Music
The continuous music score and the colour photography had much to do with the popularity of this film. Formally the work is operatic, with the plot advanced entirely through dialogue sung with accompanying music. The color photography is bright and vivid: and the whole is united by an orchestral score of simple but sincere rhythms and tunes that permeate continuously a story of events lasting at least five years.
The actors' voices were dubbed for the songs in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg:
- Danielle Licari: Geneviève Emery
- José Bartel: Guy Foucher
- Christiane Legrand: Madame Emery
- Georges Blaness: Roland Cassard
- Claudine Meunier: Madeleine
- Claire Leclerc: Aunt Élise
The film score established composer Michel Legrand's reputation in Hollywood, where he later scored other films, winning three Oscars. In North America, two of the film's songs became hits and were recorded by many artists: "I Will Wait For You" (the main theme) and "Watch What Happens" (originally "Recit de Cassard" "Cassard's Story"). Both were given new English lyrics by lyricist Norman Gimbel. Tony Bennett's classic performance of the theme song was added to one version of the soundtrack CD.
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“It is hard to describe the thrill of creative joy which the artist feels when the conviction seizes her that at last she has caught the very soul of the character she wishes to portray, in the music and action which reveal it.”
—Maria Jeritza (1887–1982)
“If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,
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—Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)