Gigi (1958)

Gigi2 Out Of 5Gigi is a plot driven musical feature focusing on a tale of self-created conflicts and love. The chemistry among the characters which becomes essential in such genre features, is surprisingly dull, off putting and way too textbook for it to breed any crisp through it.It is rich on technical aspects like art design, songs, production design and background score but is unfortunately lacks captivating cinematography and fine editing. The camera work is plausible and has an amazing choreography on its favor through which the makers seek attention being well aware of it. The adaptation by Alan Jay Lerner is smart if not gripping, catchy but scattered into bits and pieces as it lacks better and definite structure. Vincent Minnelli; the director, has done a tremendous work on executing the feature despite of possessing such a wafer thin script to work on. The performance by Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Gordon is decent and convincing to the allotted part if not leaves the audience in awe of it. Gigi is an out-of-context and out-of-time portrayal of a textbook tale that may be entertaining but is more pretentious than it has the potential to.

Copyright 1958. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Royale: 15 May 1958. U.K. release: floating from July 1960. Australian release: 4 September 1958. 10,379 feet; 116 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A young girl in turn-of-the-century Paris aspires to marry a rich, handsome aristocrat.NOTES: Voting members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected Gigi as Best Film of the Year. The movie also won awards for screenplay, direction, color cinematography, art direction, costumes, film editing, music scoring, and best song ("Gigi"). The Hollywood Foreign Press Association named Gigi the year's Best Musical, while Minnelli carried off the Best Director award and Gingold, Best Supporting Actress. The readers of Photoplay magazine voted Gigi the best film of 1958. The movie came in at 3rd position in the annual poll of American and Canadian film critics and commentators conducted by the trade newspaper, The Film Daily. M-G-M production number: 1723.COMMENT: Although the number one reason to see this film is, of course, Maurice Chevalier, please don't deprive yourself of a glorious entertainment experience by attempting to see Gigi in any other format but CinemaScope. Director Minnelli has used the full resources of the CinemaScope screen with flair, taste and imagination. The movie is nothing less than a charming, captivating triumph. Miss Caron's fans will not be disappointed, while Louis Jourdan, a much under-rated actor, is not only as stylishly persuasive as usual, but sings his own songs with the same degree of effortless charm that Chevalier brings to his. Gingold and Jeans are also perfectly cast.

One of the most vilified Oscar BEST PICTURE winner, GIGI (a record-breaking win of all its 9 nominations), based on the novella from Colette, it is Vincente Minnelli's pièce-de-résistance. For all the ritziness of his resplendent mise en scène, exquisite costumes and its paraphernalia, in spectacular Metrocolour, CinemaScope glory; for a panoply of vintage chansons to entertain viewers for sheer escapism, sometimes sung in a carefree singsong style, GIGI is a delightful if not equally patronising anachronism, formulaically pontificates with outdated chivalry and self-praised upper-class etiquette with a way too serious face, it might encapsulate the zeitgeist, but for modern viewers, to quote Gaston Lachaille's own words: it's a bore!Gigi (Caron), a young and vivacious girl living with her grandmother Mamita (Gingold) and mother (a coloratura completely off-screen) in an ordinary apartment in Paris, the place is painted in shocking scarlet, a gaudy manifest to what the family represents, under the restrict of Hollywood's production code, the movie never dares to mention it explicitly, but soon we will realise, Gigi is trained to be a courtesan, chiefly by her grandaunt Alicia (Jeans), once a courtesan herself, living in her lavish residence with all the trophies she has garnered through her extraordinary career.Who is the Prince Charming for Gigi? It's Gaston (Jourdan), a toff who befriends her family, and forges a platonic rapport with Gigi, because she is entirely different from all the other lady friends in his hedonistic life, but, soon, he will realise his amorous cravings for her, his courtship stimulates both Mamita and Alicia, but not Gigi, who prefers the status quo rather than being romantically attached, as one of his conquests, they never linger long enough. After the consequent balking and changing-of-mind between the conceited prince and the glamourised ugly duckling, the finale has only one way out.Caron, in retrospect, is a shade older for the role of a schoolgirl also, her singing voice is dubbed, and her dancing talent is barely given a stage to showcase due to the fact that GIGI is not a conventional Hollywood musical bombarding with impressively choreographed dancing sequences, all its eloquently lilting music numbers are integrated with the narrative; whilst Jourdan is polished in an elegant leading role which falls flat in its properly vainglorious characterisation.So, it leaves the limelight on some theatrical doyens, a breaking-the-fourth-wall Maurice Chevalier (a gambit dated back from his Lubitsch days, for example ONE HOUR WITH YOU 1932), furnishes the highlights of its Lerner-Loewe soundtrack, THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS and I'M GLAD I'M NOT YOUNG ANYMORE. And an imposingly self-assured Isabel Jeans is an enthralling humdinger ingrained in her own (rather objectionable) philosophy of what makes a perfect woman. Hermione Gingold is the odd one out, winning a BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS trophy in the Golden Globes, but was snubbed by the Academy, actually, the film failed to secure any nominations for its actors. It seems, her eccentricity doesn't go long with the tenor of Gallo pablum.Having said that, GIGI's allure hasn't been completely worn away by the ruthless time, only it is rather embarrassing to call it "the best of the year", when you have VERTIGO, TOUCH OF EVIL, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and THE DEFIANT ONES all came out in the same year, a typical victim of the "too high to live up with the bar" curse of Oscar's boomerang.

The first time i watched the movie, i felt it was a "bore". The movie hardly has any running time of the character Gigi. The characters were melodramatic and their language was a butchered version of English. I never found the most vital element of Humor missing in the movie and was totally let down after having watched musicals like Singin' in the Rain and Wizard of Oz.Well, it was quite a long time back. I must agree i matured as a person who understands movie and appreciates it and not merely judge a movie based on its efficacy in entertaining. The movie is undoubtedly an entertainer.As the movie progressed, i started to understand the uniqueness of the movie and was enthralled by the songs and art setting. The movie is set in Paris at the turn of the century and the lifestyle, sartorial, marital and tonsorial preferences of the inhabitants is discreetly presented.The songs are brilliantly written and set to euphonious background music and when i paid heed to the lyrics, i realized what i greatly missed the first time i watched it- Humor.The movie also brings forth a message that no matter how rich and famous a man is, his heart remains vacant for a woman who remains herself and not be camouflaged with book-learned principles on satisfying a man.