Ship of Fools: Maybe I am just getting old

Thread: Maybe I am just getting old Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

I recently watched an old movie musical called "Gigi", which was made in 1958 from a stage play which in turn was made from a story by Colette. I think I saw this many years ago, but I did not remember it clearly. In its day, "Gigi" was a success; it won 9 Oscars.

Watching it recently, though, I find that the story leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It does have a more or less happy ending, as Gigi marries a rich man who loves her (a Jane Austen success), and it does have a few superb songs ("I Remember It Well"--though it's not clear who remembers what), but the depiction of society is so cynical that it spoils the effect, for me.

Does anyone else remember the film? What do you think?

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Ah yes, I remember it well... [Smile]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I believe it's a much sanitised version of Colette's original. So is your quarrel with the manners and morals of Belle Époque Paris?

If a piece of art is reasonably accurate in its depiction of a particular period - and that picture is repellant - is that the fault of the work or the times?

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

I thought the cynical aspects of "Gigi" were intentional. (I love "Gigi", by the way.)

Honoré is a daft old lech, Gaston is a rake and a buck, Madame Alvarez is a glorified pimp, God Knows what Aunt Alicia is thinking, but in the end, Gigi's honest, self- respecting world view wins out. I think that is relatively positive.

[ 07. February 2015, 21:07: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The material and score are being reworked for a Broadway production, and a good deal of adjusting is being done to make the thing less weird to the modern eye. For instance the song 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls' is now not sung by old Honore but instead by the two grandmothers.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
For instance the song 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls' is now not sung by old Honore but instead by the two grandmothers.

I think it would be more true to the tone of the original to have Honoré sing it and have the grandmothers giving him ferocious side-eye and gently guiding the Leetle Gahrls away from the wolf in Kindly Grandpa's Clothing.

"No, no, cherie, do not take ze sweeties from heem."

[ 08. February 2015, 01:09: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Roselyn (# 17859) on :

Wasn't this film made with left over songs from My Fair Lady??

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

No. The songs were all originals written specially for the film - which had Andre Previn as musical director.

What may have given rise to the rumour of a link to My Fair Lady is the suggestion was that Audrey Hepburn should play Gigi but in the end Leslie Caron got the nod - (perhaps because singing was not Hepburn's strongest suit?).

The talking point at the time was the casting of Maurice Chevalier as Honore - he was tainted with a suggestion of collaboration during the war and it was Gigi that really cemented his rehabilitation as far as most of the English speaking world was concerned.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Ah yes, I remember it well...

Posted by Hilda of Whitby (# 7341) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
No. The songs were all originals written specially for the film - which had Andre Previn as musical director.

What may have given rise to the rumour of a link to My Fair Lady is the suggestion was that Audrey Hepburn should play Gigi but in the end Leslie Caron got the nod - (perhaps because singing was not Hepburn's strongest suit?).

The talking point at the time was the casting of Maurice Chevalier as Honore - he was tainted with a suggestion of collaboration during the war and it was Gigi that really cemented his rehabilitation as far as most of the English speaking world was concerned.

The story goes that Colette saw Audrey Hepburn in a hotel lobby in Paris and said, 'that's my Gigi.' Audrey played Gigi in the Broadway stage version (non-musical) in 1951. Leslie Caron got the part in the film musical. She was just wonderfully effervescent and her dance background and her experience in a previous movie musical ('An American in Paris') were big pluses, I'm sure.

Colette certainly knew Gigi's world inside and out. In my opinion her greatest works are the two linked novellas (Cheri and the Last of Cheri) about Cheri, a spoiled young man, and his mistress Lea, who was a courtesan during the Belle Epoque. That is the milieu that Gigi's grandmother came from. In Colette's novella 'Gigi' and in the original stage play and musical, Gigi is being groomed by her grandmother to be a high-end courtesan to service older, wealthy men and that was extremely common when Colette was a young woman. The new staging of the musical premiered here in DC. Some things were sanitized to make the story less squirm-inducing to 21st century sensibilities. For example, Gigi's love interest, Gaston, is much younger than in the original Gigi.

Interesting info about Chevalier being a collaborator and 'Gigi' playing a big part in his 'rehabilitation'.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

You are in the DC area? So am I. I wonder whether there are any others?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I believe there may be. Why not start a thread in All Saints and see what kind of response you get? You might be able to get a shipmeet going.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
... the song 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls' is now not sung by old Honore but instead by the two grandmothers.

[tangent]
When we lived in Northern Ireland, D. was asked to play for the funeral of a well-known local gentleman, whose widow had specifically asked that Thank Heaven for Little Girls and I Could Have Danced All Night be played as the congregation arrived.

He said he felt a right berk, as while he knew that he was only playing them because they'd been requested, the arriving congregation didn't ... [Paranoid]

[/tangent]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

And Louis Jourdan has died.

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