What Color Is Your Parapluie?

For
weeks now, my boss has been making faces at me every time I mention this story about the
restoration of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (or Les Parapluies de
Cherbourg as the 1964 French film is known in its homeland). These faces he
makes are not expressions of delight. Quite the opposite. Yet I know why he
winces. I once felt the same way. Although over time, I’ve come to see The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg as a thoroughly original piece of filmmaking and a
masterful celebration of the artifice of making movies, I know I once regarded
Umbrellas as woefully contrived and sentimental fluff. I, too, used to
wrinkle my nose in disgust. But I no longer sing that old dismissive tune. And
now that this spectacularly restored print is in limited circulation throughout
America, its jaded naysayers owe it the courtesy of a reassessment, and fresh
newcomers deserve an introduction.

In The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, every word of dialogue is sung. The
film’s lyrics (translated in subtitles) by writer-director Jacques Demy were
beautifully scored and conducted by the now-famous composer Michel Legrand,
whose international reputation was sealed on the basis of this film. In the
opening scene, a garage mechanic sings his estimate of an engine and, with
that, the movie’s bold conceit is off and running. Though it uses the structure
of opera, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is, at heart, a Hollywood musical.
The sung dialogue is conversational and fluid, devoid of any operatic staginess
and spotlighted solo work. It’s pop opera, if you will, borrowing from opera
and movie musicals to create something thoroughly modern and bewitching. And
though you expect the contrivance to fail at any moment, the movie quells all
such skepticism with its perfect balance of stylistic artifice and emotional
naturalism.

The other startling aspect of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is its vibrant
and ebullient use of color and decor. Colors are saturated to their richest and
most eye-captivating hues… and then some; backdrops and sets are bathed in
unearthly colors that stimulate the senses but defy all logic. Green and purple
— usually paired together — are the movie’s most common background colors, so
much so that a solid red is perceived by the eye as a soothing relief. Even the
plentiful pastels are bold. Demy’s visual riches encompass patterns and
textures: wallpaper is not only colorful but flocked, clothing is not only
vivid but sensuous, umbrellas are not only utilitarian but ornamental. Never
for a second does the movie let you forget that you are in a fabricated and
artificial movie universe.

Although Jacques Demy began making films in 1960 at the same time as the
titans of the French New Wave (Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude
Chabrol, et al.), Demy’s name is only loosely associated with these figures.
Amongst other things, the New Wave films are recognized for their tight budgets
and free-ranging location work. Though these filmmakers all admired the
American cinema and its studio product, each tried to bend Hollywood’s
structures to accommodate his own narrative needs. Demy may have been the only
one amongst them who wanted (or at least admitted his desire) to make a
big-budget, Hollywood-style musical. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is as
close as he ever came to fulfilling that dream. Other films of note include his
first film Lola (1960), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967),
Model Shop (1969), and Donkey Skin (1970). The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg is probably his most perfectly realized work, and won the
prestigious Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film restoration has meant that, for the first time in a couple of
decades, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg can be seen in colors that closely
resemble its original palette. Shot in Eastmancolor, a comparatively cheap film
stock, Demy knew that the release prints would fade in a matter of a few years
and the colors would gradually merge into that distinctive reddish-pink
Eastmancolor haze. Thus, before any release prints were struck, Demy had the
lab make three black-and-white color-selected prints from which new color
internegatives might later be struck. Although Demy died in 1990, the
restoration was supervised by his widow, filmmaker Agn�s Varda, and
Legrand, who had to completely remix (and sometimes wholly reconstruct) the
sound. The sound and picture quality of the restored print far surpasses that
of any print or video version in circulation for at least the last couple of
decades.

One thing that hasn’t changed much with the passage of time is the visage of
Catherine Deneuve, who stars here in one of her first screen roles as
Genevieve, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg‘s lovestruck teen. One of her very
first film roles, Deneuve was only 20 years old when she made Umbrellas.
She’s seen here as a lissome ingenue, full of spunk and fire — a far stretch
from the ice princess persona that would soon become her screen identity. We
can see in Umbrellas that classic face, a face that has not aged but,
instead, matured.

In The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Deneuve plays the 16-year-old Genevieve,
who is in the throes of experiencing her first love. She lives in the rainy
harbor town of Cherbourg with her mother (Anne Vernon), who owns the
ever-colorful umbrella shop called “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.” Genevieve and
Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) are starry-eyed lovers who coo their proclamations of
eternal love, and believe every word they sing. Then Guy receives his draft
notice and departs for his two-year military stint (made all the more dangerous
because of France’s then-involvement in the Algerian war). After Guy’s
departure, which is followed by his infrequent letters, Genevieve learns she is
pregnant. Deciding what to do and then facing the consequences of that decision
form the rest of the movie’s plot line.

The movie, easily, could have dipped into mawkish romanticism. Remarkably, it
maintains a cool and reasonable attitude toward its characters, which is
something I did not remember from my initial viewing years ago. (I wonder if
viewers have an unconscious tendency to lump together The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg with that other French romance powerhouse of the era, A Man
and a Woman — a movie which can legitimately be associated with
mawkish romanticism.) Despite its candy-colored sheen, Demy’s pop opera has a
hard-nugget core. It knows enough to take young love with a grain of salt, even
if the lovers are oblivious to any wisdom but their own. Some very hard and
unexpected decisions are made by characters who we have come to regard as blind
fools for love. Gloomy shadows of things like the war in Algeria, bankruptcy,
and love betrayed creep into the frilly grace notes of the dialogue. By the
time of the film’s closing moments, when a gas station attendant inquires
whether Genevieve wants her car filled with “super” or “regular,” we know that
the question has become a metaphor for her life.

“People only die of love in the movies,” says one of Umbrella‘s
hard-nosed characters. By equal measure, it would seem that “living happily
ever after” is also a conceptual byproduct of the movies. For Demy, reality is
not as tidy and pat as the movies make it out to be. Thus, as he’s busy
creating a patently artificial movie universe with one hand, he’s using the
other to shape a realistic and truthful emotional core. With the deft skills of
a magician, Demy allows the movie’s elaborate formal structure and decorative
stimuli to serve as convenient trompe l’oeils that distract the viewer
from worrying too much about the less attractive emotional realities that lurk
below his glossy surfaces. Bitter tonics are embedded in the cotton candy so
that they pass smoothly and leave little outward trace. What we remember is the
rush of the cotton candy; the long-term effects of the tonic are systemic and
more subtle.

Thus, what I once regarded as mind fluff I’ve now come to see as an
imaginative and radical artistic structure. Discordant notes are swept along by
beautiful melodies. Distasteful truths are made palatable by blending them into
the visible feast. And decorative umbrellas can offer shelter from the storm.
Offering the best of both worlds, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg appears
like an impossible dream, like a nutritious trip to the candy store. Well, only
in the movies.

This article appears in July 19 • 1996 and July 19 • 1996 (Cover).