Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

QFS No. 161 - The invitation for December 18, 2024
What kind of sicko would watch a French film from the 1960s during this time of the year when there is an entire subgenre of “Christmas movies” available at our fingertips?

You, is the answer. And me, more accurately.

Yes, Umbrellas of Cherbourg may not seem like a holiday classic. But it very well could be! It appears that way on at least one site I’ve consulted, and nevertheless I’ve had this movie on my radar for a long time. For starters, the visuals have inspired a legion of filmmakers, including most recently Greta Gerwig who cites it as one of her inspirations for the visual style and color palate of Barbie (2023). And it stars the great Catherine Deneuve in this unique musical from France.

Everything I’ve heard about the film is highly positive, including its inclusion on the BFI Greatest Films List where it’s 122nd Greatest Film of All Time, tied with There Will Be Blood (2007), The Matrix (1999), The Color of Pomegranates (1968, QFS No. 130), Johnny Guitar (1954) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Quite a logjam at 122nd! (Also, just after The Thing, 1982, QFS No. 115.

Look, I know – French film, and a musical no less! Have you gone mad? The answer is – have you seen 2024? It’s made us all a little mad. My dislike of musicals aside, I’ve heard great things about Umbrellas of Cherbourg and very much looking forward to seeing it on this, the 60th Anniversary of the film’s release!

So do join me in watching this, our final film of 2024 and discuss below!

Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Directed by Jacques Demy

Reactions and Analyses:
Early on in Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), one of Guy Foucher’s (Nino Castelnuovo) co-workers in the auto mechanic shop finds out that Guy is going to see the opera Carmen and can’t stay late at work or join them at the game. One of the co-workers says, “I don’t like operas. Movies are better.”

Guy’s (Nino Catelnuovo) co-workers prefer movies to operas. We’ve got news for you…

The great irony, of course, is that the co-worker is singing this line of dialogue, just as everyone is singing every line in this movie. Opera, being the other medium where singing from start to finish is what we expect. Here, of course, in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, everyone is also singing throughout – the throw-away line feels like director Jacques Demy’s fun inside joke to us, the audience, watching this film that’s more opera that movie.

The more traditional musicals, by and large, rely on a certain artifice of course and the musical numbers puncture the realism that movies attempt replicate on the screen. But with a musical, you know you’re watching something not-quite reality and any time a musical number begins it’s a necessary interruption from the narrative norm. Take an animated Disney film or a standard Hindi/Bollywood film – the narrative usually continues forward until the next musical number where you’re reminded you’re watching a musical.

Everyone is singing in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but it’s their language.

In Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the music is constant and all the mundane aspects of life are sung. It was as if I was watching a movie in a foreign language (beyond just French) in which that’s just they speak in Cherbourg. I found myself giving in to the singing and in a way didn’t even realize I was watching a musical any longer. Once a film’s grammar or its style is established – could be fantastical or documentary style or neorealist – it’s easy to disappear into it. For me, I find myself as a viewer less able to disappear into a standard musical because of the puncturing of reality the musical numbers take.

But I didn’t experience that sensation in Umbrellas of Cherbourg – I was swept away into its world and could accept that even the mailman will sing his only line, saying he has a letter for Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) or that the gas station attendant will sing when he asks whether she wants diesel or regular. The language was set and the grammar established and the rules were clear – everyone sings.

Our group also got to wondering: Is Umbrellas of Cherbourg the greatest wallpapered movie of all time? If not, what could be No. 1? The use of color in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, of course, have long been celebrated. But despite the vibrancy of the sets and costumes, the film is not candy and saccharine, which is what I had anticipated. The film contains teenage pregnancy out of wedlock, discussions about what to do about it, a depressed man visiting a brothel and hiring a prostitute, a dying aunt, going off to war, and a gas station of all places as a climactic romantic scene. Though it might look like it, this is not candy.

Roland (Marc Michel) and Genevieve get married in haste, and the montage enhances the rapid nature of the relationship.

And the filmmaking isn’t candy either. There are no dance numbers, no nods to the audience except for that clever line about the opera at the beginning of the film. There’s nothing cutesy about the relationships - Genevieve’s mother (Anne Vernon) consistently berates her and is more concerned about what others will think about her pregnant teen instead of her actual well being. When Genevieve decides to marry Roland (Marc Michel) in order to avoid financial ruin, that montage is a prime example of how to advance time and story simultaneously. And in that advancing of time we get the hasty nature of the relationship - it’s full-steam ahead and Demy shows us how quickly events unfold from decision to marriage.

And this shot of Guy leaving for war and pulling away from Genevieve is utterly stunning and evocative - the music crescendos and Genevieve gets smaller and smaller in the distance and eventually out of Guy’s life altogether. It’s utterly perfect.

A stunningly emotional scene of Guy’s perspective of his train pulling away from Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) as he goes off to war.

With the deft filmmaking and use of color throughout to enhance the storytelling, it's no wonder Umbrellas of Cherbourg have inspired contemporary filmmakers, most notably the costumes and set design utilized by Greta Gerwig for Barbie (2023) and much of the story, the color and the climactic sequences of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016). But several of us in the group suspected that Spike Lee perhaps took some inspiration from Demy’s film as well. Guy has been drafted and about to leave for war in which he and Genevieve are in the alley in embrace. They’re moving but not walking, and the wall moves behind them as they sort of glide along – it’s one of the only non-realistic (other than the singing) moments in the film, so our attention is brought to it immediately.

Colors awash in Barbie (2023).

Bold colors in La La Land (2016).

Spike Lee uses this technique of putting the actor or actors and camera on a moving platform so often that it’s hard to list all the films he deploys this shot - most recently seen in BlacKkKlansman (2018, QFS No. 83). Demy is not the first to do this of course, but throw in the use of big bold colors on the set design and decoration along with the melodrama of the story, and it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that Umbrellas of Cherbourg had an impact on Do the Right Thing (1989) (especially given Lee’s admiration for great cinema that came before him).

Guy and Genevieve on a platform with a camera, the world moving behind them as they “float.”

BlackKklansman (2018, QFS No. 83) using the platform shot to bridge into the final sequence.

Do the Right Thing (1989) uses bold colors to accentuate the heat.

Genevieve’s mother (Anne Vernon) against bold pink in the umbrella shop.

Coconut Sid (Frankie Faison) against red on his street in Brooklyn in Do the Right Thing (1989).

The film has endured with filmmakers in many ways similar to the way Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has endured over the years, I’d argue. Not on the historic magnitude as Shakespeare, of course, but Demy’s story about young impetuous love, missed opportunities, and bittersweet tragedy would be familiar to The Bard. Shakespearean melodrama elements all right there, tragic and beautiful at the same time. In the end, Guy and Genevieve never manage to build a life together and Guy is her daughter’s biological father – but they will never meet. And Roland has chosen to love Genevieve and marry her despite knowing she was pregnant at the time. We never see Roland again on screen but we see that Genevieve is now the wealthy wife and seemingly happy – though now, draped in brown fur as the wealthy do and not awash in the colors of her pre-motherhood youth.

Genevieve and Guy and their chance encounter at Guy’s new service station at Christmas time.

And the final shot – perhaps arguably the most cinematic conclusion you can have at a gas station – suggests that although life didn’t work out as planned for either Guy or Genevieve, they have found a life that has made them happy, or at least content. It’s not the ending you expect of a standard musical, but if anything from the movie is clear, Umbrellas of Cherbourg is anything but standard.  

The final crane shot above the service station - a unique way to conclude a unique movie musical.