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The NewWave Meets the Tradition of Quality:Jacques Demy s The Um brellas of herbourgRodney Hill

Abstract: Jacques Demy's importance in the French New Wave inmicathj becomesclearest by way of his leastobv oiishj New Wave work of the 1960s, The Uinbrel-las of Ch erbou rg, which represents a cnrions interseciion between tlie Neiv Waveaesthetic am that of the "Tradition of Qua lity," agaimt which the movem entclaimed to rebel.

At first glance, Jactjues Demy's be.st known work. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg{TheUmbrellasof Cherbourg, 1964), bears little resemblance to his earlier, clearlyNew Wave features, Lola (1961) andLa Baie des anges {Bay of Angels, 1963). Tothe casual observer, the all-snng, operatic film miglit even appear us an anoinalonsblip in French film histoiy, not obvionsly belonging t( any particular tradition ormov ement. However, in terms of production values and oth er key characteristics,it would seem to hark back to the Tradition of Quality, which had d om inatedFrench screens in the 1950s and against which the French New Wave purportedto rebel. At the same time, despite surface appearances. The Umbrella.^ of Cher-bourg does conform to certain a esthe tic and formal norm s of the New W ave. Abalanc ed look at what the Tradition of Quality- actually repres ents (beyond th ewell-known caricature offered in Cahiers du cinma).,toge ther udth a con sidera-tion of eight general (jua litieso fthe New Wave offered by Michel M arie, will yielda mo re nuanced positioning oft is celebrated film vis--vis both traditions, illumi-nating Jacqnes Dem y s imp ortance as a figure of intersection betw een the two .'The New Wave Defining New Wave precisely is a ratlier slippery enterprise.Part of the problem , as M arie poin ts out, is that the N ew Wave directors initiallyand repeatedly denied that tiiey formed a nnifie^d movement. - Still, their associ-ation with Cahiers enabled Franois Truffant, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette,et al. to publicize each o th ers nlms and to prom ote th e idea of a movem ent whenit suited them. In a 1964 interview, Godard stressed the centralit)- of the CahiersRodney Hill is an assistant professor of English and film at Georgia Gwinnett College. Heis coauthor (witli Gene D. Phillips}ofThe EneijrlopediaofStanleij Kuhriek(2002), coedtor ofFrancis Ford Coppola: Interviews (2004). and a coiitrihiitor toTlic Stanley KiihrickArchives (2005). His work lias appeared in Film Qnaiierhj. The Quarterly Review of Film

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gro np as the nnclens of the New Wave, while LJSOacknowledging the importance ofthe so-c;illed L eft Bank gro up, inclnding Demy, Agns Varda, and Alain Resnais. In fact, th ere was a good deal of comm ingling betw een these two groups,suggesting mo re commonalitv- than clifcrcuce. For exam ple. D em y aud Varda (whowere married in 1962) knew the Cahierscritics/directors veiy well; Dem y had meRivette and Godard at the 1956 Festivale du Tours, aud later lie aud Varda fre-(juented the Cahiers offices in Paris. So, even though Demy never wrote for theinfliieutial journal (despite being offered the chance), he often engaged the groupin discussions of the cinema aud went to the movies with them. ' Demy even madecameo appearances iu Truffants masteqiiece.The 400 Blows (1959), auil RivetteParis nous appartient [Vans Belongs to Us. 1960); and both Truffaut and Godardproved instrumental in helping Demy ohtain financing for his fihns (Godard forLola. Truffaut for T he Um brellas of Cherbourg). More important, though, than

Demy's acquaintance and favor with the Cahiers group is the fact that his workshares many of tlie characteristics that unify the (often (juite disparate) films ofthese directors into a discernible mo vem ent.In his recent book. The New Wave: An Artistic School, Michel Marie positeight broad characteristics of die NewWave. For Marie, a NewWave film is madeby an auteur-ihrtctor(who ideally is also the s cree nw riter). New W ave films oftenuse uouprofessioual actors or newcomers, and they evince au improvisational ap-proach to the script and acting. They privilege location-shooting over studio sets,make use of small crews, and utilize rudimentary hghtiug and direct souud, as op-posed to post-production dubbiug of dialogue (we might broaden this, allowing forother innovative uses of sound and music iu Demy's films). Finally, New Wavefilms are concerned with contemporar\' cultural issues, everyday life, and ordinr)cha racter s.' O f course, few films m eet all eight of thes e characteristics, most ofwhich are neither necessary nor sufficient for a film to be included in the NewW ave. As M arie pu ts it, Films that take thes e strategies to their logical conclu-sions are very rare, but they provide the uuderpinnings for the creative cinematicprocess vvTonght by the New W av e.'' 'O ne of the core, defining aspec ts of the New Wave is that its direc torsselfconsciously positione d themselv sas the p rimary creators, authors,auteurs (whichideally meaut writer-directors) of their films. In part, tliis politique des auteursste m m ed from w hat uiauy now cons ider a manifesto ' for the N ew Wave mo ve-m ent: a 194S article by filmmaker A lexandre As trac, Th e B irth of a New AvautGarde: L a Gam ra-S t)lo, in the journal L Ecran franais. Astruc envisioned acinema that would express ideas as directly and intimately as the written wordlikening the movie camera to a writer's pen. Similarly, Agns Varda coined theterm dncriture ( cine-writing ) to describ e the highly pers(tual, expressive atti

tude toward filmmaking that she took up in the mid-1950s.' Significantly, Demywas oue of the very few New Wave directors to continue writing his ov\ii scripts

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Many New Wave films contain clearly autobiographical elements (as is tbecase vvitb Demy 'sLolaand Tniffaut's Antoine Do inel cycle, for exam ple), and m oregenerally, they represent personal, artistic, even philosopbiciil creations. Such in-dividual expre.ssion nuiy proffer a worldvievv or even, as is tbe case witb Demv,create a uniqne personal universe. Thefilin.sfrequently also pay bom age {be it di-rect or subtle) to other cinematic masters who influenced tbat particular auteur{in Demys c;u>e, Opliiils. Bresson, Coctean, Welles, and Gene Kelly), other NewWave films, or even tbe aiiteur s own, earlier films.'^ Thus w e miglit add a n inthNew W ave characteristic to Marie's eight: a bigh d eg ree of reflexivity or emp basison intertextuaiity.David Bordwell and Kristin Tbom pson suggest that , iii term s of style, themost obviously rvolu tionarv' quality of the New W a\ e films was the ir casual look. ''Thanks largely to the widespread availability o portable film cameras after World

War II, New Wave directors broke out of the studios, often choosing to shoot onlocation, using direct sound and existing, natural light. This shift resulted in a vi-sual style that seemed extraordinarily fresh and immediate, if sometimes amateur-ish. This new, casual look seem ed perfectly suited to stories abo ut everyday life,involving more auth entic charac ters than those found in the literarv' adap tationsof the Tradition of Quality. How ever, if som e New Wave directors seem ed tu dis-trust virtuosity. Demy embraced it. Indeed, Demys films defy many of the criti-cisms leveled at some early New Wave films: absence of professionalism, thenotorious incompetence of the young directors, and the supposedly rushed, slap-dash nature of their works. '

It is imp ortant he re not to confiise low budgets or casual style with a laek ofseriousness. Although many N ew W ave films seem Iighthi>arted ou the surface, th ebest ones set theni.selves aboutveryserious business. jean -Andre Fieschi points outthat, while they often showed a sensitivity to the real and even to the m un da nethat is, iJl in all, qu ite new, the young Frenc h directors nevertheless c onstn icted intheir best Rimsas if to prove their right to be considered aidctirs^whut couldbe called personal mvthologies. Many Ne w Wave fihns pn t forth worldviews tha tquestioned dominant culture rather than reinforcing it. This (jnestiouing is fre-quen tly achieved by way of a quasi-B rechtian reflexivity. in which cinem atic te ch-niijue calls attention toitself engaging the viewer in a process of distanciation ordetamiliarization.The Tradition of Quality R ec on sid er ed . The New Waves antenrist stanceis, iu part, a reaction agaiust the so called Tradition of Quality, the dominanttrend in French cineuia of the 1950s. In the Cahiers view (most evident in thescath ing criticism offered by Fran o is Tniffau t), this traditio n cousi.sted largelyof overblown, morally bankrupt, lifeless films, tvpified by stilted, inadequate liter-

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N eup ert and otliers have suggested that sucb u harsh assessment of the Traditiono Quality ' overlooks a very real quality cinema to be found in that period, now.somewhat neglected, of French film bist()r>\ Tradition of Quality ' originally was used by tlie Centre National de la Cinmatographie (CNC),an arm o the French Ministryof Culture dedicated to maintaining a coh eren t national cinem a strategy; to describe th e kind of fibtimaking thathe French government wanted to promote iu the postwar era. According to AlanW illiams, 'Qu ahty ' me ant, first of all, that the films could not be inferior to thebest American products, either technically ... or materially. '^ Ironically, in hindsight, the films of Max Opbls (adored by Demy, Tniffaut, and other New Wavefilmm akers) seem to epitomize tbe best of the Tradition of Qn alit) ; and p erhapfurther studies will rediscover tbe 195()s films of such accomplisbed craftsmen asClaude Autant-Lara and Ren Clment. Still, at the time, tbe core of the NewWave positioned itself s(uarely against the Trad ition of Quality, chiefly criticizing its screenwriters, (However, LS we will see. Demy departs significantly fromthis attitude.)

To a large extent, Am ericans have inherited ou r perceptions of tbe Traditionof Quality from t he writings of the Cahiers directors and their successors at thajo u n ia l. Of major import in this regard is Franois Truffants 19.54 article, A Ce rtain Tend ency of tbe F ren ch C iuem a, ' in which be rails against the Tradition tjQuality and two of its scenarists in particular, Jean An rench e and Pierre Bost. Thisingle essay has gar ne red a repn tation as one of the im por tant historical landmarks in the growth of ante nr criticism. As such, it has had. perh aps, a dispropnr iiona te level of influence over scholarly opinion of the Tradition of Qualityin the intervening half-centurv since it first appeared in the pages o Cahiers ducinma. The essay owes its longevity' not only to Tnifiaut enduring reputation aa filmmaker and champion of the politique des auteurs but also to his influencat Caliicrs heyond his actual tenure there. According to Tn]lfant biographerAntoine de B aecque aud Serge Tonbiana, Over time, this essay wonid d eterm inethe new tmentation of Cahiers du cinma beca use it rallied a great nu m be r of filmdevotees who completely ignored and sconied the French tradition of qualityheaping praise on Hollywood auteurs instead. ' '

Th e articles c ontinuing influence in Am erican scholarship may also be attributed to its iiiclnsiou in Bill Nichols's uhifjuitous Movies and Methods a film stndies standard. Introducing Tmffaut's essay in that collection, Nichols testifies tha most of th e films to which [Tm flant] refers (th e Tradition of Quality) are virtuallunmentioned in recent film histories and seldom exhibited in Fnglisb-speakincountries. ^ Th us , it seem s that, by 1976 at least (when Movies and Methodfirst ap pea red ), th e Am erican conc eption of th e Tradition of Quality relievirtually entirely on Tniffauts assessm ent. Arguably, that certain tende ncy re

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States: La Symphonie pastorale (1946),/eiu' interdits {ForinddenGcnnnH, 1952),and Gervaise (1956).'There are a few problems with Truffants essayor. rather, with placing toomnch stock in it with regard to the Tradition of Qnalit -. N ine teen films ma de

over the course of fourteen years can hardly be considered representative of a na-tional cinem a. Still, the angry young Turk engages in who lesale conde m natio n:Tiiere are .scarcely more than seven or eiglit scemirists working regularly for the Frenchcinema. Each one ofthesescenarists has hut one stor>' to tell, and, since each only as-pires to the success of the two greats [i.e., Aurenche and Bostj,it is not exaggerat-ing to say that the hundred-odd French films made each year tell the same story. ^This sweeping generalization rests on Uttle support, other than a few scattered ex-amples and the passion with which the claim is made.

Truffaut does acknowledge a few talen ted artists working apa rt from this ten -dency, as he calls it:I know a handful of men in France whu would he INCAPABLE of conceiving [suchfilms],several cinastes who.se world-view is at least as valuahle as that of .Aurencheand Bost, . . . I mean Jean Renoir, Hohert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Becker, AheiCanee, Max Oplils, Jacques Tati, Roger Leenhardt; these are, nevertheless, Frenchcinastes and it happenscurious coincidence-that they are auteurs who oftenwrite their diiilojiiic and someol them themselves invent the stories theydirect ^

It is interesting to note that, in the same postwar, pre-New Wave period(1945-1959) dnring which Aurenche and Bost penned nineteen films, the an-ten rs whom Truffaut valorizes m ade a comb ined totiil of forty-two films in Fr an ce .This might prompt one to wonder: whence the crisis?

Tm ffauts negative assessmen t of the Tradition of Quality is hardly typicalo the critical opinion ol the day. While some may tend to think of Cahiers ducinma as the authoritative source on all things New Wave, this misconceptionpoints up how effective theCahiers critics were in promoting their own films andwritings. According to Peter Gniam, 'Tt has often been assumed, and nnder-.standably so becau se of th e Nouvelle Vague, tha t Cahiers represents the only im-portant school of [French film] criticism. Tliere are. of course, several other goodfilm magazines in F ran ce . . . . But the o nl\' one which conld be said to form aschool, and a school diametrically opposed to that of Cahiers isPositif. ^ In the195()s and 1960s, Ptwi/i/shared with Cahiersan anteurist bent (while privileging awholly other set of auteurs, including John Huston and Stanley Kubrick) but pre-dictably did not take up the agenda of promoting the polemics and careers of theCalders gronp ofdirectors,nor of tearing down the Tradition of Qn alit).Even at Cahiers tliere was disagreement over Truffants venomous essay.

Upon seeing the initial draft in 1952, Andr Bazin recognized it as a political hotpotato and suggested major revisions,-' Perhaps it was during the yearlong rewrite

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In the issue that fmuUy ran the revised artic le, editor-in-chief Jacijues D on iolValcroze (also a filmmaker) equivocated somewhat regarding Truffaut s tont- anv;ilne-judgments, while still taking responsibility for publishing the piece:

Clearly,werealize the polemical st\'le of someathea.ssessinpnts could niise objection.hut we hope that beyond the tonewhich involves only the authoraiul regardlessof certain specificv luejudgments -these are iilways individually questiouahle ;uid ware far from unanimously agreeingwiththemthe readerwillnevertheless recogniza cn lital orientation, or hetter yet, a point of theoretical convergence that is ours.^

According to de Baeccjue and Toiibiana, the article found further disfavor aCahiers:

PierreK:Lst whow sclose to Ren Clement and Jean Grniillon [two of the d irectowlioui Triifiaut attacked],w sits fiercest opponent; he denounced the article's imprecatory tone autl its moral judgments, which lie called critical dogniatisni, or the coloniziitiou Cahiers hy the priest party. ^Even Tniffaut him self adm itted privately, in March 1956, that he was hardly satisfied with the article, disowning to som e extent its aggressiveness and sarcastic attitu de , just two years after its publication.^'

Truffautsvilification of tlie Trad ition of Quality seem s clearly calcu lated tma ke way for a new cinem a in Fran ce. After all, what is th e point of a new cinema if there is no problem with the old? Kight or wrong, perhaps it was a matteof expedience for members of the Cahiers group to attack mainstream Frencfilms of the 1950s, positioning themselves as mavericks who would resuscitatthe moribund French cinema, a cinma de papa largely oi their own criticaconstniction.

This is not to suggest that only Truffaut and company had complained aboutlie direction in which French cinema was moving in the postwar era. Nenpeit citea broadly accepte d notion that an overhaul was needed .-'' But unlike Truffauwho arguably tlirows out tlie baby with the bathwater, other critics placed thblame on the strncture of the industrv; not simply on a select (and, we might notedisjointed) number of aging directors.As Alan Williams points ou t, a mov em ent to reform the Fre nch film indu strhad been afoot as early as tlie 193i)s. Later, the Vichy period of German occupation gave rise to a few key institutions that would eventually contribute to the conditions for th e em erg en ce not only of the N ew Wave, but first of the Tradition oQuality viz., the national film school, ID H F C , and the GOIG (the OrganizatioCo m m ittee for th e Gincnia Industiy). After the war, the C en tre National de lCinmatographie (CNC) took form, basically as an outgrowth of COIC, and, according to Williams, it continued to control F rench cinema very much usC.O.I.C

had, through essentially the same regnlatoiy mechanisms. -^ Snsan Hayward attiibutes some importance to the name change from COIC to CNG; the operativ

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cinem a, aud th e CNG was at the forefront of the effort to pro m ote a ciuenia ofquality. ^A significant motivating factor was th e fact tha t a flood of previouslv ba nn edHollywood films appeared iu postwar France and brought a serious economicthreat to tlie French film industry. In the Bymes-Blum agreement of 1946, theUnited States provided France with a loan in return for fewer restrietions on im-ports, allowing lor more American films iu French theaters. In the first half ol1947, 388 such films were exhibited in France. ' According to Williams,Because nf the Anif Hcan menace, itwasassumed thai successful French films neededhigh budgets for popular stars, attractive costmne.s, elaborate sets, and so on. . . Theldnd of cinema which emerged largely as a result of these strategies is often called theTradition uf QiialitV''tliougli itwasa tradition at best onlyafewyearsold. Qualitymeant, first of all, that the films could not be inferior to the best American products,either technically ... or materially. . . . Quality cinema attempted to meet the Ameri-can threat in two ways: by beating it at its own game (making expensive movies withmass market appeal) andbyemphasizingitshome-court advantage, its Frenclmess.. . .But Frenclincss alune could not guarantee mas.s market appeal. For that, the Tradi-tion of Quality relied on production vaines, and abtnc all on .vi(/r;v.This brief pointed characterizatiou goes a lot further than Truffaut's essayin explaining precisely what the 'Tradition ofQnalitv represented. From a strate-gic standpoint, the best way for the postwar French national cinema to competewith Hollywood was to emp hasize big budg ets, produ ction values, Freu chn ess

(often achieved through literarv' adajitations), and stars. In terms of these mostsalient characteristics^ production values, Frcn chu ess, and stars w e clearlysee ech oes of th e Tradition of Quality iu The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. At thesame time, the film follows many of the aesthetic principles of tiie New Wave asset forth above.The Umbrel las of Cherbourg From the start of his career, Jacques Demy hadwanted to make films like Tlte Umbrellas of Cherbourg a well-produced musicalfilm (indeed an opera, with all-snng dialogue) in dazzling color. Originally, he in-tended his first teature,Lola to be a color musical, but due to limited financing,he was forced to reconceptualize it in black and white and to drop the musicalnumbers, elaborate costumes, and decors he had envisioned.'-

As with th e earlier film, bud get p rove d to be a major s tum bling block for TheUmbrellas of Cherbourg too. After the release of Lola Deiny and composerMichel Legrand pitched Umbrellas to several producers, who liked the .story butthought the unisical genre too great a ri.sk and snggested scaling back, la Lola.However, both Demy and Legrand felt passionately that the film had to be madeas they env isioned it, as a pop ular op era with a jazz-inflected score aud high pro -duction values. They also knew that they would have to find a particularly coura-

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pool of bold pro du cers wiUing to take the risks ol making such innovative films.In a 1963 interview. De my identified several pro du cers as being on ou r side (i.ethe side of the New Wave): Georges de Beauregard, Panl-Edmond DecharmePierre Braunberger often passionate about the cinema, adventurers of the eiuem a, who tak e as many risks as wedo. ' Areal maverick of 196()s Fre nch cinemMag Bodard (who dnringthat deeade produced films by Jean-Luc Godard, AgnVarda, Robert Bressou, Alain Resuais, and others) proved to be just such a producer, exactly the kind needed for Umbrellas.Varda describes Bodard as having ferocions energy, put to the service of her projects, an obstinacy to bring them toUfe, and an enormous capacity for work. ^'^ Bodard had a particularly strong rapport with th e directors of the N ew Wave, as she told Beru ard Payen: The y sensethat I was on their side with regard to their artistic vision, that 1 would be somone who could help them. And they were right. ^'

Before turning to producing, Bodard had worked in the press for many yearschiefly with Pierre LazarefT, the owner of the newspaper France Soir.^ So she waalready well conn ected when , at the age of fort\-two, she prod uce d her first filmShortly after that, Franois Truflaut told her of Demy's trouble iu obtaininfinancing for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Having recently seen and admireLola Bodard m et v\ith D em y and agreed to produ ce th e film. She told Jean -PierrBerth om ,

I was fascinated hy the stor\' ol Umbrellas and by the idea oi doing somethinvery new. . . . 1mak e cinem a as one w ould hiiild a collection; fur m e, the plea surwas in doing things that I loved, witli people who w ere well suited to wliat they werdoing . . . and when Jiicqnes and Michel told me wh at tliey wanted to do , I was veryvery' eager to make the film.*Bodard spent a year and a half putting together various deals, raising 3()0,0()(francs (roughly $75,b()()) from the GNC, and 3()0,(K)0 francs from Germany, twhich she added another 300,000 franes tliat she had borrowed herself. ' Secuing distributiouwiLSalso a problem at first, but Bodard was alle, thanks to h er titoLazareff, to engineer au an-angement with Fo x a deal smacking of New Wavinnovation, balanced with a keen und erstanding o the m achinations of the industry. At the tim e, Lazareff was pro du cing an enterta in ment-ne ws show for Fre nchtelevision; and Bodard persuaded him to nm a pieee on Darr\l F. Zanncks theucurrent release.The Longest D ay (1962),in exchang e for Zauucksagreeing to ditribute Umbrellasand to pony np an advance of 290.000 francs.''^Demy's rath er unn sual. all-singing film did not lit clearly into any prio r trad itions of French filmmaking. Susan Hayward suggests thatDemy's musical comedies.. . represent an attempt to incoqioiate the American muscal and comic traditions into French cinema with the intention of opening up thFrench tradition to enable a new kind ofcomicfilm to emerge. The bitter-sweetne

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Rick Altman makes a distinction betw een mu sicals im d 'musical films,which have little in commo n o ther than a great deal of diegetic music, some pro -duced by pr in cipe characters. * ' Mo.st Fu rop ea n musicals fall into the latter cat-egory, as opposed to the musical gen re, which icature s not only the pres enc e ofmusic, but also a shared configuration of pk)t patterns, character types, and socialstiTK'tures associated with that mnsic. ^' Martin Sutton adds that nuisicals alter-nate between normal dialogue scenes and more or loss fantastic nuisical numbers,suggesthig that a film like Jacques D em ys Umbrellas of Cherbourg,is not a mnsi-c:al because there is no spoken dialogue. '^'

There were, of course, earlier examples of song in French film. According toHayward, tbe filmed song became almost de riieiir in many feature films of the1930s, and this trend is exemplified in the work of Ren Clair ^^ However, neitherthes e nuisical fantasies nor the prew ar cycle of operetta s in Fren ch film (to saynothing of dramas that feature nmsical performances, such as Henri-GeorgesClonzots iiai des orfvres 1947J) find much resonance in Demys musical world.

As the iirst ever ull-snng, live-action, feature iilm, not easily classified bygenre. T he U mbrellas of Cherbourg was considered qnite a risk;^' hut the interna-tional success it enjoyed upon its release^helped considerably by tbe alnied orat Caimes and five Oscar nominationscemented Mag Bodarcl 's repntation asa formidahle, visionary pro dncer. It also solidified he r professional relaticjnshipwith D emy. Acco rding to Agns Varda, With enthnsiasm , tm st and friendshipI wonld even say comp licit\'w ith jactjnes, she continned to produ ce his projects:The \oun^ Girls of Rod ufo rt [19(i7j and then Donkeij Skiit[1970] . . . brilUant,rare films at the 'b reak' of the New Wave. ^^

In terms ofstor).The Umbrellas ofCherbour^i fits the classic New Wave par-adigm in portraying ordinary characters caught up in situations of eveiyday lifeand addressing contemporary cnltnral issues. Set in the eponymous port town inNormandy, the film spans six years and is divided into three distinct acts or parts.Part :Departure Nov ember 1957. A twenty-year-old garage mechan ic nam edCuy Foticher (Nino Castelnnovo) is in love with Genevitve Enierv (CatherineDeneuve), aged seventeen, who helps run her mother's umbrella shop. Mme.Emery (Anne Vernon) does not approve of the match, since Guy has not yet ful-filled his military service and seems to have limited prospects. He lives with bis ail-ing Annt Elise (Mireille Perrey), who is nnder the care of the beautiful, youngMadeleine (Ellen Farner). Madeleine is obviously attracted to Cuy, but be doesnot seem to notice her interest as anytbing beyond friendship.

Pressed by debt, Mme. Emeiy mnst .sell some of her jewels, and thus shemakes the acquaintance of a wealthy diamond dealer, Roland Cassard (Marc M ichel,reprising his rok' from Lola). His interest in Genevive is inunediately apparent.

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Pa r t 2 : A b se n c e Januar)' 195S. Genevive, now pregnant l)nt not showingrarely receives news from Gny in Algeria. After iiaving din ne r with G eneviv e anher m other. Roland asks M me. Em eiy if he may marn G eiievi\e. H e says thashe reminds him of an old love of his from Nantes, named Lola. Afraid to reveaGenevive's pregnancy, Mme. Emery asks Roland to wait for an answer.April 1958. Still with uo word from Guy, Genevive m arries R oland, who haagreed to love the expected child as his own. Madeleine watches from a distancas the newlvweds ride off in Rolands bhick Mercedes.Part 3: Return March 1959. Gny returns from the war, woiuided in the leg, anfinds the umbrella shop deserted. Aunt Elise tells him that Genevive is marrieand living in Paris. Gny takes his old job at the garage, but in his depressed and irritable state,he qnits soon thereafter. He sp ends the night with a prostitute nam eJenny, who says that he may call he r Ge neviv e. Aunt Elise dies suddenly, anGuy asks Madeleine to stay with him. With Guys inheritance, they get marriedand open a garage.

De cfinb tT 1963. At his sei vice station, Guy waits for M adele ine and theison, Franois, to return Irom Ghristmas shopping. Geue\ive, elegantly dresseand driving the black Mercedes, pulls in for some gasoline, not reahzing who ownthe station. Her daughter, Frani^-oise, is with her. Gny and Cenevive exchange lew words in the office, but they have little to say to each other. She asks if hwould like to .see Franoise, but he declines. Gene\ive drives away, and wheMadeleine and Franois return, Guy embraces Uiem enthusiastically,

On e would be hard -pre ssed t) find any m ore ordin aiy cha racters than tinfigures iu this melaueliolic opera of the bourgeoisiea giU'age mechanic, a shogirl and her widowed m other, an ailing annt, a hired care giver and Demy's tontoward them and their problems is never one of condescension, but rather (me ofondness. In fact, a few such ele m ents reso nate with autobiograph ical significancewhen Demy was growing up, his father owned a garage in Nantes, providing aleast a kernel of inspiration for Guy, the grease monkey who likes to go to thopera, and the nnmarried motlier is a figure who shows up time and again iDemys filmsclearly inspired by Varda, who already had her daughter, Rosaliewhen she and Demy married,

Demys affection for his bourgeois and petit-bourgeois characters is summeup in a lovely pu n at the film s close . After Genev ive drives off, as Guy frolics ha ppily with his wife and child, we see them iu extreme long shot stauchug before thgarage, its nam e visible iu prom inent red letters on a white background: Esso Service L'Escale Gh erbonrg eoise (with Ghe rbourgeoise having been framed separately and thus emphasized in an earlier shot). Always a lover of word games

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most of the chara cters asp ire. (In the first act, at the height of tlieir love foreach other, G enevive and Guy dream of a future in which they will run eithe r anumbrella shop or a garage, have children, and remain in love forever.) This isin m arked con trast to at least one tende ncy Truffaut identified in the Traditionof Quality, as he com plained that too many of those films we re blatantly anti-bourgeois. Here, Guy emerges as the film's real hero, having struggled and foundsome meixsure of happiness with a loving family and a business of his own. Thepetit-bourgeois existence that he and Madeleine have made for themselves seemslike paradise when compared to Genevivessituation: although she leads a life ofupper-middle-class luxury; she shares it with a man whom she will never love.As for con tem pora ry cnltnral con cern s, the Algerian War is a major stnie tur-irig ab sen ce (quite literally) In TheLhnbrclla s of Cherbourg. Although we neversee Gny in combat (and indeed the only image of him in Algeria is a picture post-card that he sends to Gene vive), clearly his being called away to fight d isrupts hislife and the li\'es of others in profound ways. It also constitutes a major plot point,as the middle section of tlie film unfolds in response to Gu ys absen ce. Fu rth er-more, Guy's problems of readjnstment upon returning from the Algerian War, ex-acerbated fiy the lack of understanding from his biiss, from merchants, and evenfrom Madeleine, seem particularly poignant and relevant.

In terms of stars. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is perhap.s more akin to theNew Wave than the Tradition of Quality. Ca therin e D eneuv e had appe ared in atew films, notably for Roger Vadim, but she was hardly a star at the time Demy casther In fact. TheUmbrellasof Cherbourg is widely rega rded as one of the films tha tmade her a star According to G inette Vincendeau, De neu ve established herselfas a major international star in the 1960s with three classics: Les Paraphnes deCherbourg (1964),Repulsion (196.5), and Belle de jour (1967). ^'' Deneuve herselfacknowledges the importance of Umbrellasin shapin g he r professional life: Thisfilm fundamentally determined my career. Without it, despite the various experi-ences [on other films] that came before it, I'm not sure that I would have em-brac ed this career. ^ ' D eneuv e's leading ma n, N ino Castelnuovo , was also arelative new com er to the cinem a, his only major credit at the time being Luch inoViscontis Roteo and His Brothers.

Despite the ir lack of star status. Dem y gave his lead actors the star treat-m ent in term s of glamour lighting, makeu p, coiffures, and costum es especiallyDeneuve. particularly striking example {among many) occurs us Genevive shopsfor a wedding gown with her mother. As Mme. Emery wanders through the bou-ti(|ne, stiddenly the camera dollies and pans past her to reveal Genevive behinda white veil, staring alluringly into the camera, an ethereal vision if ever there wasone (Figure 1).'^'Vincendeau credits The Um brellas of CherbourgvWth helping topopularize D eneuve's stunn ing looks. and her image as a 'cool' bloiule. ^'- She

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Figure 1. A glamour shoL of C ath erin e D ene uv e, in The Umbrella s of Cherbour(All images courtesy of Koch l^rber Films.)

sweet, sexy-but-iuuocent and yet glamorous blonde, a persona solidified iu twother Demy films, the musical Les Denwiselles de Rochefoii (1967) aud the costume fair)' taleFeatt d ne (1970). ^'While most of the principal actors were relatively unknown (Ellen Famer a

Madeleine was a newcomer, aud Marc Micliel as Roland Cassard was known onlfrom Lola). Demy had wanted a star for the role of Mme. Emer^; He first approa ched Miclieliue Presle (who had appeared in La Luxure ) and then D aniellDarrieux, both well-established figures in French cinema since the early 1940sbut neither was available. In any event, Anne Vernon playeti the part in a ratheDarrieux-esque turn. Neither a novice nor a star, Vemon had appeared in supporting roles throughout the 1950s, including one in L Affaire des poisons (HenDecoin, 1955) which starred Darrieux, and leatliiig roles in two films by JacqueBecker, whose work Demy admired. Mireille Perrey (Aunt Elise), while hardly stiU , rep res en ts a similar iiod to th e Trad itiou of Quality, having app ea red mosnotably in Op hlssMadanu:de . . . 19.53)and a film by C laude Au tant-La ra ctdlLa Jument verte 1959), scripted by Aurenche and Bost.

Th e point at which th e aesthetics of the New Wave and the Traditiou oQuality meet head to head iu Tbe Umbrellasof Cherbourg is in the mise-en-scnviz., th e sh arp juxtaposition of real locations with elab orate , fantastical prod uction

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the e ntire film was shot on location in C he rlxu ng . in real shops and apa rtm ents , onreal streets, in real bars, cafs, etc. At times, this hallmark of New Wave produc-tion lends t he film a certain gritty re;ilisni, particularly evident in the sce nes at thetrain station as Guy leaves for the war and returns from it. However, for most of thefilm, the real locations stand in pointed, arguably Breehtiau contrast to the wildcoitjr schemes devised by Demy and his production designer, Bernard Evein (aug-mented by Jacqueline Moreanscostnme designs). Bertho m describes the effects:

Jnst as music shifts the dialogue, color shifts the locate, transcends it, gives birth toa world at once real and dreamlike: a town made of stones seemingly painted hy amagicianfamiliar enough that we recognize it, hiit so transformed that we venturethere with wontlrons jubilation, as if rossingthe threshold ol the fantastic.Evein add s: Shooting on location was at first a question of resou rces. Aud then , itseems bizarre, but Jacques liked the realism. Tlie decors of our films are verytransposed, but they are also reaUstic. This is not the dcor of ninsicals. ''^

The artifice of the film s color scheme constantly calls attention to itself andat times becom es a kind of gam e. Dem y and Evein had mad e nnusnal use of colorIn one previous film, the short Le Bel indifferent (1957), wh ich takes place in asingle location dom inated by red. According to Evein, At that tim e, no one da redexperiment too much with color; one still used a lot of grays, and experienced de-signers told me that half an hour in a totally red set would never work. ^' Iu TheUm brellas of Cherbou rg colors vie for dominance, almost like characters compet-ing for the viewers attention, as a secondary color iu on e scene b ecom es dom inantone or two scenes later. Approximately 90 percent of the wallpapers used in thefilm were specially printed in custom colors. Out of a total design budget of120,000 irau cs. 15,000 paid for the wallpaper.'^^ A few consecu tive scenes from th ethird act illustrate the film's complex interplay of colors quite clearly.

When (;uy encounters the prostitute, Jenuy, the bar where they meet is dec-orated mostly in red. The bright red walls offer a garish counterpart to the all-red(bnt softer) dance hall where Guy takes Genevive iu the first act. This second redbar, clearly a mee ting plaee for sailors and prostitutes, is lightly acc ente d with de epviolet (a biirstool here, a door in the background there). The exterior of the hotelwhere Jenny takes Guy is ptiinted a solid goldenrod, but the room it.self is domi-nated by deep violet wallpaper with a gold pattern. Not only does this immediatelyrecall the violet accents from the previous scene in the bar, bnt the violet-goldcombination also closely matches the wallpaper in Mme. Emery's shop and of-fice, whe re much of the nego tiation of Genevives miuriage to Rolaud Cassardtakes place, The parallel between that transaction and the one carried out in thehotel room is strength ened wheu Jeuny tells Guy that he cau call her G ene \ive .Further. Demy uoted the sexual qualities of the pinks aud mauves throughoutthe film.^*^

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goldcnrod, button-front sweater, wbicb (together with his demeanor) makes himseem somewhat older. Here, the film offers a subtle visual cue that Guys experienc e at the hotel (with its gold enro d iront) has aged him in a way, and this is reinforced in t he dialogu e, as Mad eleine expresses dissatisfaction at the ways in whichGuy has changed since returning froui Algeria.Throughout the film, costumes match decors in startling ways, The first instance of this occurs in the garages k)cker room, as we notice that Cuy's pale blushirt matches the lockers precisely. (Significantly, in Guy's brici, post-Army stint athe garage, bis clothing no hmger matches the dcor, suggesting perhaps that heno longer fits in the re; and, indeed, he can no longer manage to bold down thejob.) Similarly, at one p oint, M adeleine arrives at Elise's apa rtm ent we aring a darkgreen scarf that matches the wallpaper and trim exactly, suggesting just how muchat home she is with Guy and Elise (or perhaps her desire to he a part of Guy'world), fbreshadt)wing the fact that she and Gny eventually will make a home together. When Mme. Emery informs Roland that Genevive has agreed to marryher \iolct-and-nrange robe closely matcbes tbe wallpaper in her salon and the\iolet wallpaper in the shop's main room (while also anticipating the violet-goldwalls in Jennys hotel room). The iihns most .stunning example of matcliing costumt' and dcor occurs ;is Genevive reads Roland Cassard's letter of proposalShe wears a dark blue dress with a pink flural pattern, ilniost an e.xact niutcb fothe wiillpaper in her bedroom, wbicb we see simultaneously in the hackgronndclose behind her (Figure 2).

Tbcse and other tactics in the film constitute a (juasi-Brethtiun program, inwhich the viewer is distanced from the story, then left to re-engage with it, thenpulled out again, allowed back in, and so on. This in itself is nothing new, especially in th e context cif the nm sical gen re. Jane Fe ue r suggests an im pulse of conservative reflexivity in many Hollywood m usicals, which often q uo te old er filmsimply to suggest continn ity with the past and to cele brate the world of enter tainment. ***' For Fener, the Hollywood musical genre often employs techniques thamight initially strike the viewer/analyst LShaving Brechtian effects of distanciatio(direct address, baring the dc\ice s o film perform ance and prod uction, intertextuality, etc.), but which nltimately function in a recnperative manner, merelycelebrating the movies' wo ndro ns world of entertainment.' '*' However, F eu e rarguments do not fully account for tbe reflexivity of Demy's nmsic;d films, for acouple of reasons.

For one thing, Feu er seem s to assume that in order lor such techn iques to bdisruptive, th e story conte nt of the film m nst be explicitly critical or revolutionaryso tha t th e only Hollywood nmsic;ils to achieve critical rcflcxi\it> are those whosnarratives openly challenge the establishment. This viewpoint perhaps makes toolittle allowance for irony, for ambiguity, or for critical reflection on the part of tli

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Figure 2. Go.stumes match dcor; Anne Vemon and Deneuve.say. U ne Femme est une femme (1961), to be de.scribed as Bre chtian . Such asimple diciiotomy (Hollywood vs. Godard) neglects the possibihty of a range ofBrechtiau tendencies that a film or group of films might possess. I would arguethat, even tho ngh Hollvwood was and is a conservative institution, som e of tsfilmsdo achieve quasi-B rcchtian distanciation from time to time . As a perfect exam ple,consider Meet Me in St Amis[Vincente M inuelli, 1944), with its m ultiple cases ofinterrup ted sougs, its many faulty performances, and its dark un derto nes of deathand separation. E ven the happ y end ing does n

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that moment of perfect equilibrinm when the couple is frozen into eternal embrace, the show frozen into a perpetually triumphant curtain eall. ' '^

Further emphasizing this difference and the disruptive effects of the filmPeter Hogiie characterizes The Umbrellas oj Cherbourg as a choreo graph ed vsion imag ined smack up against the everyday reality of doc um entary reiilism. It's stylized, picture-hook world in which allusions to the war in Algeria are by nomeans casual. The sung dialogue tilts the musical romance story into defamiharization that remains unexpectedly fresh. '^'

Contributing to this defamiliarization, the operatic qualit\' of the film mayshock the \dewer at finst, but Berthom has noted how quickly one adjusts to thehighly unorthodox element of the sung dialogue, almost as a game in which onevnUingly plays along.*''' Demy begins the gam e in th e last place w he re on e wo uldexpect to find ope ratic singing: in tlie garage whe re Guy works. This choice sets inmotion a comm entary' on class distinctions that contim ies thro ugh out tlie film, andindeed in much of Demy's otlier work. Here, the viewer finds it strange, perhapeven funny, tliat a mechanic wonld be singing in this wayonly to realize almosimm ediately how absurdly elitist it is to make assumptions abou t cultural tuste basedon econom ic elass. Typically, De m y sw eetens the co m men tary'with hum or: w henGuy tells a coworker that he is going to the opera that night to see Carmen, hifriend replies that he prefers the cinema to opera. The viewer cannot miss the reflexive joke, since the film itselfisin fact a sort of classed down op era no t because ofitsblue-collar subject matter (cf Carmen ,but rather because ofitsbeina cinematic opera and thus available to all but the poorest economic classes.

Despite the unusual, initially startling and distancing qualities of the all-sungdialogue and overwrought tlcor, one does become accustomed to them, tlianklargely to tiie conventions of the musici.d genre. However, Demy empk)ys additional visual and aural devices to keep up tlie film's quasi-Brechtiim strategy. Foinstance, at several points throughout the film, a character is framed head-on, usually in close-up , looking directly into the ca me ra. This breach of on e of th e cardinal rules of classical cinema inevitably shocks th e viewer mom entarily, At time sthe technique is accompanied by a brief emotional swelling or outburst, occasionally even an aside . Hatlier than simply bein g taken in, we are add ressed directly bythe film and made aware of how its narrative devices are functioning at the particular m om en t. In siiort, the film \-iolates the fourth wa ll.

The fust instance of a character's looking directlv into the camera occurs in thevery first post-credits shot of the film. custom er stands in the entrance/drivewaof the garage wh ere G uyworks,looking directly into the ca m era for just an instanbefore turnin g to go inside and check the status ofhiscar. Since the man is framein a long shot and turns so quickly away from the camera, this does not stand ouas pointedly as tlxe later, close-up framings, which one cannot fail to notice.

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H ere, D em y pushes th e bou nds of continuity editing conventions as well, by cutting180 degrees, precisely along the axis of action. Being momentarily pulled out ofthe story at tbis moment allows us t) ponder the significance of the verbal ex-change: Mme. Emery's concerns revolve lu'ound economics, Genevives aroundsentiment.This same combination of direct address to the camera and ISO-degree cut-ting occurs as Rolaud Cassard is dining vvdth Mme. Emery- and Geuevive. Fordessert, they eat small galettes des rois or "king cakes," one of which contains ahidden beau.'^'' (This bit of actiou adds a fairy-tale qualitv' to the scene, anticipat-ing Demy's later forays into that genre. Donkey Skin au d The Pied Piper [1971].)Genevive finds the bean in her cake, so she must choose her king. In close-up,she looks directly into the camera (across tbe table at Roland), saying, "I have nochoice; you are my king." In re spon se, R oland looks tlirectly at he r (at us), express-ing his happiness aud gratitude. Again, such direct address, combined with the180-degree cuts, jars us out of the diegesis at precisely the moment of the scene'shighest emotional and narrative impact. Roland offers Genevive a traditiontilgold-foil crow n, and again w e .see he r in close-up, looking directly into th e cam erain one of Denenves most radiant moments in the film (Figure 3). Roland notesGenevivesresemblance to aVirgin witb Cbild and Mme. Emery lets out a briefhigh-pitched cry, as she is caught off guard by the unintended reference to preg-nancy, an allusion already established by the hidden bean.

A similar cry accompanies Mme. Emerv's look into the camera in an earlier.scene, when she di.scovers the extent of her financial troubles, exdaimiug, "AhWe're ruined " Other surprising, aural outbursts function in like fashion, as in thescene in which Roland first visits the umbrella shop. Genevive is going out tomeet Guy, against her mother's wishes. As she heads out the door, Mme. Emer)'sscream of "Genevive " is accompanied in the score by short bursts from the brasssectiou, aud as we cut to the exterior of the shop, the screechiug brakes and blar-ing horn of Rolands Mercedes add to the momentary cacophony. In a similarlyBrechtian vein, Legra nd s score often chan ges tone rath er dramatically and ab ruptlyat various poiuts in the film, repeatedly calling attention toitself.

lew other specific, quasi-Brechtian elements stand out and merit some men-tion. In one stunning shot, quite jarring in its artifice and fantastic qualities, Guyaud Geuevive glide, rather than stroll, through the street at night^obviouslybeing pulled along ou some sort of dollyvery much iu love and melancholic atthe prospect of parting. Earlier, as they sit togetlier in a caf, with Genevive beg-ging Guy not to join the army, and him begging her not to cry, a large, wooden-framed mirror dominates the background, complemeuted by the wooden frame ofthe booth they occupy. Much later in the fihn, when a desponde nt Guy returns tothe same caf, we notice that an identical mirror hangs on the opposite wall, an

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Fig ure 3. ff-screcu, Roland reniai'ks that ( cu f\ c \c reniiuds him of a Vir0nwith Child.in th em ise-en-scne throughout the entire film (and virtually all Demy films), anwhile they do not necessarily pull us out of the fictional world, they do offer subtle hints of reflexivity.The Umbrellas of Cherbourg uot ouly calls attention to itself aud its own artifice, but also refers to numerous other works of art. Most obviously, the filmrefers to Demys own Lola, with the reappearance of the Roland Gassard character. As Roland mentions that Genevive reminds him of Lola, Demy inserts aspectacular, last-moving dolly shot around the Passage Pommeraye in Nantes, animportant location in Lola.Demy makes fretjuent reference to other films, especially the work of MaxOphiils. through stylistic gesture and minor plot elements. We might also note thaOphiils's films themselves often eniplov Breehtian tlistancing, reflexivity, and intertextuaiity. As Susan M. White points out,

Oplinls [ viel lias often heeii called an ironic director because the ohvious patterns ocamera movements, repetitions of dialoj^ne. and other details seem to imply a consciousness that invites ns to distance onrselvcs Iron) some events, pa.ss judgment onparticu lar cha racte rs, or reflect on an abstract m eanin g that is the resnlt of interte xtnal references to o ther films, novels, or plays. . . . Danielle D an ien xs reading oStendhal's De l amour in IM Ronde is a ridi cininentary on her state of mind, fo

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Mme. Emerv's reluctant decision to sell some of her jewels constitutes anohlique reference to Ophls'sMadavw de . . .(1953), in which Da nielle Darrienx'scharacter sells a pair of earrings back to her jeweler. In that film, on several occa-sions,D arrieux makes the gesture of checking her hair in a mirror before leaving aroom, a gesture th at De my wo uld have her repeat {and repeat) in his 1982 film,ARoom in Toicn. In Umbrellas. Anne Vernon makes the same gestnre just prior togoing out to the jeweler's shop. There, she and Genevive meet Boland Cassard,who agrees to buy the necklace. He says that he can sell it easily in Paris or Lon-don (significantly, in Madame de . . .the earrings are re.sold in Lo ndon). T he sereferences to Ophls are slight ;md lleeting, but nonetheless unmistakable. WhileOphls was a favorite of the New Wave directors (and receives special exemptionin Truflant's 1954 tirade ), Alan Williams chara cteriz es bis wo ik as the sununit ofthe Trad ition ol Qnality. '''

Demys clearest stylistic homage to Ophls lies in his penchant for long takesand am era mov em ent. Cam ille Tabonlay charac terizes OphUls as the m aster ofthe melodramatic operetta, scented with (juaint perfinne, transcended by lyricismand spectacle. . . . H e is an ex-pert of t he cam era a rabe sque, a iigure that w ould be-come Demy's preferred cinematographic gesture. ' ' 'TheUm reUas of Cherbourgemploys camera movement in virtually every scene, it has an average shot lengthof twenty-three seconds, and severid of its scenes unfold in just one or two shots.Such is the case with tbe first m iibrelia-shop scene. M m e. Em ery en ters from

the left at the hack o the sales floor, and the camera pans right and tracks forwardto follow her as she greets a customer, a middle-aged man interested in purchas-ing a black umbrella. The camera dollies in and pans right as Mme. Emery walksover to Genevive, who stands at the window looking out at Guy, and instructs herto assist the gentleman. As Genevive walks toward him, the camera reverses itspan to follow her to the left (as Guy rides offen iiis bicycle in the background, alsoto the left), and finally the camera doilies out, back nearly to its original position.This sort of subtle dance of the camera permeates the film and is e.specially no-ticeable in the rather confined location of the eponymons umbrella shop. In amu.sical iilm virtually devoid of dancealthough Demy did suggest that charac-ter movements should be graceful, even choreographedwe niiglit note that thecomb ination of long take and cam era roundelay com pensates for the lack of actualdance numbers.*^

C'amera movement plays u more prominent narrative role at key dramaticmoments, LSin the scene of Guy's depa rture . H e and Genevive proclaim theirlove for each other as he hoards the train that wall take him away for two yearso army seivice. A reverse tracking shot rnn s parallel to the railroad tracks as thetrain pnlls away into the foreground. Ge nevive continues to walk toward th e cam -era for a few steps, bnt she nevertheless recedes into the background. Gny, aboard

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skty-four-second maneuver of deep staging aud camera movement accentuatethe dramatically charged moment, visually emphasizing the abruptness and inevitabilit)' of th e lovers' separation . The shot thus closes tlie act on e with an em otional impact worthy of any opera.At the end of act two, De m y once again achieves a dram atie turning poinby way of a long take (thiriy-six seconds) emploving powerful camera movementAfter their wedding, Genevive and Roland emerge from the chnrch in extremelong shot. As the ubiquitous black Mercedes arrives to pick them up, the cameradoUies in slowly, momentarily resting on a medium close-up of Genevive sittingin the hack seat, pregnant as can be and dressed beautifully in white. As the capulls away, die catnera pans left and tracks to follow it briefly. Then the dramashifts as M adeleine suddenly comes into frame, watching th e proc eedin gs fromthe sidelines as it w ere. She gazes after the car for a m om ent and th en turns back

toward the camera to reveal, iu close-np, a look of restrained, perhaps anxioushope : with Genevive now married and out of the picture, M adeleine may beable to wiu Guy's affectious.These Ophiilsian tentlencies toward long takes and showy camera movemen ts are established in the very first shot of the film, un der th e op ening creditsWe iris in on an extrem e long shot of the po rt of Glierbonrg at dusk, then tilt downto an extremely high-angleindeed, completely verticaloverhead long shot oa cobbled sidewalk. It starts to rain, and numerous passersby raise their (mostly

pastel umbrellas, which form bobbing, slightly billowing, rather abstract circlesthat move across the screen at panillel, peqjendicniar, and 45 degree angles, hkesom ething out of an Oskar Fischinger experimen t. At the very least, the overheadframing suggests that this will be unlike most films (let alone mnsicals) that wehave seen b efore; and lest we m ight conclu de from the soft colors that this is goingto he a frothy, eandy-coated affair, a final group of umbrellas, all blaek, movesacross the screen with the last of the credits, foreshadowing the film's darker ILSpects. At the end of tliis two-minute, ten-second shot, the camera tilts back up tits original framing of the port of Cherbourg.Jean-Pierre Berthom points out that this view of Gherbourg irresistibly callsto mind Jan V'ermeer's 1661 painting.View of Delft, iu terms of both compositionand tonahty.' It seem s fitting that D em ys bran d of intertextuality bra nch es oufrom film to include paiutiug, siuce he himself dabbled in oils, a hobby to wliichhe devoted mo re and m ore tim e later in life .' V ermeer was one of Demy's favoritepainters, perhaps because his work evinced a more provincial tone than that ofthe other great masters.'- Indeed, in 1986, Demy was planning to make a film inHolland, La Ruelle., inspired by Vermeer's painting of the same name The Litt

Street, 1658), ' Gamille Tabonlay points out another direct reference to Vermeein TheUnrrellasof Cherbourg:dressed in white and pale bine, the slightly preg

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Figure 4. Denenve's pose, together vdth shot composition, evokes Vermeer.Reading a Letter at an Open Windinc (1657). ' ' Demy's composition borrows ele-ments from both paintings,

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Quality and its tenden cy to emp hasize Frenc hness. W hile paying brief hom age

had followed the evolution of music, today we would have j;tzz operas, even inE ur op e. Of course, jazz is primarily an American phe nom eno n, but there is a distinctly French flavor in Legrand's score. (Besides, Paris is widely kuown as oue ofthe world'sj;izzcenters, due in iarge measure to themigiatioii the re of a nu m be roAmerican jazz greats, who grew tired of segregation and racism at home.) So, likeotlier aspects of the film, the jazz-opera element neatly straddles tbe New Wave'sfascination with American cu lture and th e affinity for Fre uclm css ' so characteristic of th e Trad itiou of Quality.Dem\''s unapologetic affinity for French aud European culture (includingpainting, opera, and cinema) is perhaps the qiialit)- that most sets him apart fromhis fellow New Wave luminaries, especially the Cabiers group. While TruffautGodard, and others were busy glorifving tbe American cinema of Hitchcock andBog art an d .significantly distancing themselves from th e Tradition of Quidity Demy fully embraced aud celebrated earlier traditions of French and Europeancinema aud art, right along with American ones. At the same time, though, he recast those tntditions in his own signature style, with his own set of thematic concerns, fully in line with Nevv Wave anteurism. As a figure of intersection betweenthese two cinematic approaches often regarded as irreconcilable, Jac(jues Demyreminds us that our understand ing ol the N ew Wave and the Traditiou ol Qualit)' is still incomplete.ot s1. Tliis essay's conclusions came about largely hy way of neolorniiilist analysi.s, a.s described in Kristin Thompsons Breaking theGla ssArmor : Netfonnahst Film Ana lys(Pnnceton, NJ: Princeton university Press, 1988).2. Miclicl Marie. The French Netr W ave: An A iiistie Sehool. trans. Richard Neuper(M;den, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 26.3. Jeaii-Liic Godard, interview. Cahiers du einma 138 (1962), reprinted in Jim Hilliered,. Cahiers du Cinma 1960-iUiH: New Wave, New Cinemi. Reevahiatng Hollywood (Cambridge, MA: Haivard University Press, 1986), 60.4. Jacques Demy, interview. Film Heritage 2, no. .3 (1967): 24; Camille Tahoiilay, L

Cinma enchant de Jacques Demy (Paris: Cahiers du cinma. 1996), 19. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Hie French are my own.5. Marie,The French Neu Waix\ 7 0 - 7 1 .6. Ibid., 71 .7. Richard Ne upe rt. A Hlstonj of the French Neu: Wave Cinema (Madison: University oWisconsin Pres s. 2(K)2), 5 a8. Jean Donchet, Ercnch New Ware, trans. Rohert Bonnono (New York; Oi.stribnifd APublisliers, 1999), .56 -69 .9. David Bordwell and Kristin Thomp.son, ihnArt: An Introduction. 6tli ed. (Nevv YoM cGraw -Iiill, 201),42().1. Marie, The French New Wau\ 86.1 1. Jraii-Aiidre Fiesch i, Ne o-ne o-real ism: Bandits at Orgosolo. Cahiers dn Cinenui 1

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13 . C;nrionsly, Jatn es Monaco 's New Wave (NewYork:Oxford University Press. 1976) doesnot discuss the Tradition of Quality an a makes only piLSsing reference to any of itspractitioners.14. Bill Nich ols, ed. .M ovies andMethod. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1976),224.15. Antoine de Baecjue and Serge Toiihiana, Tniffaut: A Biography, trans. CatherineTeinerson (New York: Alfred A.Knopf. 1999), 77.Ifi. Nichols,Movies and Methods, 224.17. Inte rne t M ovie Da tabase , Joint N'cnturcs: Jean Aure nch e. Pierre Bo.st. http://iiiidl).cani/Joint\'entures (acces.sed October 22. 2006).18. Francois Tniflant, .\ C^ertiiin Tendency of the French Cinema, Cahiers du cinma31(1954). reprinted in Nichols.M ovies and Methods, 232.19. Ibid ., 23 3 : en)pl)asi.s in original.20. Peter Graham , ed. . The New Wave (Ga rden City NY: Douhleday, 196S). S.21 . D e Baecqne and Tonhiaiia. Tntffaut. 74 .22. Truffant. A Certain Tendenc y of the Fren ch (Cinema,' 23 2.23 . Qu oted in de Baecque and Tonhiana, Tniffaui, 75 .24. Ibid., 76.25. Q uoted in ihid.. 79.26. Nenpei t ,A llistonj of the French New- W ave Cinenia.xxii.27. Williams. Repuhlie of Images.249. 276.2S . Ibid., 277.29. Snsan Ha^w ard. Freueh National Cinema (Ifnu: Boutledge, 1993). 44.30. Donfliet,'/'-)rK7i New Wave,327 .31 . Williams. Repuhlie of Images, 278; emphasis in original.32. Jean- Pierre Beitlioni,yja/(/cs'Demy et lesraeinesdu rve,2nd ed. (Nan tes: L 'Atalante,1996), 166.33 . Ibid.34. Neup ert , AHvitory of the French N ew Wave Cinema, xxvli.35. Jacqn es Demy, interview. Cinma 63 74 (1963): 1 9-2 0.36. Agns Varda. Magiiy, Cin ma thqu e Franaise program notes, M ay -J un e 2004, 9.37. Mag Bodttrd. interview, CJinniatliqne Franai.se program notes , M ay -J un e 2004 . 14.3 S . Bcrtliin(^./-/-//ic.v Denuj. 167 .39. Ihid.40. Bodard. interview 14.41 . Bfrth mw,jae jucs Demy, f67 68.42. Hawvard, French National Cinema, 2 7 6 - 7 7 .43. Rick Altman, Th e Musical, in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. GeoffreyNowell-Smith (Oxford: Cxford University Press. 1996). 294.44. Ihid.45. Martin .Siitton. ra ttcm .s of Moan ing in the Musical. InGenre: The M usieal. cd. RickAltman (London: Rontledge. I9S1),' 190.46. Haywiird, Freneh National Cinema, 136.47. Graliani Ptrie. Jacqnes Demy, Film Ctuniiwnt (Winter 1 971-1 972): 50.48. Varda. Maguy. S.49. Ginette Vincendean. Slars aud Stardom iu Freueh Cinema ([_,nTidon: Continmun,

2000),196.50. Citlterin' De-ncnve. int en iew . Ciuma I271/272 19S1). 66.

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53 . Ibid.. 198.54 . Em ma Wilson,French Cinema Sinee 19 50: Personal Histories (New York: Rowman &Littlefietd, 1999), 43 .5 5 . Jean-Pierre Berthom, U^s Parapluies de Clierlxmrji (Paris: Nathan, 1996), 7 2 - 7 3 .56. Bern ard Evein. "L'Ecole de Nan tes,"Cahiers dit einma 438 (1990): 46-47,57. Evein, interview, Cinnw Si 271/272 (1981): 72.58. Ibid..59. Taboulay, Le Cinma eneuml de jaafnes Deintj.39.60. Jane Enicr, The Holhjtcood Musical (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982)1 0 3 - 4 .61. Robert Stam, Reflexivity in Film and L iterature: Fnnn Don Quixote to fenn-Liie Go-danl (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. 1985), 9 0 - 9 1 .62. Eevier, The Hollywood Musieal ST.63 . Pe ter H agu e, "Playing for Ke eps," F//t Comment 21.no. 4 (1991): 77 .64. Be rtho m ./w i/iirv Di'HK/. 173.65. King cakes traditiona lly are served du rin g L';ir ii\iil and o tber festivals, in orde r toclioose the king and i|iieen of the event; in some tradititiiis, the bean symbolizes theChrist child.66. Susan M. W hite, Tlie Cinenui of Max Ophitls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure ofWoman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 12.67. Williams,Repnblie ofhiutf^es 298.68. Tabuuias', />(Cinema enchant deJacuesD enitj 3 1 .69. Dem y, interview. 1963 , 19.70. Bertlini, Peirtiphiie.s 73 .71. Taboulay, Le Cinma enchant deJac ues Demij 164.72. Berthom Jacques Denuj 378.73. Taboulay, .^ Cinma enehant de Jacques Dem y 188.74. Ibid. . 8 .75. Demv, inter\'iew, 1963, 19.

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