The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964): Colourful But Lifeless Musical Drama

If you wanted to be mean, you could describe The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as what people who don’t like musicals think all musicals are like – big emotions, melodramatic story, characters singing all the time when they could just talk normally. On the flip side, it is also a musical that people who don’t like musicals can point to as subverting typical musical conventions by using elements of the genre to depict the ordinary lives of people, the core of ‘real drama’; it is an ‘elevated musical’ if you will.

The problem with both these perspectives is that they ignore that you can’t make a film like Umbrellas of Cherbourg unless you care enough about musicals to know how to do it well. The musical conventions at play here are not shallowly used for commercial appeal or cynically used to undermine its own genre. They are used to tell a story, as literally every other musical does. This is all coming across as overly defensive, but the reason behind it is that Umbrellas of Cherbourg is far more accessible than its reputation would suggest.

It’s a simple story of thwarted lovers Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) and Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) whose dreams of a life together are interrupted by realities of war and financial difficulties. The story parallels the style of the film, with plain spoken dialogue set to music removing the escapist quality that musical songs usually have. Director and writer Jacques Demy retains some theatricality in marking out a clear three act structure, introduced with title cards; The Departure, The Absence, and The Return. This and the fact that it is now over sixty years old give it a similar ‘classic’ quality as something like Brief Encounter (a cinematic adaptation of a play) building up to a suitably sad final scene. As such, it was a familiar tale even at the time of release, but these sort of low-key tragedies last for a reason, never failing to pull your heart-strings.

The simplicity of this story is complimented by the playfulness of the filmmaking. Michel Legrand’s earnest songs exist in a world where characters have a degree of self-awareness, such as one of Guy’s co-workers singing, ‘I don’t like opera. Movies are better,’ or Genevieve’s mother commenting that ‘people only die of love in movies.’ There’s a risk of this being jarring with the earnest of the story but Demy shows restraint in having these meta moments scattered throughout the film rather than a defining tone. Indeed, the film succeeds best when being earnest and fusing theatricality with realism, such as when the lovers literally glide through the streets or an exquisite match cut of Guy holding Gene in the street and then holding her in the same position in a bar

Using these stylised techniques and camera movements for a story of ordinary people with ordinary lives is a clearly stated artistic intent that is central to the film’s appeal. It is also singled-out these days for its colourfulness, perfect for social media discussions of film that are obsessed with ‘one perfect shots’ and Western mainstream cinema’s increasingly adverse use of bright colour palettes. What is striking about the use of colour is how it is just an accepted part of the filmmaking; these are not ostentatious in the world of the film, this is just a colourful world. Hence the ache in contrasting with people’s unhappy lives, such as when another suitor vying for Genevieve’s affection recounts loving a woman who didn’t love him. We don’t see this woman in flashback, but instead are shown an empty market. A colourful world is empty without life to populate it. It’s a bittersweet moment though also one that reflects my feelings about the film.

For all that it looks nice and is well sung, it’s difficult to not feel that this just masks what would be an otherwise forgettable romantic drama. There’s a slightly empty quality in playful filmmaking that is dependant on familiar storylines and character types rather than anything reflecting human drama. It’s ironic that the film is much like it’s male characters who commit to a relationship not because of the woman in front of them but as part of a fruitless chasing after a memory of a lost love. The fact that the actors did not even do their own singing, while hardly uncommon for movie musicals especially in this period, adds to the disconnect

In a strange coincidence, I had watched a Dennis Potter interview before watching this film where he is asked about his use of lip syncing to popular music and he explains how what distinguishes popular culture from ‘considerable art’ is its generality and how audiences will draw out specificity from it. To me, this feel like what Demy is aiming for, but doing it sung-through keeps the drama at a high emotional register that is difficult to engage with on a human level. Compared to successful musicals like Les Miserables and Hamilton where the stories are full of big emotion and so well-suited to being sung-through, the contrast here between the style and the story is too great to fully reconcile.

Criterion releases of a film automatically gives it a certain ‘respectable’ status that is hard to ignore. Putting aside any concerns caused by this label of ‘a Criterion film’, I think it’s safe to say that the comparisons often made between Umbrellas of Cherbourg and La La Land are valid in that they are both engaging musicals with plenty of heart that are pleasant enough to watch but too aesthetically driven to fully engage me. It fits in nicely with the many musicals out there that are well made and engaging but ultimately not one that I can understand why it is deserving of special treatment or especially high praise.

MIKE’S ARCHIVE – THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG