#1
Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:10pm
I know--another "obscure movie musical" thread. Anyone else feel as I do about this one? Jacques Demy's all-sung love-and-loss 60's novelty THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (even the title is intriguing), with possibly the best movie score of all time (by Michel Legrand) and Catherine Deneuve starting off her long, enchanting film career as a shopgirl buffeted by fate and circumstance, whose dresses magically match the wallpaper of any room she enters. It's absurd in the way most romantic movies are--and my desert island choice.
I've noticed movies like this are definite love-it-or-hate-it propositions. If you love it, you swoon and cry every time you see it; if you hate it, you feel your intelligence has been insulted and you have to bring the suckers who loved it down to earth. There's really no way of convincing either camp they're wrong. I had much the same feeling watching AUGUST RUSH--intellectually, I was thinking, "This is so absurd, it shouldn't be working at all" but I completely surrendered emotionally.
I've noticed movies like this are definite love-it-or-hate-it propositions. If you love it, you swoon and cry every time you see it; if you hate it, you feel your intelligence has been insulted and you have to bring the suckers who loved it down to earth. There's really no way of convincing either camp they're wrong. I had much the same feeling watching AUGUST RUSH--intellectually, I was thinking, "This is so absurd, it shouldn't be working at all" but I completely surrendered emotionally.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
