In 2011, the Kneehigh Theatre Company in London presented the musical, starring Joanna Riding as Madame mery, cabaret artist Meow Meow as the Matresse, and Andrew Durand as Guy. Its a culmination of all the years that two lovers have been separated and wishing they could be together again. The unconventional musical can also be considered a melodrama. Into all lives rain must fall, but it can be deflected by art. Deneuve, in particular, glows from her first shot to her last. Thats right, theres no periodic stopping and breaking into song, la Singin in the Rain, every single oui and non and all the words in between are sung as if this were some kind of cockeyed opera. The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg is interested in the complexities of real life, not the easy outs of melodrama. Looking outside at the girl in the car, Guy asks, "What did you name her?" They dont see the beauty in it, but its a lovely filmoriginal and fine. And its just as lovely todayits color just as vivid, its hopes just as fragile and delicately suspended. She plays an umbrella-shop owner's delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. Her kind mother, who runs an umbrella shop, won't hear of her marrying, particularly as Guy has yet to complete his compulsory military service. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ( Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 French musical film written and directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, with a musical score by Michel Legrand. Her comfortably bourgeois end state isnt the best she might have achieved; nor is it the worst. The night before he leaves, he and Genevive pledge their undying love and have sex, perhaps for the first time. The x-ray analysis and then the changing fashions allow the periods of work to be dated with reasonable accuracy. The Greatest Show on Screen. Instead, recitative conveys everything from an inquiry about the price of an umbrella to a declaration of love through the same unremitting threnody, in a continuous paean to the delightfulness of human experience, whether that be happy, sad or merely humdrum. Her mother tells her to give up on Guy he has forgotten her. The wealthy jeweler who vies for Genevives heart while Guy is away (Marc Michel playing the same character from Lola) isnt a nefarious neer-do-well. Where to Watch or Stream The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Demys musical came towards the end of the pioneering French New Wave movement, but its rooted in opera, the whole film sung throughout. Yet it went on to win the Palme dOr and five Oscar nominations; it pulled in more than a million filmgoers in France alone, and became an enduring obsession for those, like Chazelle, who have fallen under its spell. It wasnt until the mid-1990s that I saw Umbrellas for the first time, under near-perfect conditionsin a restored print at San Franciscos glorious Castro Theatre, with an audience so besotted that they anticipated the melodies. The resulting film recaptured Demy's vision of a fantastically colourful Cherbourg. His sweetheart finds hes left her pregnant, so under parental pressure she marries an older, well-heeled suitor. Madeleine returns with Franois, and Guy greets her with a kiss. Michel Legrands lyrical, sweeping score secured one of the films Oscar nods, but it provides none of a traditional musicals dancing choruses or showcase numbers for the leads. Its a multi-generational film about pragmatism versus the optimism and naivety of youth. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG by Jacques Demy synopsis 16-year-old Genevieve and 20-year-old Guy are very much in love. Formally the work is operatic, with the plot advanced entirely through dialogue sung with accompanying music. Guy replies, "Yes, very well." With its mix of clear-eyed realism and pop art fantasy, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg offers a love story as complicated as any big screen romance, comedic or dramatic. Deneuve was just 20 when she made this film, her first major success, and her elegant, almost ethereal presence is still a potent screen icon. Her kind mother, who runs an umbrella shop, won't hear of her marrying, particularly as Guy has yet to complete his compulsory military service. Through analysis of films ranging from The Wizard of Oz to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, from Citizen Kane to In the Mood for Love, Kristi McKim calls our attention to the ways that we read our atmospheres both within and beyond the movies. At the door Genevive pauses and asks, "Are you doing well?" Demy and his composer/collaborator Michel Legrand had a hard time selling The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg because they were in many ways pioneering a musical format that wouldnt become popular onstage until later in the decade: stripped-down, sung-through concept musicals about everyday peoples lives, the sort of thing Sondheim perfected in his 1970 masterpiece Company, the story of a single man trying to figure out why he cant commit to a relationship. Genevive learns she is pregnant and writes to Guy, but his replies are sporadic. The films influence cant be overstated, setting out as it does a simple story thats easy to replicate and reform, with production design thats second to none. And none of his films sounded sillier in the abstract than The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, this oddity in which every line of dialogue is not only sung but sung in French. The opening sequence of Umbrellas sees Genevive rapturously happy during a secret rendezvous with Guy. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevive Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. The drab, war-scarred Channel port of Cherbourg is drenched in saturated primary colours. (The movies frankness about money as an overriding concern of marriage for women startles with each viewing; the topic helps Demy pass the Bechdel test with flying colors.) Do you want to see her?" Next time:Silver Linings Playbook swept the Oscars at the rom-com genres lowest moment. Realising that his Eastman stock would eventually degrade, Demy made three colour separation masters from the original negative. As The A.V. Kenneth Turan is the former film critic for the Los Angeles Times. The film's main theme, "I Will Wait for You", was nominated for Best Original Song. I want to be happy with you, one character tells another in a scene thats both quietly pragmatic, and, in its own way, deeply romantic. Dont worry about my life, Mother, Genevive announces in what could be seen as her lowest moment. AKA: Les parapluies de Cherbourg. And although they pledge to love each other forever, she receives only one letter from him in two months. a film for all the young lovers of the world. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Here are a few potential benefits of good lighting Just as maman predicted, Guys letters come less and less frequently. Someone watching, say, Vincente Minnellis Meet Me in St. Louis in essence enters into a compact with the filmmaker: I accept that characters will erupt into song and dance as naturally as conversation, and in return I will become their confidant, privy to their otherwise inexpressible longings. Nevertheless, she pushes her daughter towards this cultured (but somewhat cold) man of travel and hopes to raise their social aspirations through him, to Genevieves distress. Too much and youd regret it; but just the right dose and its a little indulgence. In cinema, as in life, the weather directly contributes to the central conflict of its characters: Heat sizzles disagreements to their breaking point; rain drenches any emotion in melodrama. The story is paced slowly enough that its memorable for its plot and its introduction of new characters as well as for its peerless production design, and the intense performances from its frontrunners Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castenuovo set it apart from melodramas and romcoms, instead solidifying it as a study on performance as well as design. Guy shakes his head. What Demy delivers instead is the most affecting of movie musicals, and perhaps the fullest expression of a career-long fascination with the entwining of real life, chance, and the bewitching artifice of cinematic illusion. Catherine Deneuve, then 21, plays Genevive, a 16-year-old umbrella shopkeepers daughter, in the role that made her name. She also described the way actors had little leeway when it came to their performances: they were required to act to musical cues, which makes the final product all the better. The film itself was a curious experiment in which all of the words were sung; Michel Legrand wrote the wall-to-wall score, which includes not only the famous main theme and other songs, but also Demy's sung dialogue, in the style of the lines used to link passages in opera. Its The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Its a film that touches on the cliche and the hyperbole of first love, but the couple are forced to live in the real world and confront their circumstances. The impossible beauty of the stars must have left Hollywood open-mouthed with envy. As in James Joyces The Dead, the snow that blankets the station falls on the death of a romantic idyll as well as the lives and loves that survive. Their survival has enabled his original hues to be precisely recreated. She plays an umbrella-shop owner's delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. The artistic representation of first love in the face of realistic circumstances in French society, where the odds are weighted against the youngsters. The word that comes up repeatedly, in searches for the movie online, is curio. I watchUmbrellas once a year and only once because its so bright and intense that I dont want to spoil it. A rich man (Marc Michel) walks into the shop, falls in love with the daughter and begins a slow, indirect process that might lead to a proposal of marriage. Decidedly less romantic is Genevives pragmatic mother, Madame Emery (Anne Vernon), who archly comments that people only die of love in the movies.. For example, there is usually a sequence called a dream ballet. Musical director/conductor Nathan Hurwitz provided new orchestration. Its apparent from tiny details, like the sign opposite Mias cafe in the Warner Bros. lot, the Casablanca window which Seb points out, which has the signage Parapluies (from the French) directly underneath. Her brief spell of unqualified bliss may be behind her, but something of its magic persists nonetheless. The daughter of two actors and the sister of three (one of whom, Franoise Dorlac, died in a car crash in 1967), Deneuve has acting in her blood. Guy is drafted into the French army for two years and sent into the thick of the Algerian War. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music and lyrics by Michel Legrand. When Demy released his masterpiece in 1964, the big-budget Hollywood musical was a mammoth cakewalking on a cliffs edge. The painting measures 180.3 centimetres (71.0 in) high by 114.9 centimetres (45.2 in) wide. The more these movies lusted for acclaim and recognition, the more stale, square, and ludicrous musical conventions looked. Genevive, a 17 years old girl, and Guy want to get married but Guy has to leave France in order to carry out his military service in Algeria. Its perhaps one of the best forms of escapism mixed with realism Demys contribution to the French New Wave distinct from, but linked to, his wife Agnes Vardas. Without cuttinga seamless transition into the realm of stylizationJean Rabiers camera tilts directly down on the waterfronts stone streets. Musical, Romance, Drama. It depicts a busy street scene in Paris, with most of . Chazelle claims to have watched this New Wave classic more than 200 times, and regards his own not-quite-Oscar-winning 2016 musical as a crypto-remake of Jacques Demys entirely sung-through phenomenon. It turns out to be one of Genevives tribulations that she can indeed live without her supposedly indispensable soul mate. Its minor-key topics are disappointment, compromise and loss. Yet all you see in the final film is spontaneity and liveliness. In one of the connections among Demy's trilogy of films, Roland had previously unsuccessfully wooed the title character in the earlier Lola (1961); now he relates a version of this story to Madame mery. When he returns to his apartment, Madeleine tells him that his aunt lise has died. [3] It has been seen as the middle part of an informal "romantic trilogy" of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall look, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Chazelle claims to have watched this New Wave classic more than 200 times, and regards his own not-quite-Oscar-winning 2016 musical as a. The very last scene, of a final meeting between Guy and Genevieve, is one of such poignancy that it's amazing the fabric of a musical can support it. Demy would return to the musical throughout his career, starting with The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), whose public-space-as-playground resourcefulness suggests Jacques Tatis Playtime as staged by Arthur Freeds MGM production unit. This is most evident in a film like An American in Paris, in which Gene Kelly enacts a fantasy version of the story over the course of a few minutes or La La Lands climax, where Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dance through a version of the story they could have had. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. A light rain begins; pastel umbrellas seen from overhead engage in delicate spatial choreography with the credits. Its dissimilar to many classic musicals because it pares down some of the overt theatricality. The musical as breezy, high-spirited entertainment had yielded to ponderous road-show events such as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music; their success would beget extravagant decade-closing flops like Star! The Umbrellas of Cherbourg The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. If you kept up with reviews during "La La Land"'s theatrical run at the tail end of 2016, you probably ran into at least a few mentions of "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg," Jacques Demy's colorful 1964 romantic musical masterpiece.If you also keep up with The Criterion Collection, you know that "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" just hit home video via a pristine Criterion Blu-ray . Also a visual knockout is the films wall-to-wall color scheme, which presents a world where almost everything has taken on the most wonderful pastel hues. The Guardian - Back to home. Those films may exploit Deneuves crystalline loveliness for its seeming inscrutability, but her portrayals of sexual repression in both (and her shocking embodiment of schizophrenia in the former) make for two of the most vivid performances of the era. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a movie written and directed by Jacques Demy in 1964. But in Umbrellas, Demy found an ingenious way to extend the form of the screen musical, restoring its effervescence in part by reducing its scale to something recognizably human. A different kind of beauty. Here she is in "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," her first major film, made in 1964 and now restored. I have a soft spot for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg). Restored full-color prints were made from this in 2004. 93/100. narrative significance of snow, rain, wind, sunshine, clouds, and skies. 25 of them are solely devoted to the US allowing watching series and movies on HBO Max.. ExpressVPN HBO Max offers a download speed of 89.42 Mbps and an upload rate of 84.64 Mbps on a normal 100 Mbps internet connection. [11][12] Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 97% based on reviews from 69 critics with an average rating of 8.8/10, judging it "Certified fresh" with the site's consensus: "Jacques Demy elevates the basic drama of everyday life into a soaring opera full of bittersweet passion and playful charm, featuring a timeless performance from Catherine Deneuve. Directed by. Genevieve has eyes only for Guy, but he is drafted for two years by the army. They lodge in his too. Shed rather Genevive cultivate a visiting jeweler (Marc Michel, in one of the earliest of Demys intertextual movie references, portraying the same dejected-suitor character who pursued Anouk Aimes dime-a-dance siren through Lola). Some critics noted that the plot is similar to Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays entitled Marius, Fanny and Csar. Its not just that Tinseltown offers a less elemental setting than guileless Cherbourg. I am not making empty compliments. The notion of Demy as the French New Waves twee miniaturist has long trailed his work. People only die of love in movies, a character tartly observesyet her pronouncement has an unmistakable note of regret. A new generation of filmgoers can expect to be enthralled. And its this unbearable non-encounter that is the films most bewitching moment. Its a film rich with gorgeous cinematography, vibrant set pieces, and memorable characters. She has an intensity that is always on the verge of being wrong for this movie. Thats it. Genevive (Catherine Deneuve), a beautiful young Frenchwoman who works at a small-town boutique selling umbrellas, falls for dashing mechanic Guy (Nino Castelnuovo). 92. Demy's film opened in Paris on 19 February 1964 and represented a milestone in cinema, albeit one marking a road that few filmmakers have since taken: it's a musical in which all of the dialogue is sung. After her major breakthrough in Jacques Demys poignant 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Deneuve continued to prove she was more than just a pretty face in Roman Polanskis thriller Repulsion and Luis Buuels surreal erotic daydream Belle de jour. The rerelease of the French musical Umbrellas of Cherbourg topped this week's per theatre average chart with $14,760 in its lone theatre. I had forgotten many of the details of the story in the 32 years since first seeing it; my mental images were of smiling garage mechanics and Catherine Deneuve happily singing with her lover. Deneuve plays a young woman named Genevieve, who is head over heels in love with a local garage mechanic named Guy (Nino Castelnuovo). That task was finally finished by Varda in 1994, and now here is "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" again, looking as bright and fresh as on the day it premiered. Rightly, were asked to believe. When I first saw it, newly married but still remembering vividly the pang of adolescent crushes, it played as tragedy: the story of a young love snuffed out by war, fate, and economic hardship. As Guys and Genevives young lives unfold from the fall of 1957 to Christmas 1963, they each make their own compromises, sometimes with an air of regret but always with a sense of conviction. Using the inheritance from his aunt he opens a new "American-style" gas station. One of cinemas great beauties, Catherine Deneuve (born Catherine Dorlac in Paris in 1943) is also an icon of the transformative cinematic 1960s. Jacques Demys miraculous, melancholy musical is the rare film to use pastiche and artifice to go straight for the heart. And though its antecedents are the great Hollywood musicals, this films sensibility is unmistakably French. Madeleine is decorating a Christmas tree. Bustling and vigorous street scenes are intricately choreographed. Umbrellas is the middle film in an informal "romantic trilogy" of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall look; it comes after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). There waiting, however, is Michels suitor, Roland. She plays an umbrella-shop owner's delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevive Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. Then comes the big buy-in moment: A young mechanic and a well-heeled customer discuss his car, only they sing their lines instead of speaking them. Demy shot on location in Cherbourg but had his production designer, Bernard Evein, repaint the buildings in the French port city to evoke the glorious sets of a 1950s Hollywood musical. Guy is a handsome young auto mechanic who lives with and cares for his sickly aunt and godmother lise. Impossibly beautiful Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It was later adapted into an English-language stage musical. More than any other film I know, Umbrellas affects people differently at different stages of life. When her earlier swain returns from the war, he goes on a regretful bender, but then he, too, settles for someone else. Along with the tunes and overtly romantic drama on display, the director showed a keen eye for the . Like their surroundings, however, both are as grittily real as they are visually blessed. Its a beautiful film, but its airy expanses were eclipsed in the year of Bonnie and Clyde and Weekend. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Kneehigh's equally idiosyncratic take on "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" is, as expected, brimming with imaginative touches. And its not just any girl: Deneuve is a vision of pristine loveliness. T his is essentially cheating, because The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is first and foremost a film. The absence of the earlier color is stark. She opens the door and pulls her collar tight against the cold before looking back at Guy one last time. On a genre noted for its lightness, prestige worked like carbon monoxide. Rated NR Interiors feature enchanting pastel, candy-striped rooms set off by the simple but exquisite clothes and hairstyles of their humble occupants. [15] Kevin Maher for The Times, in a review of a re-release of the film in 2019, also lauded the film, awarding it 5/5 stars. It is all very French and - as always - the French do these things much better than anyone else. All right, we're closing out the week at CES 2017 with a couple of additional bits of 4K and industry-related news. Madeleine agrees to marry him, though she wonders whether he is merely on the rebound after losing Genevive. And while the thrill of color and dance are on display in West Side Storys big screen adaptation, so is the musical genres ability to deliver social commentary and deeply personal relationships. News US news World news Environment He has a difficult time readjusting to civilian life. His mono sound mix has been deepened with the help of the original album of the films music. By the mid-1970s, the received wisdom on Demy was that he was a dabbler in irrelevant genres whose time had passed. Like Company, Umbrellas asserts that the small dramas of regular life are worthy of heightened interpretationindeed, that they often feel that way when youre experiencing them. What I find most striking about the film is its final scene, which takes place on a snowy Christmas Eve night. The Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere release is expected on . Naturally, Roland is entranced with Genevive, but how she will react to his attentions and the complex interplay of factors that results are the heart of this ever-youthful film. In it I see the person I was and the person I turned out to be, but the object itself will always be the same. Winner of the Palme dOr in Cannes and nominated for five Oscars, Umbrellas is a one-of-kind venture. Yet the magic act of the film is that while it often looks, feels, and sounds like a romantic comedy, its actually a romantic drama. Divided into three vignettes with each beginning in 1957, 1959, and 1963, the story centers on Guy Skip to content Carolina Planning Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevive Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. Its story is artlessly simple. In the United States, separation masters are made, and have been made for nearly every Eastmancolor-originated title since about 1952. Unlike so many feelgood favourites, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg doesnt proclaim that love conquers all, that virtue will be rewarded or that money doesnt matter to the pure of heart. Its easy to fall in love with the characters and to hope that they will turn out happy: after all, its an ode to the brilliance of youth and how everything else pales in comparison. 87% 98%. But it is remembered as a bold original experiment, and now that it is restored and back in circulation, it can also be remembered as a surprisingly effective film, touching and knowing and, like Deneuve, ageless. Not that were expected to think she should have. Michel Legrand's abundantly lyrical soundtrack to Jacques Demy's 1964 movie musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg faithfully evokes the film's predominant theme of young love foiled by adult reality. Yet Chazelles verdict on the two films relative merits is hard to gainsay. Curiously enough, one of the strangest yet most astute homages to the movie is a 2002 episode of the animated science-fiction sitcom Futurama, in which the cryogenically thawed hero debates whether to clone a DNA sample from his dog, left a millennium earlier with the instruction not to move from his spot. Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Their chance encounter is underscored by a hushed, mournful treatment of the Legrand themea dirge for a dream. Genevive is courted by Roland Cassard, a kind, young, very wealthy Parisian jeweler; he wants to marry her despite her pregnancy. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In North America, two of the film's songs became hits and were recorded by many artists: "I Will Wait for You" (the main theme, also known as "Devant le garage") and "Watch What Happens" (originally "Recit de Cassard", "Cassard's Story"). The car is ready. Douglas Hickox directed the said short subject, and Les Reed and Barry Mason composed the music and wrote the lyrics to its title song, French and English versions of which charted in 1969 for Mireille Mathieu and Engelbert Humperdinck respectively. Mon 31 Mar 2014 03.00 EDT. Genevieve is heartbroken when he leaves for his army service in colonial Algeria and is upset to have received only one . AKA: Les parapluies de Cherbourg. Voguish director Damien Chazelles pick for the greatest movie ever made isnt his masterwork La La Land, or even Citizen Kane. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg's overriding melancholia finds a voice in two main melodic motifs Legrand uses throughout the soundtrack, the first from the Legrand jazz standard "Watch What Happens" and . Umbrellas optimistically suggests that our lives aren't bound by forces beyond our control. That is the invaluable function that Demys masterpiece performs. In 1979, an English-language stage adaptation, with lyrics translated by Sheldon Harnick, premiered at the Public Theater in New York City. The film's dialogue is entirely sung as recitative, including casual conversation, and is sung-through, or through-composed, like some operas and stage musicals. The musical Fanny was based on Pagnol's trilogy. An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. Her mother (Anne Vernon) tries to tell her to consider her future, to think of Guys callowness and the grim economic realities. We may earn a commission from links on this page. I expected a mawkish pastiche the judgment rendered in 1964 by the New York Timess reliably fusty Bosley Crowther, who dismissed the film as a cinematic confection so shiny and sleek and sugar-sweetso studiously sentimentalit comes suspiciously close to a spoof.. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Genevive make love. So why arent I dead?. While his French New Wave peers often strove for realism in their grounded filmmaking techniques, Demy understood that heightened worlds often evoke the most realistic emotions. Like an onstage musical, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg is an effortful production designed to look effortless. The French-language film was a co-production between France and West Germany.[4]. It was given tryouts at Leicester's Curve Theatre from 11 to 26 February 2011 and began previews in the West End at the Gielgud Theatre from 5 March, officially opening on 22 March. It was nominated for several Academy Awards, including for Best Foreign Film, Best Song, Best Soundtrack, and Best Original Screenplay. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. Analysis of Umbrellas of Cherbourg In 1964 the film Umbrellas of Cherbourg, directed by Jacques Demy was released. Available on Prime Video, iTunes, HBO Max. Get info about new releases, sales, and our online publication, Current. Soothing, mournful, and delightful exhilaration from the first frame to the last. We have agency in our fates. Imagine it as an irresistible shot of colour, sounds and flavours. For most of its duration, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a sung-through romantic melodrama about a pair of teenaged paramours, Catherine Deneuve's Genevieve and Nino Castelnuovo's Guy. 16-year-old Genevieve and 20-year-old Guy are very much in love. Both were given new English lyrics by lyricist Norman Gimbel. J acques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won what is now the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1964, launched a pop standard that has been covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Louis Armstrong, and made the twenty- year-old Catherine Deneuve an international sensation. 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