Gigi

Gigi is a Cinderella-type story set in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century.  In wealthy Parisian society, Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a school girl training to be a courtesan.  Gaston (Louis Jourdan) is a young, wealthy playboy who despises the superficial lifestyle of high society and seeks refuge in his friendship with Gigi.  She’s just a playful little girl, no harm, right?  But Gaston starts to realize that Gigi is coming of age and turning into a lovely young woman.  Society expects Gaston to have a pretty young thing on his arm, why not Gigi for a while?

In this film, everything is so colorful and beautifully detailed.  The sets, the costumes, props, everything was visually lovely and justly photographed.  Gigi deservingly won for Art Design, Costume Design and Cinematography.

Now, if you love Gigi (or other “princess” movies) and it holds a special place in your heart, please stop reading here.  I do not want to ruin any beautiful, idealistic fantasies you have created about this film.  My following negative views on Gigi were no doubt the product of my very disenchanted and cynical outlook on “princess” films.

The acting sucked.  These people and their flat lines didn’t match the beauty around them.  When they tried to, it just felt like they were hamming it up.  Not halfway through the film, I got an idea.  What if Gigi had been an animated film?  I’m not joking.  I imagined stylized cartoon people, like in 101 Dalmatians.  They could still sing and dance, but better, with the expressive quality that could match their beautifully colorful setting.  These real actors were not cutting it for me, they literally need to be more animated.

Perhaps it shouldn’t matter so much, but Gigi’s age was really starting to bother me.  Her demeanor says fifteen but Caron’s face says mid twenties.  Top it off with the song “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” and the Parisian school girl uniform, that I associate mostly with the sweet little cartoon Madeline, and I was really getting creeped out.  Maybe in 1958 this was all sweet, innocent and wholesome, but if you’re over the age of eleven and have ever attended a public school, you can easily make a dozen pedophile jokes over Gigi.  Sorry I had to go there, but part of critiquing is blunt honesty.  The way Gigi is pulled between innocent girlhood, possible romance with an older man and learning how to be a gold digging mistress is very unsettling in my eyes.

If age is of no concern, the entire premise is still horrifying to modern women.  Teaching girls to “wait for the high-class jewels” and become snooty women on the arm of a rich man is terrible.  Sure, Gigi has her slight rebellions, but she is still trying to go with it and when she does get a taste of the exquisitely superficial lifestyle, she loves it.  Little girls tend to emulate the “princess” character, do we need our girls ogling over jewelry pretending to inspect it and make sure it’s a quality gift?  If you want to teach little girls they have the choice of being either superficial gold diggers or wives, by all means, pop Gigi in for them.

If I made any aspiring princesses cry, sorry, I warned you not to read any further.  How’s the tiara holding up?

“Thank Heaven for little girls.  They grow up in the most delightful way.  Those little eyes, so helpless and appealing…”

An American in Paris

Riddle me this:  What does an American do in Paris?  He ruins it for everyone else.  I’ve witnessed it in my travels as well as in this film.

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an ex GI who decided to stay in Paris and live out his dream by becoming a painter.  He has an obvious love for the city.  One day he gathers up his paintings, trying to sell them on the street in order to pay the bills.  A heiress and fellow American, Milo (Nina Foch), offers him fifteen thousand francs a piece.  That’s much more than Jerry ever thought his work would be worth.  Milo genuinely likes his work and might be fishing for a date.  With her influence and money, she wants to make Jerry a successful artist.

When Milo dupes Jerry into a date, he couldn’t really care less, especially when he catches the eye of beautiful Lise (Leslie Caron).  He pursues her, unaware that his friend Henri (Georges Guétary) is already dating her.  But that’s what we expect an American to do in Paris; steal your girl when you’re not around.

Oh my, did I forget to mention this is a musical?  It is, filled with Kelly’s dance moves and songs about everything.  There’s even a song with French children all around Kelly as he sings a way to teach them English.  But I just didn’t enjoy the songs and that dance scene at the end was way too long for what little action was left to happen.  I felt that Kelly was just practicing for his greatest act around the corner: Singin’ in the Rain.

The great redeeming quality for this film is the character Adam (Oscar Levant) a struggling pianist and neighbor to Jerry.  Without Adam being the other side of the coin to Jerry, I don’t think I would have approved of half the musical numbers.  My favorite scene his Adam’s daydream when he becomes an entire orchestra.  Without a word being said, that scene says more about dear Adam than the entire flapity-jaws-singing film.

The problem is, Jerry is the main character, but I did not like him.  He leads Milo on to further his painting career, which he’s not sure if he’s ready (or willing) to be serious about, while he’s pursuing Lise, who doesn’t have much personality unless she’s dancing.

I agree that the sets are beautiful and I understand that many people love this film and sing along with all the songs, but I just didn’t feel it.  The more into the film I got, I started to remember an American tourist I saw while visiting the Louvre in Paris.  The beer gut gave him away before he opened his mouth and twanged, “We already saw Mona Lisa, can we just skip these paintings and find lunch?”  Americans just come to Paris to half-ass being a painter, steal your hot dancer girl and see nothing but The Mona Lisa in the entire Louvre.  Singin’ in the Rain is much more enjoyable.