The “astonishingly beautiful” movie that shaped Greta Gerwig
The musical is perhaps the most glorious and life-affirming genre of filmmaking out there, with stories like Singin’ in the Rain, Guys and Dolls and West Side Story injecting us with a renewed sense of optimism and sunny disposition about the world. The combination of sound and vision, with people spontaneously bursting into song while wearing colourful outfits and prancing around on vibrant sets, is perhaps the closest anyone can get to the true definition of movie magic, leading actors like Gene Kelly and Julie Andrews to become Hollywood legends for taking on the triple-threat challenge of singing, dancing and acting.
But there is one film from this genre that seems to have had a huge impact on many directors working today, with the likes of Damien Chazelle and Greta Gerwig citing its impact on projects like Barbie and La La Land.
Jacques Demy is one of the most influential directors from the French New Wave movement, bringing life, romance and feeling to an era that was largely defined by ambiguous feelings and experimental narratives. While the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut were playing around with the structure of the medium, bending the rules of editing and form to create playful and sometimes evasive films, Demy was pushing the medium in another direction through colossal musicals with precise colour schemes, costumes and dance sequences.
He is most famous for two films from this era, The Young Girls of Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The former is a more optimistic love story in which the couples find their way to true love in the end, while the latter is more devastating and follows two lovers who are torn apart and never find their way back to each other. The odds are not in their favour, pushing them onto different paths.
While it is completely tragic, it is also utterly beautiful, with a lush colour palette, vivid style and sweeping score that makes it feel full to the brim of life and emotion. For Gerwig, this was something that particularly influenced her approach to Barbie, with the director describing it as “astonishingly beautiful” and explaining how the film’s Director of Photography took inspiration from the painted look of the set design for the aesthetic of Barbie. Apparently, the hairstyle that Catherine Deneuve wears in one scene also inspired Margot Robbie’s look, with a voluminous ponytail that the actor also adorns when portraying the infamous doll.
It is not surprising that the film is a blueprint for so many, with this style of filmmaking feeling reminiscent of a bygone Hollywood era, especially when the industry is now less focused on detail and quality but with speed and quantity, creating films that feel rushed and poorly made.
Demy worked during a time when people poured sweat, blood, and tears into every frame, creating unique costumes and wallpaper styles for every scene. This could not be further from the way Hollywood operates now, with the value of beauty being overlooked for the sake of a quick buck.
