Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) is a musical film made in 1964. It was directed by Jacques Demy, and starred Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand.

Technical Details

• Director: Jacques Demy
• Music: Michel Legrand
• Debut: February 19, 1964
• Format: 35 mm, 1.66:1 aspect ratio, Color
• Genre: Musical Drama
• Length: 87 minutes

It is interesting to note that the current version of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg released on DVD is a completely renovated version of the original. The original rushes of the film were shot on Eastman stock which rapidly faded and became almost unusable. The various copies of the film doing the cinema circuit also gradually lost their quality and it seemed that the vivid colours and fantastic contrast of the original film had been lost, only to be engraved on the memories of those lucky enough to see it in the 1960s. Very fortunately, Demy realised the short shelf-life of the original rushes and made negative black and white copies of the original in the three colour bands. In the 1990s, Demy's wife headed a project to put these three black and white copies back together. The resulting film was an astonishing transformation - once again Demy's vision of a surreally bright Cherbourg was made available for the viewing public. Legrand assisted in the digital remastering of his score and finally produced an extremely high-quality version of the filmscore, considered by many to be a musical masterpiece.

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