The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [VHS]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [VHS]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Doroth?e Blank, Georges Blaness, Jos? Bartel, Michel Benoist, Pierre Caden
Primary Contributor: Nino Castelnuovo
Primary Contributor: Catherine Deneuve
Primary Contributor: Anne Vernon
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Letterboxed, NTSC, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Widescreen
Running Time: 88 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Studio: Fox Lorber

VHS Movie Reviews of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [VHS]

Movie Review: Simply Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars

"The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" ("Les Paprapluies de Cherbourg")

Simply Beautiful

Amos Lassen

It was 1964 when I first saw "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and it has always been on my list of favorite movies. It is a beauty of a movie with a wonderful score and beautiful color--it is a feast for the eyes and the ears. Michel LeGrande wrote the score which replaces the dialog and Jacques Demy ably directed this work of pleasure. The film stars Catherine Deneuve (when she was 20) and she plays an ing?nue who falls in love with a mechanic. He is called to war in Algeria after she becomes pregnant and we are there with her while she must decide whether or not to wait for him.
There is, as I said, no dialog. The entire film is sung and we are taken to a world filled with bright colors, joy and sadness. The script is direct and to the point. Some may find the singing silly but I found it delightful and although I cannot put my finger on what it is, there is something quite beautiful yet unrealistic. For one thing everyone is quite beautiful and the sets are wonderfully colorful. The world is turned on its head--poor people wear beautiful colored and expensive clothes, the clothes match the sets.
The plot is quite ordinary but it is straightforward and not complicated. The real charm of the film is in the way the story is told. This has to be one of the most romantic films ever made with fascinating color and exquisite music.

Movie Review: un' etoile
Summary: 5 Stars

A gem. In a scaen, there is a song that starts, "Quelle beaute.." and it is. Michel Legrand's and Jacques Demy's first collaboration is a visual dream. Such beautiful people, Catherine Deneuve and Anne Vernon. They seem to eat ponly carrots and lettuce and although financially hard-up, dress in such beautifully expensive clothes.
The story line has been described to death, so let me just describe the physical beauty of the characters, the sets and the songs. If everyone looked and dressed like them (I guess though that everyone will have to eat like them,) la vida es un sueno. Catherine Deneuve, like a flower, is blossoming into the beauty that she is. Anne Vernon,a mother is as chic and graceful as no mother can be. Marc Michel and Nino Castelnuovo are dreams. There is no Cantinflas in this movie.
There are musical scenes of particular beauty where you feel the music, the singing and the characters as they act it out, to be so good, that it touches you in the deepest part of your mind and emotions. The scene in the jewelry shop, which starts with "What beautiful things..." as jewels in a box are shown and in comes the most beautiful jewels, Catherine and Anne. The poignant scene of departure which has become a hit song, translated as "If it takes forever, I will wait for you." And a softly shimmering song where the jeweler sings of a prior love named Lola, "Autrefois..."
The movie is a beautiful gem that will fascinate and satisfy you in all its color,music and the physical beauty of the characters. I only wish I was in that movie and looked like any of them. Unfortunately, I am real life, but then, that's why we go to movies.

Movie Review: I will wait for you...
Summary: 5 Stars

A quick bit of personal history: I first saw this in May 1996 theatrically, in a newly-restored print. It was about a month after breaking up a 6-year relationship which I didn't want to end, though I should have. She was probably the least-romantic person I've ever met - not that she didn't have "romantic" notions in the larger sense, nearly everyone does, but the romantic part of relationships she didn't get. Or her idea of romance was just so remote and unexplainable that I could never figure it out, and she could never have told me. Why it took us 6 years to know for sure that we weren't meant for each other, I'll never know.

She probably hated this film.

I, on the other hand, am as enraptured by it now as I was on that first viewing 13 years ago and the couple of times in between. From the first shot of the harbour of Cherbourg panning gracefully down to an overhead shot of candy-colored umbrellas in the rain, to the final mirroring shot of an equally artificial-looking Esso station in the snow five years later, it's pure sentimental, stylized magic.

Some have mentioned that there isn't much in the way of character development in this admittedly very simple story of young lovers parted by war and ultimately finding new relationships and lives apart from each other - but I think they're missing the point. It's not supposed to be terribly real, or rather it is suffused throughout with a sense of heightened reality, exemplified most obviously in the entirely sung dialog and in the brightness of the color scheme, but also in the intensity of emotions that could, after all, be experienced by any of us. It doesn't matter that I don't really "know" Genevi?ve or Guy - they are any young lovers and what the film is about, it seems to me, is that bittersweet feeling we all have towards our first loves. At the end of the film, both are married and it is fairly clear that they have made the right choices - one thing I find fascinating is that the two leads are both rather weak and passive, and in both cases they end up with stronger, more aggressive and more competent partners. Had they ended up with each other, what kind of future would they have had?

The music - well, you can't take the music out, or it does, in fact, show its thinnness. Here's a great quote from Jonathan Rosenbaum's long review regarding composer Michel Legrand's contribution to the film:

"Though Legrand isn't credited as the film's cowriter, his collaboration with Demy, who wrote the lyrics, suggests that he may well deserve to be, for this is a film in which the score and the narrative are inseparable, shaped to the same architecture. Demy once noted that Umbrellas should be described as a film "in song" the way that some films are 'in color'."

If one can't get past the notion that this is, in fact, a romantic fantasy amped up to the nth degree through color, through its plot absurdities (one night of passion resulting in Genevi?ve having to marry the diamond merchant, Guy's beloved godmother dying on the same day he learns of Genevi?ve's marriage and quits his job, etc) and most of all through the hyper-romantic music which runs the gamut from jazz to chanson, then there's not much I can say. You have to fall under the spell and take it as it is, not ask for what it doesn't provide - asking for more realism in the relationships seems to me to be missing the point.

For me the only real flaw in the film at all is Deneuve - not at all bad, but at 21 she really is a little too old for the naivete of Genevi?ve; this though is a very minor point in a film that I can never grow tired of. I like Demy's next musical, THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, possibly even more -- and I'd suggest all who love this to make that a priority. All who hated this of course should avoid it like the plague, unless they can find a way to put themselves under the spell that they somehow missed in watching this sublime confection...

Movie Review: Quite possibly the greatest movie ever made.....
Summary: 5 Stars

Each time I see this film, I am amazed at its brilliance. The pacing of the film in coordination with the music (and lyrics) is simply astounding. Also, given when the film was made I am still perplexed by the
cinematography of this masterpiece. There are shots which I can't quite figure out how they were achieved....especially ones where there are mirrors in the scenes. Quite possibly the greatest movie ever made, certainly the greatest " musical " movie ever made. I am impressed and moved each time I see it.

Movie Review: Utterly beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars

I'm a big fan of musicals, but when I first started watching this film for the first time and heard the mechanics "sing-talking" to each other I have to admit that I giggled a little, and I wasn't sure how seriously I was going to be able to take the film. But then I kept watching, and before I knew it I was crying, completely swept up in what I now consider one of the most beautiful films ever made. It's one of those films where everything just works together perfectly to create an absolute work of art - the story and the performers and the music and the cinematography are utterly beautiful. And then there's the final shot - which is quite possibly the most beautiful in all of cinema. Mature, gorgeous, and unforgettable. A masterpiece of cinema.

Write your own review

Summary of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [VHS]

Jacques Demy's haunting romantic musical is an enchanting, one-of-a-kind musical experience. It's basically a movie operetta, in which the characters sing all the dialogue (or, rather, lyrics--by director Demy) to Michel Legrand's lovely score. The story spans five years (1957-1962) in the life of Genevi?ve (the ethereally beautiful Catherine Deneuve in the role that launched her to international stardom), the teenage daughter of a woman who owns a Cherbourg umbrella shop. After Genevi?ve's boyfriend Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) is drafted and sent off to Algeria, she discovers she's pregnant ... and complications ensue. With its dazzling candy-colored palette, Umbrellas of Cherbourg looks sweet and dreamy. Restored and rereleased in 1995 to rapturous acclaim and the renewed delight of all who got the chance to see it. The video release is taken from the restored version. --Jim Emerson

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