Screen Savers Movies » The Umbrellas of Cherbourg http://screensaversmovies.com 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:54:42 +0000 en hourly 1 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964 http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:01:43 +0000 Jennifer Kurdyla, Editor http://screensaversmovies.com/?p=200 The one common thread between The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and most of the Hollywood musicals of the 60s is its use of dubbed vocals for its principal players. There’s no musical star here, no Astaire to wow us, but Umbrellas of Cherbourg oddly doesn’t really require one. The piece is so intimate that none of the cast is asked to “perform” in the energized manner we associate with musicals; there’s no trace of showbiz anywhere. The dubbed voices are good but rightly unspectacular, believably matched to the actors and their ordinary characters. The lip-synching is so impeccably achieved that the singing seems as organic as speech. No one breaks into song in this film because they never do anything but sing. With all the dialogue sung, there are no “numbers” to speak of; the film is sustained musicalized storytelling, a cinematic chamber opera. As you become absorbed into this world, you almost forget that everyone, including the postman and bartenders, is singing rather than talking. There is no dancing except for social dancing, and the plot being served is essentially a soap opera. How could the result have been anything but a travesty? Two key reasons for the film’s success are Michel Legrand’s rapturously beautiful and haunting music and Demy’s enchanting and voluptuous color palette, yet neither fully explains the unique magic at work here. What makes The Umbrellas of Cherbourg a wonder rather than a vulgarity is its utter simplicity. People may be singing, and they may live in a world of fervent color, but the story is acted and directed cleanly, naturally, and personally. The slightest overacting would destroy the illusion; the actors just had to be. This is an unusually interior musical, one in which emotional resonance springs from romantic clichés. Demy’s visual style may not be realistic, but his artifice enhances the simply human story being told, an acknowledgment of the intensity of ordinary lives. (Cherbourg residents allowed him to paint their buildings to suit his vision.) The color, the music, the singing, and the buoyant camerawork enrich the feelings expressed naturalistically by the cast, and the purity of the performances grounds the film’s fanciful trappings. The all-singing structure carries the advantage of obliterating those potentially awkward talking-into-singing transitions in musicals that can provoke titters.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.

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]]> http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964/feed 0 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964): The Rule Breaker from Abroad http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964-the-rule-breaker-from-abroad http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964-the-rule-breaker-from-abroad#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:34:38 +0000 John DiLeo http://screensaversmovies.com/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-1964-the-rule-breaker-from-abroad/ The one common thread between The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and most of the Hollywood musicals of the 60s is its use of dubbed vocals for its principal players. There’s no musical star here, no Astaire to wow us, but Umbrellas of Cherbourg oddly doesn’t really require one. The piece is so intimate that none of the cast is asked to “perform” in the energized manner we associate with musicals; there’s no trace of showbiz anywhere. The dubbed voices are good but rightly unspectacular, believably matched to the actors and their ordinary characters. The lip-synching is so impeccably achieved that the singing seems as organic as speech. No one breaks into song in this film because they never do anything but sing. With all the dialogue sung, there are no “numbers” to speak of; the film is sustained musicalized storytelling, a cinematic chamber opera. As you become absorbed into this world, you almost forget that everyone, including the postman and bartenders, is singing rather than talking. There is no dancing except for social dancing, and the plot being served is essentially a soap opera. How could the result have been anything but a travesty? Two key reasons for the film’s success are Michel Legrand’s rapturously beautiful and haunting music and Demy’s enchanting and voluptuous color palette, yet neither fully explains the unique magic at work here. What makes The Umbrellas of Cherbourg a wonder rather than a vulgarity is its utter simplicity. People may be singing, and they may live in a world of fervent color, but the story is acted and directed cleanly, naturally, and personally. The slightest overacting would destroy the illusion; the actors just had to be. This is an unusually interior musical, one in which emotional resonance springs from romantic clichés. Demy’s visual style may not be realistic, but his artifice enhances the simply human story being told, an acknowledgment of the intensity of ordinary lives. (Cherbourg residents allowed him to paint their buildings to suit his vision.) The color, the music, the singing, and the buoyant camerawork enrich the feelings expressed naturalistically by the cast, and the purity of the performances grounds the film’s fanciful trappings. The all-singing structure carries the advantage of obliterating those potentially awkward talking-into-singing transitions in musicals that can provoke titters.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.

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