The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Perfect film

A wonderful film, but OP is an idiot. Music by Michel Legrand, OP. Michel. Legrand.

Interesting trivia: the cast were all chosen for their looks, and all of them were dubbed.

Nino Castelnuovo was one of the most beautiful men who ever lived.

Wonderful, beautiful film.

A truly beautiful film -a work of art.

Bittersweet

The best wallpaper ever in a movie.

Catherine fondly recalls the goosing and groping she enjoyed from cast and crew alike on the Criterion Blu-ray alternate vocal track.

R2 You are right. That is who I meant to type, not Jacques Demy

Perfect film. You have not seen it unless you're seen in on the big screen with excellent sound.

Anne Vernon, who played Deneuve’s mother, turns 99 years old in a week.

I sent her a bottle of Jean Nate and a nice blouse, r10.

R10, yep, until Nino's death last year, all the major cast members were still alive, mom included!

Chris Montez did it best.

This makes me cry every time...

Dreamy Marc Michel first played Roland in Demy's brilliant "Lola."

My favorite, non-English, language film. I saw it first at The Castro Theatre in San Francisco, on a big screen, several years back.

French pop music has a very annoying, childish sound to me. So I’ve never been in a rush to see it.

The production design alone is worth a comment.

It's also one of those films that grows more poignant as we age. Discovering the film in a grand old empty cinema at 21 was revelatory. It was a beautiful cautionary tale. Watching it again now in my 40s stirs the very real feelings of loss and regret one only acquires over time.

I was totally in love with Nino Castelnuovo in this movie - I'd have happily shacked up with him 'til death did us part in that Cherbourgoise Service Station.

Any fans of Jacques Demy's film Model Shop? Starring Anouk Aimée and Gary Lockwood.

Could someone give me a synopsis?

One of my favorite films, OP! Nino was so hot!

Attention: Times Square Visitors Tonight. Rain will continue. Umbrellas not permitted. Wear hat, shower cap, or black garbage bag.

R22, this is a brightly colored french musical set in the 60s. A girl who works in her mother's umbrella shop falls for a handsome mechanic. She gets pregnant shortly before he is conscripted. At her mother's urgings, she ultimately marries a nice merchant from Paris. Her lover returns from the war to find her gone. He marries another girl and opens his own garage. Years later, the pair run into each other at his station. It is clear they still love each other but have also moved on. My description does not do the movie much justice. It is very bittersweet, chic and unique.

This is the ultimate French film. A small story about normal people who love then grow apart, but it knows it’s a film. It’s realistic in every aspect except the fact that everyone sings.

Youthful romance crashes against the cold reality of adulthood and financial security. Beauty, love, idealism, optimism, separation, sorrow, loss, regret, and the haunting, inescapable, irreversible specter of the past. Set entirely to music.

It's charming for the first ten minutes or so then it gets on my nerves-

Shut the fuck up!

Stop singing and start talking.

The ending is so 'European' and quite beautiful in its 'dream small' realism.

Everyone's compromised their dreams, but they shrug and carry on and find happiness where they can.

This film has been one of my favorites for more than 35 years- I saw it on VHS before the first big theatrical rerelease in the US in the early 90s. I think one of the ways it is so unique is that it talks about real adult problems and disappointments (war, abandonment, loss of time) in a very fairytale like manner with the music, colors, etc. It is interesting that it is one of the first French films to discuss the Algerian war in the plot.

Over the years, however, I sometimes feel that the Catherine Deneuve/Genevieve character unfairly gets the short end of the stick and pays the price of their romance. What do you think?

I love the way the plot is constructed. Even from the very first scene when they are so infatuated, they both admit that they are totally wrong for each other- Guy wants to run a gas station and Genevieve hates the smell of gasoline.

R25 way to spoil the entire movie...

Patrick Fiori does a very impressive version of the main song.

Ugh, it's a musical?

R31, someone asked for a synopsis, R25 gave them a good, brief one. What's your beef?

Even better, more of an operetta. There is no spoken dialogue. It’s all sung and it’s all dubbed. It’s amazing to behold.

The End

R21: Saw it once, and I thought it was good. A film that captures an era.

...Rochefort

[quote] one of the greatest French films of all time

OP, please tell us which is THE greatest French film of all time?

R39 I think anyone could argue Children or Paradise, The Passion of Joan of Arc, or The Rules of the Game is the greatest.

^ All slow-moving and monochrome.

R41 Well, what do you think THE greatest French film is?

*Greatest* is subjective.

I stay away from making grandiose statements about "art" and "cinema".

"art" and "cinema" rely on personal opinions at a particular time and place.

An adolescent will make grandiose statements about "art" and "cinema" and completely reverse their options in ten years time.

R39/44 Someone is a little pretentious

This odd little film is in 3 acts. The mood is quite different between the 3 acts.

And I vaguely remember that the main star disappears. [?]

^ The first act is the couple. The second focuses on Deneuve. The last is our late beauty Nino.

Is it Deneuve who dies?

R48 watch the movie and see for yourself

It's a minor character who dies

Nobody dies.

But it is an anti-war film and a different one at that. Showing how war louses up peoples lives through a young couple who's love is forced to be abandoned though they still love each other, and their lives as well as they sing their way through the movie. It is refreshing. An anti-war movie without the violence.

It is also a 'horse of a different color' and this article is a very nice read pointing that out with some wonderful shots from the movie.

I get confused between this excessively-sugary film and the sequel.

R51 I thought the aunt who took care of the male lead died.

Je suis "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort," avec Gene Kelly.

By the end, both mother figures are dead. But both death happen off screen.

R53 is correct, and R51 is... mistaken.

Just watch the film -it's beautiful.

A pair of Twins from The Young Girls of Rochefort.

IIRC, one of the musical themes (Roland's? Lola's?) originated in Demy's first film, "Lola," which, as noted above, also featured the character of Roland Cassard. I remember watching "Lola" on TCM and thinking that the piece of music sounded awfully familiar (I think it is the one that became "Watch What Happens.")

Watch what happens...

Young Girls...

^ Baa-dubba-dubba-dub-dah!