Conducted every 10 years, the Sight & Sound Best Movies of All Time poll is voted on by film critics, writers, professors and other experts in the field of cinema. Although the primary list consists of 100 movies, the poll actually includes a total of 200 films. The Cosford Cinema will be showcasing ten selections from the second half of the list every Sunday over the fall from Sept. 10-Dec. 3.

THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG | 1964 | WRITER-DIRECTOR: Jacques Demy | WITH: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel | RUNNING TIME: 1H 31M | UNRATED Mild adult themes | In French with English subtitles | 2K DCP PROJECTION

The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through lilting songs by the great composer Michel Legrand, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.

"When she made 'Umbrellas' for the French director Jacques Demy, Deneuve was 20, and her work in this film was a flowering that introduced one of the great stars of modern French cinema. The film itself was a curious experiment in which all of the words were sung; Michel Legrand wrote the wall-to-wall score, which includes not only the famous main theme and other songs, but also Demy's sung dialogue, in the style of the lines used to link passages in opera. This style would seem to suggest a work of featherweight romanticism, but 'Umbrellas' is unexpectedly sad and wise, a bittersweet reflection on the way true love sometimes does not (and perhaps should not) conquer all.

"I had forgotten many of the details of the story in the 32 years since first seeing it; my mental images were of smiling garage mechanics and Deneuve happily singing with her lover. The film is incomparably richer and more moving than that. And although the idea of having the actors sing (or, more exactly, lip-sync) every single line might sound off-putting, it's surprising how quickly we accept it.

"'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' did not initiate a new movie style (although Demy tried it again in 'The Young Girls of Rochefort,' in 1967, with Deneuve, her sister Francoise Dorleac and Gene Kelly). But it is remembered as a bold original experiment, and now that it is restored and back in circulation, it can also be remembered as a surprisingly effective film, touching and knowing and, like Deneuve, ageless." -- Roger Ebert

Tickets are $5 and available at link above. UM students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout (Cane Card must be shown at the door).