Films of the 60s, Part 15: Unless You Sing, Sing, Sing, Sing

“Baby, if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won’t mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing” – Travis, “Sing”



I’ve never been a fan of musicals. In fact, I was thinking of excluding musicals entirely from my survey of films from the 60s. The completist in me won out, however, over any arguments of personal taste. Plus, I wanted to give musicals, as a genre, a more reasonable try to combat the sour experiences I’ve had. If there is any one reason I could give for my bias, it would be that I find them to be disingenuous. When I think about it a bit longer, I realize that this is my bias toward most movies I don’t like, not just musicals. With musicals, this is usually manifested with characters breaking out into song for no reason other than to have it qualify as a musical. Even worse, there are the musicals that attempt to find younger audiences by using more modern rock tracks (Across the Universe, I’m looking at you). During my survey of the 50s, I watched Singin’ in the Rain. Now, it may be that this is widely considered the best movie musical of all time, but that film changed my perspective on the genre forever, and for a few very simple reasons. The simplest one is the basic framing of the narrative. As a movie about the making of a movie, it makes perfect sense that these performers could break out into song. It’s what they do! Anyway, these three films have also become some of my favorites, continuing to change my mind about musicals, in general.



Une Femme Est Une Femme (A Woman is a Woman) (1961, Jean-Luc Godard)

Jean-Luc Godard does not make films that could be considered mainstream, by any stretch of the imagination. Godard is a student of film, but he is also an experimental artist, playing with the boundaries of genres and pushing them to their limits. That is his way of showing his love for his favorite films. Throughout this survey, I have fallen in love with Godard’s movies. I have now seen nine of them, with four more in my queue. As much as I have loved watching all of the films and writing these mini-essays / reviews, I will always look back on this time as the year I found Godard (pun intended).

Une Femme Est Une Femme is Godard’s love letter to musicals, specifically American musicals, but with his added touch of the French New Wave. Right off the bat, we can see that this is not going to be an ordinary musical, following the unspoken and unwritten rules of the genre. The gorgeous Anna Karina, who was Godard’s paramour, with this just being one of a series of great collaborations, is able to stop the music mid-stream with mere force of will, breaking all conventions, and making us think about the boundaries of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. With most musicals, the characters are not aware they are singing; it is merely a representation of their emotion. Again, this makes Singin’ in the Rain, and I suppose The Sound of Music (certain songs), stand out, as they are aware of it due to the narrative construct. Une Femme Est Une Femme takes it one step further, still employing the idea of unaware singing, but putting the characters in control. After one of these sudden stops, in which Karina walks away from the pining Jean-Paul Belmondo, now one of my absolute favorite actors of all time, Belmondo breaks the fourth wall saying, “Off she goes.”

The narrative itself is one that most in the industry, and frankly in the world, would not consider being worthy of the lofty nature of musicals. Yes, there is a love triangle, but it is not nearly as emotionally wrought or overly romantic as we would think. Karina and her lover, played by Jean-Claude Brialy, argue about nearly everything and most of it inconsequential. At one point, Karina even plays a childish copying game with Brialy, repeating his words and escalating the argument. The basic plot has Karina and Brialy in a relationship that is full of petty bickering. She is a stripper, but wants to have a child and take the relationship to the next level. He is completely resistant. On the outside is Belmondo, desperately in love with Karina and making it known at every turn.

Complicating the genre even further, Godard employs his usual method of meta-references; making us wonder about the reality of the film and in which spheres it actually exists. In one of the more amusing references, Belmondo mentions the film Vera Cruz, and his favorite actor, Burt Lancaster, giving a very Lancaster-like toothy smile to the audience. Other nods are given to Jules et Jim (amazingly referring to this one several months before its release), Shoot the Piano Player, and Godard’s own Breathless. It can’t get much more meta than that. I was most moved by a scene in a café, in which Belmondo plays a record by Charles Aznavour, the star of the previously mentioned Shoot the Piano Player and a legendary French singer, called “Tu t’laisses aller,” with lyrics that are vitriolic, reminding Karina of her troubled relationship. The song is amazing, and one of the few that is played in a true diegetic fashion, though it speaks to the narrative.

It is truly Godard’s experimentation with the convention that make this a memorable film, though much acclaim should be given to the actors involved, especially the great Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. At one point, before an argument, Karina insists that she and Brialy bow to the audience, which they do, facing the camera. Touches like these keep us intellectually invested in not just the film, but in the art of filmmaking and the nature of narrative. The songs may not be as memorable as true musical set pieces and themes, but that wouldn’t have been Godard’s style. When Karina makes her final wink to us, her audience, we know that we have taken part in viewing something unique, a magical film that is rooted and based in the minutiae, reality, and degradation of everyday life. Few directors could make a musical out of this reality, even fewer could turn it into such genre-bending, challenging, and intellectually humorous fun.



Les Parapluies des Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (1964, Jacques Demy)

Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is another example of experimentation with the general nature of movie musicals, but in a completely different way. Rather than a film in which people break into song at any given moment, there is never a moment when the characters are not singing. All dialogue in the film is in the form of continuous song, recitative in nature, much like an opera or operetta. While some may find this jarring, especially as some of the songs are not typical musical fare, but instead merely narrative dialogue set to music, I found it to be fascinating, keeping me more interested in the film than I would be with most examples in the musical genre. I was completely captivated by not only the nature of the film, but also its radiant stars, Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, its signature song, as well as the atypical resolution, the latter two making me weep like a child.

The story is a simple one, full of romance and tragedy, somewhat mirroring the love triangle of Une Femme Est Une Femme, yet this one adds one more to make it a love quadrangle. We are quickly introduced to the young couple of Geneviève and Guy, she, working with her mother in an umbrella shop, and he, working at an auto repair shop. The film is immediately striking, not only because we realize they are going to be singing the entire time, but also for its amazing visuals, providing striking and brilliant colors. Not enough can be said or written about the color here, and the look of the town of Cherbourg. There is one scene in which the drinks that are served in a bar match the color scheme of the walls. This is one of the few films after Vertigo that really made me pay attention to color as being important to the film itself, corresponding to either different characters or moods. Further providing a noticeable distancing from the established musical tradition, Guy’s first song has him singing, in meta fashion about the nature of musicals, “All that singing gives me a pain. I like movies better.”

Guy is drafted to serve in the Algerian War, taking him away from his true love, after having spent the night with her, making her pregnant. Geneviève is encouraged to marry Roland, a handsome jeweler, after Guy’s letters become far less frequent. The nature of this relationship is somewhat of a reference to one of Demy’s previous films, Lola, which is a very French New Wave / Godard twist. Guy returns, however, injured and sullen, finding that everything has changed: the umbrella shop sold and his teenage love married. He goes through a bout of anger, drunkenness, misbehavior, and bad life choices, but is brought around by his godmother and guardian’s caretaker, Madeleine, who has always loved him unrequitedly. Guy rebounds with her help, opens a gas station and repair shop, marries Madeleine and has children. The ultimate scene finds Geneviève pulling up to Guy’s station, along with the daughter they created, and we begin to wonder what will happen. I won’t give it away if you haven’t seen it, but it is so moving, real, and contrary to the nature of most “Hollywood” storylines that I found it one of the most satisfying codas in film history.

The film’s musical centerpiece, “I Will Wait for You,” became a huge hit and not only the film’s version. Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and literally hundreds of other artists have since made it a standard, each putting their particular stamp on it. But, the version sung by the characters in the film, even in French, a language I don’t speak, stands out to me because of the context of the song. Merely thinking about the song, its plaintive melody, and how the interpretation of the song changes from one point of the film to another, makes me choke up with a rush of varied emotions, some tied into the narrative of the film, and some tied to my own romantic experiences. For many different reasons, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has become a personal favorite film. (I also just love saying “Parapluies.”)



Camelot (1967, Joshua Logan)

I’m not sure that anything I write about Camelot could do it the justice it deserves. There is so much to write about in relation to the film, the original Lerner & Loewe Broadway musical, the book on which it is all based, and the Arthurian mythology, that I fear of leaving out some important element or connection. Added to this fear is the fact that my mother is such a huge fan, that it just puts more pressure on me, and my subsequent analysis. I will, however, make an attempt. As opposed to the films above, Camelot is indeed patterned in the traditional American musical style, with memorable set-piece songs that guide along the narrative. In this case, the narrative is the famous love triangle between King Arthur, Guinevere, and the knight, Sir Lancelot, adapted from T.H. White’s fantasy masterpiece, The Once and Future King. The musical focuses on the third and fourth book, out of four, leaving out the chapters in which Arthur was a boy, learning from Merlyn, and coming of age, though the play and film often refer to particular scenes from those chapters. It is in these last chapters that the romance, drama, and the gravitas of the underpinnings of democracy truly reside, making it perfect subject matter for a musical adaptation.

Taking the place of the original Broadway cast of Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and Roddy McDowall are Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, and David Hemmings. Though I’ve never seen the musical performed, I think I can safely say that the film’s cast handles their respective roles masterfully. Though I did find it somewhat jarring to see an Italian actor playing a French knight, Franco Nero is the embodiment of the handsome, valiant, and self-obsessed Lancelot, especially during his performance (albeit dubbed) of the great song, “C’est Moi.” He plays it so well, that I had forgotten about his starring as Django, a Clint Eastwood type cowboy in the film of the same name. The same can be said of David Hemmings as Mordred, and his other turn as the lead in Michelangelo Antonioni’s brilliant film, Blow-Up. The real standouts here, however, are Redgrave and Harris, and not just for the fact that they performed their own singing, but because of their outright fantastic acting skills. Harris and Redgrave inject each and every song with just the right amount of necessary emotion, neither underplayed nor overwrought. Some perfect examples revolve mostly around Harris, revealing a somewhat youthful naïveté during “I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight,” done in a great talk-sing fashion; showing a more joyous pride and newfound love, yet also somewhat a self-deprecation, during “Camelot”; setting himself up for a grand fall with the vulnerability of “How to Handle a Woman,” and finally, somehow amazingly able to show a deep pain that he is also hiding below the surface while singing along with Guinevere, “What do the Simple Folk Do.”

As a grand musical film, it is very well put together. With a balance of indoor set-pieces and outdoor duels, jousts, and battle scenes, it captures both the feel of a stage musical and the grandiosity of an epic film. Camelot, the film, further bridges the gap between the two mediums by providing an opening Overture and an “Entr’Acte.” But, as someone who was not a big fan of musicals, it couldn’t have been these things that pulled me in. Partly, it was the fact that my parents love this musical, being able at times to recite not only each and every song by heart, but also dialogue, which, by the way, was taken at times verbatim from White’s book, particularly the last scene of the film, with Arthur on the battlefield talking to a young, want-to-be knight. But, we’ll get to that scene later. The other thing that drew me in was a love of the Arthurian legends, from Malory to Monty Python and beyond. I was curious to see how a musical could adapt the White book and also to see what parts would be the focus. I was not disappointed.

I was especially intrigued and impressed by the way that the film handled the characters as archetypes as well as individuals with their particular motivations. Arthur, as the progressive bastion of Democracy, and Mordred, as the totalitarian manipulator, were great foils for each other. I love seeing Arthur explain the round table, giving each knight, and the king himself, equal importance. It gives me hope in this time of great inequity. I also love the concept that Arthur espouses of the knights standing as "might for right" as opposed to "might makes right," a phrase that has often been spouted at me from staunch conservatives. If I were to stretch the analogy, I could probably peg Lancelot as a symbol of Capitalism, taking what he wants, using obfuscation when necessary, and following an Ayn Rand kind of selfishness, but as I said, that might be stretching it. Another memorable scene is the one in which he is trying to explain his new method of a fair trial by jury to Pellinore, to the guest king's befuddled consternation. Just like Umbrellas, the ending of the film made me well up with tears, played amazingly by Harris and Redgrave. Redgrave, in particular, made me cry like I hadn’t in a long time. Also, like Umbrellas, it was a good cry, one that truly reflected real reflective emotion and not just filmic manipulation.

The scene that immediately follows, the one I referred to earlier, finds a young boy with a bow wanting to join Arthur on the battlefield in his war against Lancelot. It is both hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time, a scene that will stick with me for years to come. (The young boy's name is Thomas, a supposed cameo for a young Thomas Malory who would go on to chronicle Arthur's adventures). The scene is also one that was a favorite of John F. Kennedy’s, having been a huge fan of both the musical and the T.H. White book, further solidifying the aura surrounding his presidency and youthful ideals, which is often characterized by the term, Camelot. The two are now nearly inseparable, even referred to in an episode of Mad Men. I couldn’t possibly go through all of the ways in which this connection is apt, but let’s just suffice it to say that the connection exists. Getting back to that last scene, however, it speaks to how precious and fragile democracy truly is, and how even just the actions of one person, and more importantly, a young person, are to preserving it. I think what I love most about the film, and also the book, is this message. As Arthur says to the young boy, Thomas, on the eve of battle, having had his heart broken, but not his values, in a speech that is echoed in the chapter’s title, "The Candle in the Wind":

“Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving you the candle now – you won’t let it out?”

“It will burn.”

(p.637)

I truly hope so.



White, T.H. (1958) The Once and Future King. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons.