I used to love the French as much I love the British, but I became disilussioned when I finally had access to French films. The problem is that I really liked the French as they were portrayed by Americans before it became fashionable to hate them, whereas I still love how the British portray themselves. Watch a French movie, and you often see an extreamly gritty group of people who have sex and worry about money alot as well as having a major problem with dissulisioned youth. However, in American musicals like Gigi you see a rich, charming society who go on expensive excursions continiously and make witty comments about love. Plus, the songs are by the team that brought us Camelot!
Set in Paris in 1900, Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a rich young woman who is dating Gaston (Louis Jourdan), a rich young man. They love each other a lot, and sing songs about it. There is also a subplot involving a charming old French guy (Maurice Chevalier) and Gigi's grandmother (Hermonie Gingold). There are some problems, but not a lot. Mostly everone just goes out to beautiful locations and well decorated houses and opulant parties.
Gigi won the Academy Award for Best Picture (you didn't think I had stopped, did you?) and although it's certainly not better than Touch of Evil, it's not a bad choice and certainly not an embarrising one. The movie is absolutle gorgeous and Minnelli has a great visual style. He also does a good job at keeping the film cinematic, even with its long dialouge scenes. The performances are all flawless and charming, even though Caron had her singing voice dubbed.
For some reason, I was thinking about Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cario, and then my thought turned to Gigi. I realized that if I had to be trapped in a movie for the rest of my life, this film would not be a bad choice.
Gigi (1958)