Although we didn't quite watch them back to back, it seemed like a good idea to have a look at these two together, our first viewing of
Umbrellas and our - well I thought it was our fourth visit, but it turns out to only have been the third (albeit in seven months).
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg declares itself to be a three act opera, and it's helpful to think about it that way, as all the dialogue is sung (Demy wrote all the lyrics). Like the later film, it's shot on location and - again like the later film - the design of both decor and clothing is superbly and brilliantly colour-matched. They both tell sad stories, the first enacted superbly by Catherine Deneuve (who is outstanding) and Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel and Ellen Farner, and Michel Legrand's score is one of the greats, mixing a jazzy, big band sound with one of his unmistakably French heartbreakers - this love theme is the main musical event. Act One ends on such a
scene (the parting of the lovers), then when Guy learns of the death of his godmother, there's another musical kick in the balls; and by the third act, where the couple meet again after several years, the force of that music is so overwhelming it would make the strongest of us into shivering wrecks - that scene with its miles of unspoken feelings is extremely poignant.
The Cameraman, by the way, is Jean Rabier, who shot many Chabrols. It was nominated for five Oscars, won the Cannes Palme D'Or.
Now, I'm not saying that
La La Land is a reworking of the French film, but let's say it's at least a homage or that it uses it as a departure point. Chazelle's brilliant script is more complex but also tells of a sadly doomed relationship between two lovers, but where the first film leaves us with that unspoken scene, Chazelle wonderfully rewinds the film and tells their story differently, better .. Thus they can at least smile to one another as they part. The music is also absolutely essential, actually becoming a plot device, and its main theme is reimagined in numerous (12, according to Q!) different arrangements.
Going back to that screenplay, I loved the way that as Stone meets Gosling in the bar after he's been fired, Chazelle has the balls to say 'Hang on, now let's see what
his day's been like'. So it's overall a more complex and subtle work. It fully deserves its six Oscars, but I remembered wrong - I thought both the screenplay and Tom Cross's editing had won (Lonergan won for
Manchester By The Sea and John Gilbert for editing on
Hacksaw Ridge). On this subject, the sound design and editing (at times in the distinctive Wright-Dickens style) and costumes (Mary Zophres) also should have won - they were fucking robbed!
Justin Hurwitz and Chazelle are now making
First Man about Neil Armstrong and the moon landing! This is again shot by Sandgren and edited by Cross, and Ryan Gosling's in it.
And yes, that is the window from
Casablanca, on French Street on the Warner Brothers back lot.
Both films have great leading female performances - you can't walk away from
Parapluies without seeing the desperately in love 17 year old Deneuve who doesn't want her lover to leave - and the grown up she's become. And somehow those simple settings - the railway station, a petrol station in the snow - are as memorable as
La La Land's LA vistas and sun rises.
