The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
French theatrical release poster
FrenchLes Parapluies de Cherbourg
Directed byJacques Demy
Written byJacques Demy
Produced byMag Bodard
Starring
CinematographyJean Rabier
Edited by
  • Anne-Marie Cotret
  • Monique Teisseire
Music byMichel Legrand
Production
companies
  • Parc Film
  • Madeleine Films
  • Beta Film GmbH
Distributed by20th Century Fox American International Pictures (United States)
Release dates
  • 19 February 1964 (1964-02-19) (France)
  • 12 November 1965 (1965-11-12) (West Germany)
Running time
91 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • West Germany
LanguageFrench
Box office$7.6 million[1]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. 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.[2] It has been seen as the second of an informal tetralogy of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall atmosphere of romantic melancholy, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Model Shop (1969). The French-language film was a co-production between France and West Germany.[3]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. In the United States, it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Original Screenplay (Demy), and Best Original Score (Demy and Legrand). The film's main theme, "I Will Wait for You", was nominated for Best Original Song. It was later adapted into an English-language stage musical.

In 2018, a BBC Culture critics' poll ranked the film in the Top 100 Greatest Non-English Films of All Time.[4]

  1. ^ "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg", JP's Box-Office.
  2. ^ The Criterion Collection
  3. ^ "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 11 August 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  4. ^ "The 100 greatest foreign-language films". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 14 July 2021.