Umbrellas of Cherbourg

UPC: 741952301493

Studio: Koch Lorber Films

Summary: 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 Genevi?ve 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 Genevi?ve 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. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Category: Musical

Awards: Prix Louis-Delluc – French Film Critics Circle Best Foreign Film - Foreign Language – null Best Foreign Language Film – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Song – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Song – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Song – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Grand Prix – Cannes Film Festival Best Foreign Film - Foreign Language – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Excerpt from Agn?s Varda's "The World of Jacques Demy"

Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 08/31/2004

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Vistavision

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 92 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) French

Subtitles: English

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits [2:37]
2. November, 1937 [2:49]
3. Genevi?ve [1:42]
4. Aunt Alise [2:29]
5. A Night Out [4:46]
6. My Little Girl [2:40]
7. Taxes Due [2:41]
8. Jewelry Shop [4:18]
9. Mr. Cassard [3:27]
10. My Love [6:21]
11. Two Years [3:15]
12. Farewell [4:38]
13. January, 1958 [4:57]
14. You Are My King [2:45]
15. Three Months [4:51]
16. February, 1958 [2:38]
17. March, 1958 [6:32]
18. April, 1958 [3:12]
19. March, 1959 [5:14]
20. April, 1959 [6:52]
21. I'm Asking [2:10]
22. June, 1959 [3:13]
23. December, 1963 [7:02]

Lucia Bozzola

A visually intoxicating "film in music," Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) pays homage to the Hollywood musical while undercutting the genre's candy-coated sentiment. Focusing on daily rituals and a typical story of young love and thwarted dreams, within an ultra-romantic riot of color and nonstop music and singing, Demy lifts the film above its mundane context while staying true to its unvarnished view of class divisions and youthful fantasy. With all the dialogue sung to Michel Legrand's score, from gas station business to the declaration of devotion between Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, and the polychromatic costumes coordinated to match production designer Bernard Evein's ornate wallpaper and newly-repainted Cherbourg locations, Demy creates the ultimate musical dream world. Yet that world is ruled by bourgeois prejudices that no adolescent romance can subvert, even on a snowy Christmas night. Winner of the Palme d'Or and Best Actress prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg became an international sensation, turning neophyte Deneuve into a star and garnering Oscar nominations for Demy's script, Legrand's score, and the transcendent ballad "I Will Wait for You." Badly faded by the 1970s, it was re-released and restored to its original brilliance in 1992, after years of effort by Demy, Deneuve, Legrand, and Demy's widow, Agn?s Varda. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Dorothée Blanc  Actor 
Jean Champion  Actor 
Alfred Wolff  Actor 
Philippe Dumat  Actor 
Rosalie Varda  Actor 
Paul Pavel  Actor 
Harald Wolff  Actor 
Mag Bodard  Producer 
Jacques Demy  Director 
Jacques Demy  Screenwriter 
Gilbert de Goldschmidt  Producer 
Michel Legrand  Composer (Music Score) 
Catherine Deneuve  Actor 
Nino Castelnuovo  Actor 
Anne Vernon  Actor 
Marc Michel  Actor 
Ellen Farner  Actor 
Mireille Perrey  Actor 

Country: France,West Germany