Review of Gigi (1958) by Faith R — 26 Aug 2007

"Gigi" is a delightful film. When I was in my teens and would watch the film based on Colette's novella about a family of courtesans, I did not quite understand the meaning of it all. It was fun to watch Leslie Caron sing and dance around Paris, flirt with Louis Jourdan, and then get dressed up and go to Maxim's. I thought it all so romantic. Later, in my thirties, the sordid aspects of the story struck me. It had never occurred to me that they were grooming the young heroine, Gigi, to be a "kept woman." The French, being the French, do not mind immorality, for the most part, as long as it is elegant. The Bourbon Kings of France before the Revolution, with the notable exceptions of Louis XIII and Louis XVI, had mistresses who lived in splendor; the scandal was widespread, countered only by the piety of the queens and princesses. The practice of keeping a mistress spread to the wealthy bourgeoisie. The story by Colette, while it is fiction, indubitably had many historical counterparts.

Gigi, however, sees through the glamor to the ugly reality. When Gaston invites her to become his mistress by saying: "I want to take care of you, beautifully," Gigi knows that it means that she will sleep with him until he tires of her, and then move on to "another gentleman's bed." Because she truly loves Gaston, and is not after his money like everyone else in the story, she recoils from the arrangement. In the end, Gaston, realizing that because he and Gigi truly love each other, he can not expose her to lifestyle of the demi-monde. She must become his wife, or nothing. Ultimately, the lively and nonconformist girl he fell in love with inspires him to rise above his boring and dissipated existence.