal story involving spoken dialogue and action, but with the added element that throughout the story people break into song and dance.
It is a play or movie that contains songs.  The songs can be sold separately as a soundtrack to which people can listen and sing along.

In the credits, then, someone writes, or composes, the music.  Someone writes the lyrics.  And someone writes what is called "the book."  This is the part that is spoken and not sung.  In other words, it is the play itself, or the screenplay.  It is the story upon which the songs are added.

So (not counting choreography) you have three credits.  Book.  Lyrics.  Music.  Consequently, you could have three (or more) people involved.  The Writer.  The Lyricist.  The Composer.

Yet often these three duties are shared by two people.  One person writes all the words, both book and lyrics, and the other person composes the music.  Or one person writes the play or screenplay, and the other person writes the songs, both music and lyrics.

Over time people work together repeatedly and form teams.

Rogers and Hammerstein, for example.  Richard Rogers composes the music.  Oscar Hammerstein II writes the song lyrics and the spoken dialogue.  Or, as in the case of South Pacific, Joshua Logan helps Hammerstein with the book.

Lerner and Loewe.  Alan Jay Lerner writes the play and the lyrics.  Frederick Loewe composes the music.

Or Herbert and Dorothy Fields write the play and Irving Berlin composes the songs, both words and music.

But what if someone wanted to make a musical in a different way?

What if, say, instead of talking interspersed with singing songs, what if people simply sang the dialogue?  All the dialogue.  All the way through the movie.  Operas are done that way.  Why not a film?

What if there were no songs at all, and therefore no song lyrics, and therefore no credit for lyrics.

What if there was only a screenplay set to music.

Screenplay by Jacques Demy.  Music by Michel Legrand.

The result is that the dialogue might not rhyme, and the melody must conform to the written words.  It works out.  And it works out nicely.