Feb-10-2010
My Pick for the Most Romantic Movie Ever
Maybe it’s because I first saw this movie when I was young and impressionable, but the Jacques Demy film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) is something special. It’s a bittersweet love story that is entirely sung in French to a score by Michel Legrand. It was restored and re-mastered in 1992. An early film of Catherine Deneuve, it also was awarded the Grand Prize at the Cannes Festival. An older cousin took me to see this when I was in high school. I believe I had an old VHS tape and saw it for the second time sometime in the 8Os. I recently heard a song from the movie and wondered, do I dare watch this again? I took a chance and was once again enthralled.
What is your pick for the most romantic movie?
Posted by lee | Posted under Movie
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Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of my all-time favorite films, but I would argue that it’s entirely unromantic – it’s about moving beyond early romantic love to something more practical. That take on romance is one many things I love about this movie (the colors, music, and the sequence that ends with the wedding and the funeral are all key). The ending is bittersweet but real. If you want a romantic musical by the same director, watch The Young Girls of Rochefort, which is also very good but more of a traditional musical (it even has Gene Kelly). Its done by the same director and has both Deneuve and her sister Francoise Dorleac, who died soon after filming was completed.
Perhaps I should have titled my post Favorite Tearjerker of All Time. But, for me, favorite romantic movies almost always include an element of bittersweet tragedy.
Her are some lists, in case you need some ideas: http://www.skokielibrary.info/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/love.asp
http://www.skokielibrary.info/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/romantic_action.asp
http://www.skokielibrary.info/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/romantic_comedy.asp
http://www.skokielibrary.info/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/weddings.asp
For my wife and I, Casablanca has always been a favorite. A movie that springs to mind is Under the Tuscan Sun, not so much for a relationship between two people, but Frances Mayes’ romance with Tuscany and the charming and eccentric people that she meets.
I might argue that it’s those traditionally “unromantic” elements that can often give a romantic film a much greater punch. I think of things like The End of the Affair, which is punctuated with a palpable sense of tragedy throughout. Or Charade, which blends bits of thriller and screwball comedy in with the romance to great effect. Or even something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which (arguably) makes the statement that we are doomed to make the same mistakes with all of our romantic entanglements.
I suppose it comes down to what you consider romance. Is it the “happily ever after?” Or is what happens after that more interesting?
I probably fall in the latter camp, but you could probably tell that based on my own picks.
I loved the movie The End of the Affair. It is one that stays with you & you want to discuss with someone else.
I am partial to Pride and Prejudice as a romantic movie selection. The 2005 version with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen is very satisfying, IMHO. For a longer romantic movie fix, definitely go with the 1995 mini-series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.
Here’s a link to movies based on the books of Jane Austen. I love watching this stuff!
Watch Umbrellas of Cherbourg and imagine that it was directed as Italian neorealism, because that’s what it is, with songs and pretty colors (and French language, of course).
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