ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort films in the contexts of their time – and their pasts – and the way that they highlight the close yet ambivalent ties between French and American musical and cinematic culture during the first half of the twentieth century. Michel Legrand musical style was distinctly French, but by mid-twentieth century, French musical language was deeply inflected with an American accent. The French musicals starring Josephine Baker in the 1930s, for instance, are an intriguing intermingling of American and French styles. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg holds quite a particular position in French film culture. Jacques Demy musicals are distinctly French, and his regionalistic spotlighting of cities and regions outside Paris certainly would have helped widen the horizons of foreign audiences – the depiction of Rochefort is particularly appealing. Yet the films are also quite clearly reminiscent of Hollywood musicals.
