Gigi's Lost Lessons

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 10:11am

The Punchy Players Newest Masterpiece

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 10:15am

That's fvcking GENIUS!!!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 10:25am

I love the Punchy Players.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/5/14 at 1:25pm

Great, cartoonish impersonations of Leslie Caron and Isabelle Jeans! Right on the money.

Love it!

[strummergirl]

Posted: 3/6/14 at 5:49pm

I watched Gigi this past weekend after much hubbub was made about Buzzfeed ranking it last on the Best Picture winners, that included a really great defense piece by Farran Smith Nehme at the Self-Styled Siren blog, and, to my surprise, I really liked it. It's artifice, it's fluff, Lerner and Loewe are totally plagiarizing and reapplying their My Fair Lady work to Minnelli, who really wanted to make MFL but couldn't. It's charming, it's under 2 hours (yet feels as though it contains more in its happenings than films 30-60 minutes longer) and Minnelli directs the hell out of it in ways where he just operates at a different level than 95% of other film musicals. I prefer Meet Me in St. Louis and Brigadoon, but it's a respectable, gorgeous work and 'I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore' is my earworm at the moment.


Gigi: A Defense

[Gorlois]

Posted: 3/6/14 at 7:43pm

What can I say except agree with everyone else: The Punchy Players are awesome.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:15am

Strummer, I agree with completely about Gigi. And I love that defense (ie do people who find Thank Heavens for Little Girls even listen to more than the first line?)

That original list (it is Buzzfeed) is kinda infuriating, but I guess it's just an opinion.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 7:05am

I also agree about Gigi. People who trash it usually have no clue about history or certainly social history in Europe. Or women's history, for that matter.

They also don't make it to the end of the movie, where Gigi and Gaston both reject the conventions of the day in the name of their love for each other. They break the mold and decide not to do what is expected by society.

I can usually tell a lot about a person if they "hate" Gigi.

EDIT: By the way, I'm still on my Best Picture jag, seeing every single movie that won the award in chronological order. I just finished West Side Story (1961), and it's been a fascinating ride. Seeing how everything changes (from slang to telephones to makeup to dialogue) over the years. Right now, the film "least deserving" of the honor (for me) is The Greatest Show On Earth. It's not a bad movie, but it's a second-rate film, absolutely. Nothing in that movie is worthy of an award, and nothing in the film even approaches "outstanding." It pretty much hovers at "mediocre" all the way through. The others all have something worthy, whether it's the story, the performances, the spectacle, or all three.

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 07:05 AM

[trentsketch]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:58am

I was working at a high school once where the director really wanted to do Gigi. I was totally on board as a fellow fan of the film and score. She brought it up with the principal and he said no because it endorses pedophilia. He refused to read the script. All he knew about the show was that it has the song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and that was enough to say no.

You just can't win with some people.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 9:21am

By that token, Romeo and Juliet promotes statutory rape.

Our Town and The Sound of Music countless other works promote underaged youths getting romantically involved before they are of legal age. It's simply disgusting!

Gigi is "of age" by her society's conventions. That's why her aunt and grandmother draw the issue to both Gigi and Gaston, who aren't even thinking along those lines. They have a close friendship that isn't an "Uncle/Niece" scenario or any other pseudo member of the family. Gaston is a family friend, and Gigi perceives him a such, not a "father figure." That's never even suggested.

They are both perfectly happy to continue their relationship as is, until it's pointed out that they can't. Because Gigi is growing up, and is now of age for romance with men, society won't allow them to go on innocently. So if they want to play by the rules of the day and be accepted publicly, they will have to see each other as a potential romantic couple or not at all. Gaston rejects the idea at first until he realizes (during the song "Gigi") that he is in love with her. She is his perfect soul mate. The one person who makes him totally happy and allows him to be himself.

The problem is that Gigi's aunt and grandmother want them to be something they are not. They try to mold Gigi, and in turn Gaston if he accepts their terms, and Gigi and Gaston try for one short, interrupted evening to be what people want them to be.

They can't do it. Gigi will not be a courtesan to a wealthy, highly eligible bachelor. And Gaston can't do that to her either, because he loves her too much.

So at the end, he proposes marriage to her, flying against conventional wisdom of someone in his social circle, and also against someone of Gigi's social ranking (which is far below his). They decide to play this game their own way.

I think Collette was attempting to show the unfair and rather unpleasant conventions of the day, and she created a sweet, cheerful romance between two people who decided to defy it, rather than shake her angry fist at it in rebellion. In many ways Colette's gentile method was far more effective in getting people to open their eyes and see things differently.

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 09:21 AM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 11:32am

That was beautifully written besty. I agree with your assessment. I adore GIGI. It's one of my "go-to" films that cheer me up when I'm having an attack of the "mean reds" (as Holly Golightly is wont to say).

I've owned a copy in (almost) every conceivable home video format but even so I can't ever bring myself to switch the channel whenever TCM airs it. Which is exactly what happened last weekend.

The film was deserving of it's Best Picture win.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 11:34am

I hate to admit it, but I've never seen Gigi. I don't know how I've let it go by.

I will say, however, that the Buzzfeed list referenced is so f*cking terrible that I want to punch a wall. How many times did she have to say something along the lines of 'Well...from the perspective of 2014, this doesn't hold up.' Oh, just shut the f*ck up. Try expanding your perspective, you dilettante. Her remarkably stupid take on Gentleman's Agreement just let me know that her opinions have no value.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 12:04pm

The list was terrible. Glenn Kenny's alt take of the list as he was making tomato sauce is much better because of how not seriously he takes it yet manages to have a much more respectable list. He likes Gigi too and also gives a personal defense of The Lost Weekend. Plus, he definitely thinks a majority of the winners were good movies and not just pitting films against pictures of their year, that clearly effected Buzzfeed's list.

In the context of Gigi, Honore singing that song, as noted, is about how girls turning into women is what is wonderful- the opposite of pedophilia. Maybe too close for comfort to people who could also think the song is counting down to when a girl becomes of age, but that is not the character of Honore either. He is done with romance and wants to just age gracefully (hello, cheeky, show-stopping 'I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore') and the only time love is involved for him is looking back on the love who could have had with Gigi's grandmother('I Remember It Well' that is lit to be by far the song Minnelli finds crucial in the storytelling), both whom are clearly the example for Gaston and Gigi, now in their position to make a different choice.

If we had to tick off musicals that by their story-lines are inappropriate/creepy or gloss over 'serious topics' then goodbye, Gypsy, My Fair Lady (come on, teacher and pupil relations), Carousel, Chicago, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, etc. In doing so that also strips a lot of great musical theater.

Also, agree with besty on the relationship of Gigi and Gaston. The film and the script highlight that Gaston is flummoxed that he has feelings for somebody he knew since being a child and is one of the tensions in whether to take her as a mistress. And when he does that, Gaston realizes to subject Gigi to the gossip and hang-ups in being his mistress because is to reject her in that position and just marry her.



Updated On: 3/7/14 at 12:04 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 2:39pm

strummergirl---I love your analyzation of those songs and Honore's perspective as a character. I agree completely.

I almost want to start another thread to discuss the Best Picture winners. I've been on my jag, watching all of them in chronological order, and I would love to hear other people's insights on the films as I go through them. I've seen them before (some, not for years), but watching in chronological order, it makes for compelling viewing. First of all, I don't consider them "best," but I do think they represent what a select group of industry people chose to represent them as "best in show" that year, even though it has as much to do with insider politics and trendy fads as it does with personal opinions or quality.

But, for example, watching Gigi, followed two years later by The Apartment, was very interesting. I saw two films with controversial subject matter presented in appealing, humorous, almost whimsical ways. They were able to approach the subject of young females being trained as courtesans in Gigi, and a man who rents out his apartment for career gains so that his coworkers can have extramarital affairs. I don't think either of these would have made it smoothly past the censors if it hadn't been for the way the stories were told. They really did walk tightropes, and I think their Oscar wins are as much for feats of daring skill as they are for the films themselves. They were opening doors to what could or couldn't be presented on the screen as a mainstream movie.

As for a film like Gentlemen's Agreement, seeing it after the wartime films like Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Casablanca, etc., to finally have America (or Hollywood's America) deal with their true feelings about antisemitism not much more than a year after WWII ended was pretty brave. Not just that they presented it as a subject, but they went after the "casual bigots" as I call them. Not the ones who show blatantly how they feel by their actions, but the friendly bystanders who may even protest against the bigotry but do nothing at all to discourage it or silence it. They hate it, but they accept it as is. That was the real heart of the film for me. Yes, the message might be a little heavy-handed today, but not by much. And it's the people who say, "Oh, come on, nobody would do that now," that are the blindest. It's going on today, absolutely. You may have less of the open haters in the world, but you have more of the passive bystanders who do nothing to discourage prejudice. I think the film is great, and so are the performances.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 2:44pm

Robbie. You've never seen Gigi?

This must be corrected immediately!

[NYadgal]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 2:47pm

Besty, seeing them in chronological order would add an interesting perspective.

As would knowing which other films were popular during the year each of these 'best pictures' won.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 3:06pm

It definitely is, Addy.

I've noticed many things that perhaps wouldn't be considered otherwise. Obvious things like makeup and hairstyle changes, but also cars, telephones, architecture, design, etc.

Watching the English language evolve, both from a cinematic perspective, as far as the use (and sometimes misuse or overuse) of dialogue, but also slang and popular phrases.

Then there's the advancement of storytelling, watching how editing techniques improve, cross-disovles, blackouts, wipes, camera techniques and angles, sound, and lighting advancements, visual effects. Also changes in music scoring (the first big leap in movie music was The Best Years of Our Lives, and the next big leap was On the Waterfront).

Then there's subject matter. Catering to pop culture or pushing boundaries or a combination of both.

I find I'm not just taking these movies at face value, a la carte. I see them as part of an ongoing timeline, one instance every year. I'm really enjoying it.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:05pm

Addy and I are watching it, simultaneously but not together. If you follow me.

[Jane2]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:20pm

I'm not a fan of Gigi Best 12, whatever that tells you about me is ok!

also, I loved The Greatest Show on Earth.

I think it's strange the way you say you can tell a lot about a person by whether they loved Gigig or not. Actually, if the felt any way about a film, how does that one thing tell you so much about a person?

Updated On: 3/7/14 at 08:20 PM

[NYadgal]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:21pm

It's one way to have 'movie night', Reg!

I'm having champagne, by the way.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:23pm

Of course you are.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:26pm

[Jane2]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:36pm

By the way, I totally understand the messages put forth in Gigi and totally appreciated them.

I guess I'm not in love with the lighting, colors, or songs. I'm not a Parisian lover, although everyone I know says I belong in Paris to live.

Anyway, don't prejudge people on why they don't like what you like!

[NYadgal]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:46pm

Amen, Jane2!

[Jane2]

Posted: 3/7/14 at 8:56pm

thanks Addy!