看本片完全是因為N多年前我在一雜誌上讀到本片的介紹心中湧起想看的渴望。這麽多年過去心願終於了了,才發現流逝的歲月導致的物是人非會是如此驚人,我不得不承認,我已經不是以前那個我了。想想當年如果有機會一睹本片的容顏會是怎樣的沈醉?那時外面的一切對於我都是美的,香的,我不做選擇的吸收,享受。現在我早已不是那種不做選擇的狀態了,而且自己的認知也不僅僅只會吸收,享受了。我要比較,然後分析,總結。這樣一來,本片對我的唯一價值 就只剩下圓夢了。有點遺憾,因為這個夢有點失落,但是這種失落建立在對更廣闊的世界的認知,理解和欣賞上。應該為它感到高興。
用音乐剧的方式来演绎电影,从头唱到尾,配合法国香颂的背景音乐,那个感觉听着超级棒。颜色鲜明不艳丽,在雨季不显得那么沉闷。女主角那个青涩呀,完全看不出是《印度支那》里的那个雍容高贵,成熟气质的德纳芙。。。故事虽然简单,电影表达的很清晰,画面很美,当最后男女主角相遇的时候,发现彼此都过着美满的生活,两人各自孩子的名字就是曾经约定的名字,这就够了,年轻相爱过,没有对于错,回忆是满满的。
2017.12.14 clit2007 term paper
刚交 做了一万年的research 熬了三天 睡了7小时
18年2月更新 这门课拿了A- 所以这篇essay好像写的还不错
How The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Juxtaposes Self-Reflexivity with Realism in the Context of the French New Wave
As a member of the “Left Bank” group, Jacques Demy might not make films that were as avant-garde as those of the Cahiers du cinema filmmakers. When the musical romance, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg came out in 1964, it was considered to hardly have any radical representation of the French New Wave due to its style and aesthetic approach. Yet its unorthodox entirely sung dialogues as well as the beautifully composed music undoubtedly drew a great amount of attention. Consisting of three parts, the film depicts a young couple hopelessly in love with each other, Geneviève and Guy, who are eventually broken apart by fate (mostly the Algerian War) to separate destinies. This essay argues that director Jacques Demy juxtaposes self-reflexive features with hints of realism in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, endowing the film with an enchanting property that embraces the junction of the conventional French cinema and the emergence of the French New Wave. The idea of this essay was constructed on the premise of Robert Stam’s viewpoint on the interpenetrating coexistence of self-reflexivity and realism within the same cinematic text which challenges the Brechtian critique of realism (152).
With regard to identifying and characterizing a genre film, Rick Altman proposes the semantic/syntactic dual theory that categorizes genres along the historic development. He also justifies the three subgenres of the musical, namely the fairy tale musical, the show musical and the folk musical, and associates them with corresponding cultural backgrounds and other musical attributes. In accordance with Altman’s theory, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg nevertheless cannot be defined as a musical semantically, in a sense that there is no shift of ambience in between dialogues and singing and instead every line is presented in a recitative manner which is dubbed by pre-recorded soundtracks by professional singers. The film does not necessarily comply with any of the three subgenres to foreground a specific value which marriage in that particular socio-cultural context establishes. Yet it does pay homage to the classical Hollywood that contemporary New Wavers enamored by embracing the popular musical genre of the Golden Age of Hollywood while incorporating a French take on the story that comments on socio-political issues. A similar gesture of playing tribute to the historic development of the genre by incorporating the innovative can be found in the studio musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), which pointed out by Parfitt-Brown merges technology of the new era with nostalgia of the fin-de-siècle bohemianism to invoke an “artistic reinvention” (24). With the narrative setting evoking Hollywood classics like The Band Wagon (1953) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Moulin Rouge!’s show-within-a-film form is reminiscent of Altman’s show musical subgenre in a traditional sense. Feuer identifies that the parallelism between the show that characters in the film try to bring on and the relative reality within the film’s narrative space tends to emphasize the theme of eternal love over the “glorification of show business”, countering to the subject matter dealt with in most show-within-a-film Hollywood classics (61). But this parallelism ultimately addresses to the musical film’s self-reflexive nature, and draws attention to the prosthetic, highly unreal imagery constructed in the film’s fictional world.
If we consider the parallelism in Moulin Rouge! as an approach of reflexivity, then the recurrent postmodern pastiche and dense pop culture quotations further add a layer to the film’s fictional complexion. Acknowledging the director of Moulin Rouge!, Baz Luhrmann’s point of view, Parfitt-Brown notes that the intensive blending of historic artifacts and real-world contemporary cultures that exist outside the fictional entity fulfills the “sensory authenticity” that demands participatory spectatorship (22). In other words, the edgy, transhistorical fusion of cultural artifacts constantly and consciously reminds the spectators of the fictional nature of the film, with the film self-aware of its form. Whereas in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, this self-consciousness of cinema is achieved through the use of multiple devices.
The most obvious device being the structure of the plot, constitutes of three parts, titled “The Departure”, “The Absence”, and “The Return” respectively. Between the plots of each two parts, there is a time gap indicated by a significant change in characters and the relations among characters over the passage of time. The discontinuity allows certain plots to be omitted from the linear progression, which is quite similar to the structure of a staged musical or play. This manner contributes to the musical’s self-conscious form, just as rising up and putting down the stage curtains do at the opening and the finale of Moulin Rouge!. Furthermore, recurrently breaking the fourth wall by having its actors directly address to the camera in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is another discernible self-reflexive device that is also applied multiple times in Moulin Rouge!.
As pointed out by Hill, the subtle quasi-Brechtian mise-en-scène of the film might not be able to distract the audience away from the fictional space since the audience are so accustomed to the conventions of musical settings that they cannot be easily bothered by them, but the frequent appearance of mirrors and frames does elicit a taste of reflexivity (44). In the scene where Geneviève reveals her and Guy’s relationship to mother, the two have an argument over the couple’s decision of getting married. There comes along a medium shot of Geneviève alongside the camera positioning at a 45-degree angle to the right of the actress who is at first placed on the left half of the screen. The right half is a mirror on the wall which seemingly unintentionally reflects the image of the mother who is supposedly standing on the other side of the room, telling how astonished she is by their proposed marriage. This framing lasts briefly until the mother’s image walks out of the mirror, with the camera tracking along Geneviève’s forward motion. There we see a perfect two shot of the characters, with a medium close up of Geneviève remaining in the left portion at the same angle as earlier. As the mother walks toward the mirror, the staging of the two is reversed. The camera is still able to capture the mother’s facial expression from the reflection in the mirror although we are facing her back. There are many shots with mise-en-scène like this in the rest of the film where it tends to play with the audience’s visual experience by careful staging of the actors in a way that their faces can be captured simultaneously despite moving around. The smooth, flawless staging reinforces the fictional entity while without necessarily stripping away the fictional, the mirrored and framed images introduce a slight sense of reflexivity such that it calls attention to its process of making the fictional.
Apart from the mirrors and the purposeful framing, there are also several shots in which the camera movement is staged elegantly yet self-consciously that one can hardly fail to observe. One of these noticeable moments is when the competent suitor, Roland, recalls his past relationship with a girl named Lola. As he starts to sink into his memory leaning against the mirror on the wall (which again draws attention to its self-reflexive manner), the camera gracefully dollies towards him until it reaches a close-up scale of his face and subsequently cuts to a flashback POV shot. This camera movement seems abrupt and self- conscious considering the previous image that frames two characters having a casual conversation. It sufficiently places emphasis on Roland’s emotional transition at the moment and his innermost bitterness of being unable to win the person he used to love. Alexandre Astruc states in his 1948 manifesto which greatly influenced the French New Wave that the new cinema should realize the cinematic dynamics by utilizing camera movements to express feelings and emotions, and that such approach would overcome the underlying problem of the old French cinema, which is the incapability of expressing thoughts. His viewpoint figured prominently in the development of the auteur theory in the New Wave. In this regard, Demy’s stylistic, self-conscious and expressive use of camera in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg aligns himself with the contemporary New Wave fashions.
Equivalent to the reflexive function of pastiche in Moulin Rouge!, the intertextuality in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is achieved through quoting and making references to other art works. At the beginning of the film, Guy’s colleague at the garage directly sings quotes from the famous opera Carmen. Interestingly enough, his other colleague comments afterwards that he prefers movies to operas because he cannot stand the constant singing, which nonetheless playfully reflects the all-singing nature of this movie. Hill suggests that this playfulness is “doubly reflexive” which makes an intertextual reference to another form of art and moreover, attracts attention to the film’s embodiment of such form (47). In addition to operatic reference, Hill pinpoints the intertextuality in this film of other artistic forms, such as many visual components evocative of multiple works by Demy’ favorite painter Jan Vermeer (46), the tendency of long takes and stylistic camera movements that pays explicit homage to films by Max Ophüls (45), as well as the reappearing Lola (1961) character Roland Cassard that references to Demy’s own film (44). All these intertextual references encompass a huge sense of self-reflexivity which, argued by Ott and Walter, “deliberately draws attention to [the film’s] fictional nature by commenting on its own activities” (438).
I have discussed so far how some major cinematic elements in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg contribute to the musical’s high self-reflexivity, which endows itself with a fictional, unreal entity. Before I continue with the observation of the film’s realist features which is something that fundamentally blends a taste of French-ness in this American genre, it is necessary to acknowledge Robert Stam’s outlook on whether reflexivity and realism can coexist within the same context. Although the cinema in the 1930s tends to associate “realist” with “bourgeois” and “reflexivity” with “revolutionary” which are antithetical in political terms, Stam uses Godard’s Numéro Deux (1975) and other examples to illustrate that realism and reflexivity can in fact not only coexist but also penetrate into each other to display the fictional construction of the reality (152). For Moulin Rouge! as a twenty-first century big- budgeted, highly reflexive Hollywood musical production, realism is nowhere to be found as the film aims to use cultural artifacts to construct a distant past of prosthetic authenticity. As a stylistic product of the French cinema’s tendency of emerging to the New Wave, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg nevertheless juggles with reflexivity and realism to manifest the French adaptation to the classical Hollywood genre.
There are three main aspects in this film that attribute to its social realism. Despite the colorful visual style and the apparently artificial lighting effects that might denote a studio production, the film was as a matter of fact entirely shot on location. Several establishing shots at different points throughout the film determinedly highlight the sense of realism, such as the panorama of the dock in the opening credits, a few establishing shots of the train station and the café in the departure scene, as well as the last shot in the film which is a wide shot of the gas station in the beautiful snow. Take the last shot as an example; the jib shot lasts for 50 seconds, which can definitely be considered as a long take. It starts with Guy joyfully greeting his family. He kisses his wife and then plays with his son in the snow. The camera gradually pulls away from the characters’ interaction as it goes on without being interrupted. When the characters enter inside, we can barely observe their activities yet the shot does not fade out from there but rather remains unchanged and uninterrupted for roughly 20 seconds. This continuity in acting and camera movement reinforces the realism in a sense that the audience are watching the characters’ activities in reality.
The second aspect is the film’s attitude toward the contemporary social issues. Avoiding explicitly presenting the Algerian war image, the film comments on the negative post-war phenomenon like veteran soldiers’ alienation from the society and the failed human relations. It also addresses the generational debates of values in post-war French families, with the materialism and social hierarchy among elder generation versus the younger generation’s utopianism that love transcends everything. A similar value discourse can also be found in Moulin Rouge!.
Lastly, the majority of the cast hardly had any recognition prior to the production of the film. The fact that the audience at the time were seeing fresh faces instead of glamorous stars on the screen somewhat made them feel less detached from the fictional world. Film Reference points out that the femininity portrayed in traditional French cinéma de papa which the New Wave resists is mostly associated with sophisticated maturity. The way that Geneviève is portrayed as a simple and innocent girl next door naturally sides this film against the “Tradition of Quality”. All in all, the three attributes mentioned above are in alliance with three of the eight characteristics of New Wave cinema raised by Michel Marie in terms of the location-shooting, addressing contemporary social/cultural issues, and the new-face actors (70).
In conclusion, with the juxtaposition of the high self-reflexivity of the musical genre and a sense of realism regarding the contemporary French cinema, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is Jacques Demy’s uttermost homage to the classical Hollywood. The coexisting reflexive nature and realism do not necessarily get in each other’s ways, but rather becomes Demy’s stylistic syntax in this French-accented art piece of an American genre. Released during the active period of the French New Wave, although the film does not entirely identify as radical New Wave representation, it adopts certain characteristics that comply with the New Wave aesthetics. Its uniqueness and avant-garde production approach makes it one of the most celebrated and influential original musicals of the twentieth century.
Works Cited
Altman, Rick. “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Cinema Journal, vol. 23, no. 6, Spring 1984, pp. 6-18.
Altman, Rick. “The Musical.” The Oxford History of World Cinema. Ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Oxford: OUP, 1996. 294-303.
Astruc, Alexandre. “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra-Stylo.” Trans. Peter Graham. The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks. Ed. Peter Graham and Ginette Vincendeau. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 31-38.
Feuer, Jane. “The International Art Musical: Defining and Periodising Post-1980s Musicals.” The Sound of Musicals. Ed. Steven Cohan. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 54-63.
Hill, Rodney. “The New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality: Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 1, Fall 2008, pp. 27-50.
“Legacy and Regeneration: 1944 to 1959.” Film Reference,
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/France-LEGACY-AND-REGENERATION-1944-TO-1959.htmlMarie, Michel. “The New Wave’s Aesthetic.” Trans. Richard Neupert. The French New Wave: An Artistic School. Paris: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 70-71.
Ott, Brian, and Cameron Walter. “Intertextuality: Interpretive Practice and Textual Strategy.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 17, no. 4, December 2000, pp. 429-446.
Parfitt-Brown, Clare. “An Australian In Paris: Techno-Choreographic Bohemianism in Moulin Rouge!.” The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Ed. Melissa Blanco Borelli. New York, NY: OUP, 2014. 21-40.
Stam, Robert. “The Politics of Reflexivity.” Film Theory: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. 151-153.
可能是因为自身感情的原因对这部片子情有独钟 真的是顶级影片 即便存在一些小的纰漏 但总觉得成功的影片在于整体氛围 细节也就忽略了 坐在资料馆的第二排 当主题音乐的弦乐一起 再加上阵阵小风一吹 身体直打哆嗦
影片开篇就富有情调的请出几把彩色的雨伞 用雨的第一视角看城市里的过客 可能是因为时代的原因 摄影机周边稀稀拉拉的雨点感觉有些不自然 整部影片采用歌舞的形势表达 刚开始可能有些不习惯 十分钟后就好了 很通俗的剧本能产生如此的效果 男女主人公起到很大作用 影片的音乐也功不可没 且影片音乐的主题极抓人心 高潮部分的大和弦 怎么听怎么过瘾 在画面上存在两处比较大的穿帮 一个是女主从狂欢节街道回到店里的时候 外面是彩带横飞 前一个镜头肩膀后背上还有 一进屋瞬间没了 还有最后一场戏女主加完油要离去的时候刚进车门前玻璃上还有积雪 下一个镜头要走的时候就瞬间倍儿干净 第二章节男主要去当兵带女友回家的路上有一段可能是为了抒发感情 两人动都不动的站上轨道平移 稍显不自然 要说这片子是女主的深情演绎 我更倾向男主的全方位出演 把男人的各个阶段表现的很到位
再说说影片的舞美与服装造型 印象最深的首当其冲地应属小店的布置 很是精致 整个影片色彩鲜艳从几处房屋内的壁纸上就能看出来 也学到一种审美 就是人与墙容为一体也很美 浅粉色毛衣配深粉壁纸 橘色风衣配橘色的咖啡墙 男性服装就更洋气了 很是复古绅士 他是个汽车修理工有件朴实的米色外套 到舞厅放衣服时 露出了内衬竟是巴博瑞的 在做广告的同时 又彰显人物品味 影片中也大量运用镜子做视觉效果 而且还永远没有穿帮
在资料观看的这片子 散场时听见有影迷闲聊说这片子到底是喜剧还是悲剧 我也茫然 只能弱弱的说他只演绎了人生 是雪化成雨水还是雨冷凝成雪 每个人都有不同的答案
看本片完全是因為N多年前我在一雜誌上讀到本片的介紹心中湧起想看的渴望。這麽多年過去心願終於了了,才發現流逝的歲月導致的物是人非會是如此驚人,我不得不承認,我已經不是以前那個我了。想想當年如果有機會一睹本片的容顏會是怎樣的沈醉?那時外面的一切對於我都是美的,香的,我不做選擇的吸收,享受。現在我早已不是那種不做選擇的狀態了,而且自己的認知也不僅僅只會吸收,享受了。我要比較,然後分析,總結。這樣一來,本片對我的唯一價值 就只剩下圓夢了。有點遺憾,因為這個夢有點失落,但是這種失落建立在對更廣闊的世界的認知,理解和欣賞上。應該為它感到高興。
这片儿其实一点都不甜,根本就是篇虐文……
惊天动地与天长地久在本质上就是不可协调的矛盾,那浓烈的色彩与哀伤的故事恰好就像一枚硬币的两面,咫尺之遥却永不得见;《萝拉》中马克·米歇尔的出现让这个雅克·德米影像世界更加完整。
7.1/10【雅克德米×1】很喜欢片头雨中伞与鹅卵石小路的搭配,点题又赏心悦目,配上配乐美到心醉。虽然是歌舞片但是只有歌没有舞,台词全程唱段化是一个很新奇的体验,但是到中段就会有些疲劳了,何况本片虽是歌舞片但除了i will wait for you这段配乐之外我并没有觉得有很出彩的唱段。本片的色彩运用实在是令人大饱眼福,每一帧都美的像一幅画。但是剧情实在是俗套,不过倒是完美诠释了那句“最爱的人并不是最合适你的人”结局的雪中重逢设计的很催泪。说毁三观是因为我一点都get不到男主,理解不了男主这种明知道自己可能一去不复返还要在前一晚得到女主身体的行为,得知女主怀孕后回信并不频繁让女主心灰意冷完了回来了还怪女主薄情可还行。女主也是爱情冲昏头脑那种傻姑娘唉我累了。
属于那种享誉影史专科必读可看过之后随便一个影迷都能轻松就指出缺陷并能引起广泛共识的电影。雅克德米或许想表现法国日常生活乐符流淌的韵律感,可韵律节奏这种东西需要有对位反差,需要大量正常对白去陪衬烘托,角色无论主配无论何事通片都唱也就失去韵律本身的意义,都在唱也就等同于都没唱。相较而言,所谓缺乏优美曲调记忆点的诟病反而退为次生缺陷。正确的做法该像马莫利安的公主艳史或北野武的座头市那样,将超现实生活韵律集中在某个小段重点展示!
有人说是《爱乐之城》是本片加强版,其实也就大致的相爱,分开,多年后重复这三个大体阶段是类似的。其感情内核是不一样的,爱乐是知音型灵魂伴侣,瑟堡是青少年天真脆弱的初恋,分开的原因也是完全不一样的。但瑟堡也不错,看点1.色彩搭配,2.对话全是吟唱,3.主题配乐。
对通片歌唱表示无感。于我而言,这样的形式不是不可以,可问题在于旋律太平挺一般,没什么记忆点,以至于本片完全没有一首像《雨中曲》或《音乐之声》那样的经典传唱歌曲。我猜想本片之所以能获得戛纳电影节金棕榈奖可能就是因为其通片歌唱的新颖形式吧?(P.S.:电影的开场段落个人倒是感觉蛮给力的!)—— 北京电影学院-咖啡厅:在等朋友的时候独自观影,没想到晚上老师讲课时,刚好地就讲到这部电影,要不要这么巧啊!?
这哭哭啼啼狗血的剧本是琼瑶阿姨写的吧,CD一直拉着张伤春悲秋的长脸完全不对她的戏路啊,这是属于阿佳妮的绝对领域啊亲,强大的冰美人气场德米根本HOLD不住哇。全片唱的都在同一个调子上,糟蹋了法语的美感,只剩下不接地气的拿腔拿调 720p BluRay x264-HDCLUB
故事现在看来太过普通了,除了结尾再见大雪茫茫中的几句意犹未尽的闲聊让人唏嘘不已。不过选角真是不错,年轻美艳逼人的Deneuve从此出道,其他也是俊男靓女啊,梳妆,服装,置景【人工布景】,更是绝佳,配色现在看来都极具美感。至于全程唱白的手法,我只能说需要慢慢习惯法国这种类型的歌曲……
看的最新的修复版,颜色真是太漂亮了,非常悦目的一部电影,布景和人物服装都精致到令人赞叹,更别提20岁的德纳芙有多漂亮了。史诗爱情嘛,结局还挺虐。。全程每句台词都是用唱的,可是感觉比悲惨世界适应多了。。
只有电影里的人才会为爱而死?才不是,电影里的人都做不到。
重看@phenomena 2K修复版。但凡未得到,但凡是过去,总是最登对。
彩色电影最精致时的模样。“别傻了,只有电影里的人会为情而死”与“为什么我还活着?”两句对照台词无疑是重要标志,它指明纵然电影的外观极端虚假,“虚假”本身却已被完全否认,德米用绝对概念化的色彩语言、绝对精准的运镜与景别,让人物及其情感通通滑入最真实。从这个角度看,《瑟堡的雨伞》让我后知后觉,或许纯正歌舞片本质上都应该是另一种形态的《狗镇》,甚至生来就有着挑衅现实主义与表现主义之分的使命。一件黑裙和一条粉纱就能表达“爱他的是她妈”,一个餐桌上的僵硬内反打、一个简单的人偶置景搭配一次横移就能让我知道她出轨的百分百只有肉体,表达“那个人好像一条狗啊”可以完全不用动嘴皮子,连床戏都能只用空镜就阐明是“绵长”或“发泄”,太完美了。私影史最佳歌舞片已易手,私影史前几要缓缓才知道。初见于大银幕,太幸福了。
三观板正,全是善解人意的苦人儿。歌剧形式有些催眠,最具音乐性的是摄影,颜色也美。戏剧张力主要来自大刀阔斧的时间与对比,而不是细笔描摹,如果改成一出舞台表演,大概会感人一些。
虽然情节老套 虽然表演略显做作 虽然短短两个单词的句子拖长音唱出来时很喜感 但真的好!伤!感!(Theme song "I WILL WAIT FOR YOU"让伤感呈指数级增长) Catherine Deneuve美翻
上法语课时,老师给我们放的这个她对我们说''j'aime beaucoup les chansons francaises''还是什么的,总之她很喜欢,可是我为什么听不进去,人物色调都很美,可是总觉得像是无调式哀嚎...orz
女二比女主漂亮,男二比男主有魅力,大家都没有选错
画面美到每一帧都可以截下来作明信片,但总觉得人物之间的关系怪怪的,没有物质的感情就像一盘散沙,不用风吹,走两步就散了....
最爱的与陪你走完一生的不一定非要是同一人儿
流动的色彩很瞩目。被《爱乐之城》抄了不少去啊,连惆怅的经年重逢都那么像。我果然不能适应从头到尾每句话都在唱的歌舞片,说好的抑扬顿挫呢...
在电影中,人们才会为爱情死去