Tonight I watched a movie called "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" (1967) by director Jacques Demy. I found it in a Criterion search of the Library database, and while I didn't know much about it, I ordered it because I am a fan of Demy's most famous movie "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg" (1964), which I own on dvd. "Cherbourg" was a bit international hit when it was released, impressive for it's color coordinated look and art direction, and also notable because it was 100% musical. Every line of dialogue was sung. The love story in the movie is tragic, which is a bit of a downer, but in every other way it is a classic of French cinema, and you know me : I love French movies from the 50s and 60s, and I am not immune to the charms of a good musical.
So "Umbrellas Of Cherbourg" is a classic, and it turns out that "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" was Demy's follow-up to that film. He again used Catherine Deneuve as his star, but this time he paired her with her real life sister Francoise Dorleac, who was older and had begun her film career before Catherine. In the movie, the sisters are also sisters. One is a dancer, the other a music teacher, pianist and composer. Their mother (famous French actress Danielle Darrieux) runs a coffee bar in the center of town. All three women are single and looking for love. The sisters are trying to succeed in their careers, the mother has a successful business, but all of them are wistful yet realistic about men and relationships. The other half of the story is the men in the movie. One young man is a sailor who frequents the coffee bar. He is also a painter and a poet, and he expounds to the owner and her patrons on his vision of the elusive Ideal Woman, who he has made a painting of, though he has never seen her.
Another man runs a music shop. He is middle-aged, and a bachelor who long ago lost his woman, simply for the reason that he has a ridiculous sounding name. That's why she left him. He has an American friend who is visiting Paris, a music publisher and promoter who is the third man in the story, played by Gene Kelly.
Three single women and three random and possibly mismatched men (or maybe not).
Can you guess what happens? Might it help if I remind you that this is a French film, and a Jacques Demy musical at that?
Okay, that was a good clue and it did help. Unlike "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg", "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" is a happy story, and in fact as one reviewer noted, it is almost like a cinematic confection. The story is romantic and sweet throughout, and visually the movie literally looks like a box of shiny colored candies. I have only seen two films by Demy, but this seems to be a trademark with him. He is a visually outstanding director (he could have been a window dresser for a high-end department store like Saks Fifth Avenue), and not only do his movies have an identifiable look, but his staging is also top of the line, from the choreography to the camerawork to the editing. "Girls Of Rochefort" looks like a major Hollywood Musical, in fact, if it were decorated by Demy.
The difference between it and an actual Hollywood musical is in it's all-out French style, meaning that it is very whimsical. I can imagine a large gay following for this film, though you don't have to be gay to like it. But more than that, it just exudes that French sense of breezy optimism and Swinging Sixties modernity that makes it feel both of it's time and ahead of it's time. In the early to mid-60s, everything was Ultra Modern in style, and the French excelled at style. Jacques Demy's films had an overcoating of style, like a candy coating as I mentioned earlier. But both movies I've seen also had substance. "Cherbourg" had perhaps more, while "Rochefort" is more lighthearted (and could've been trimmed of ten to fifteen minutes). But if you are like me and willing to give musicals a chance, these two by Jacques Demy are as great as any musical that Hollywood produced, and in their own way unique, mostly for their look, and for the grand musical score each film features, both written by Michel Legrand, who was a major league and Oscar nominated composer at the time. Google him to get an idea of his music, he was truly great.
And watch "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" and "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg" too.
Great films both, and both take you back to an amazing time in European Art Culture, to the Mod Europe of the 1960s.
Two Big Thumbs Up from me. :)
In light of last night's blog, in which I went on a small tirade about NASA, I just wanna make clear that I am in no way against that organisation, nor am I in any way "anti-science". In fact, if I could work for any organisation in the world, I might well choose NASA or JPL (if I were qualified, of course). I am a high school dropout who took the Equivalency Exam, but had things been different I might have excelled in one or more of the scientific subjects I am interested in, which mostly have to do with Space, or perhaps geology, or even just theoretical physics. My trouble is that I am a late bloomer in almost everything I do : I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was seven, I didn't get my driver's licence until I was 18, I didn't start playing guitar until I was 19, and I didn't start to really study the scholastic subjects that interested me until I was in my 30s. But in my mind, I've always been studying, my whole life, and I have always loved mathematics especially, and have grown to love the study of physics and astronomy also. I have a fantasy that I allow myself, in which I say to myself, "hmmm, I would love to be a professional astronomer. Would it be possible for me to start taking courses, say at age 60, and maybe get my doctorate by the time I am 72"? Does it take twelve years for an astronomy PhD, like it does for a medical doctor? Heck, I have no idea. But in my fantasy, I think that I could all of a sudden go back to school when I am 60 or so, then study like crazy, and after 12 years, when I am 72, I will get my Doctor Of Astronomy degree, just like Brian May did in his early 50s. I figure that if I got my degree and became a professional astronomer at 72, I could have a twenty year career. Retire at 92. That wouldn't be too shabby, would it?
Cause then I could study the stars and planets, too, with the best telescopes. My dad took me to Mount Palomar when I was six, and I saw the massive telescope. I don't recall if we got to look through it, but I was hooked, right there.
My point is that, despite what a reader might think when I go on one of my rants, I am not anti-science at all, and in fact I am 100% pro-science in every way. Pro learning, pro investigation.
But I am also very much Anti-Secrecy. I am 100% Anti Secrecy. I hate secrecy, especiallly when it affects my life, and when it affects the United States and the whole world.
So when I go on a tirade, which I know is a bummer to read, it is never against these subjects that I love and am fascinated with - these subjects of science and astronomy and physics - nor are my words meant against NASA or JPL as a whole.
I am only complaining against secrecy, and in this case it is secrecy, caused by a few, that is holding back important information from all of us, and I don't feel that these few people in these organisations have the right to do this. In fact, I feel that it is profoundly wrong.
That's all.
See you in the morning. :):)
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