The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Directed by Jacques Demy. With Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel. A young woman separated from her lover by war faces a life-altering decision.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 French-West German musical-romantic drama film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand. The film dialogue is all sung as recitativ

Has there ever been an actress in the history of the movies who has changed as little and aged as slowly as Catherine Deneuve? Here she is in "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," her first major film, made in 1964 and now restored. Thirty-one years later, I met her at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. To the degree that she had changed, it was simply to ripen, to add experience and sympathy to the raw beauty of a teenager. I am not making empty compliments. Her beauty, then and now, is like a blow to the eyes.

Jacques Demy's 1964 masterpiece is a pop-art opera, or, to borrow the director's own description, a film in song. This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery (a luminous Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant (Marc Michel, reprising his role from Demy's masterful debut, Lola). A completely sung movie, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is closest in form to a cinematic opera. Composer Michel Legrand composed the score, modeling it around the patterns of everyday conversation. Umbrellas was re-released in 1997.

Overview of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964, directed by Jacques Demy, with Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, at Turner Classic Movies

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical film directed by Jacques Demy, and starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, with a musical score by Michel Legrand. The film is unique in that all of the dialogue, even regular conversation

Trailer for Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

Clearly created as an homage to the MGM musicals of the Fifties, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg remains unusually modern with it's acceptance that life ain't like the movies. Writer/director Jaques Demy eliminates all non-singing dialogue and allows the lyrics to be more a reflection