(1964) Rain splashes on cobblestone streets, multi-colored parapluies pop up against pastel walls, and ardent lovers rendezvous, while music fills the air. Nothing like Jacques Demy’s musical fantasy had ever been seen before, as Bernard Evein’s production design (“insane with color” – New York Magazine) and Demy’s own artistry transformed the actual streets of Cherbourg, on which lovers Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo meet, into the most ethereal of creations; while every line of dialogue, from mundane car mechanics’ jargon to the transcendence of the young lovers’ impassioned vows, is sung to Michel Legrand’s now-classic score. This jeu d’esprit of the French New Wave wedded the movement’s stylistic innovations to the worlds of Marcel Pagnol, Frank Borzage and Vincente Minnelli; made Legrand, Demy and 20-year-old Deneuve internationally famous; took the top prize and Best Actress award at Cannes; garnered five Oscar nominations; and, in its overwhelming romanticism, capped by a snow-blanketed Christmas climax at an Esso station, reduced packed houses around the world to bittersweet tears. By the 1980s, however, the original negative of this most color ful of films was considered damaged beyond repair. But the rediscovery of three color separations — a black & white negative for each of the primary colors — began a restoration campaign headed by Demy’s widow, the director Agnès Varda, and composer Legrand, who re-mixed the entire soundtrack in Dolby stereo. A smash hit when it re-opened in 1996, Umbrellas is more breathtakingly beautiful than ever.

A ZEITGEIST FILMS RELEASE

Links:

• Jacques Demy (Senses of Cinema)
• The worlds of Jacques Demy (in french)
• Tour Sur Deneuve (Everything about Deneuve) (in french)
• Jacques Demy Biography & Filmography

Available at Amazon:

THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
SOUNDTRACK [CD]