Further thoughts on Umbrellas of Cherbourg: Is it a New Wave film?

Following up in Jacques Demy's 1963 Umbrellas of Cherbourg, watched some of the supplements on the Criterion DVD and learned a # of important points about the production: was recorded by a cast of singers and then filmed as the actors listened to the recording and same the score just for synchronization - sometimes these filming sessions through the night, with the voice recordings playing loud so the actors could sing their parts. Was filmed on location in Cherbourg, using actual storefronts, streets, and interiors - though the interiors of course were completely redesigned to match the color scheme of the film (actually, costumes came first and then the wall coverings and wallpaper designed to match). Also quite a bit of discussion as to this film's place and Demy's place among teh French New Wave directors of his time - most famous being Godard and Truffaut. What it's not New Wave: Demy was inspired by Ameican films but not those of the great directors eg Ford and Hitchcock but rather by West Side Story and its high-production values, emotions, popularity, and lyricism - and took it one step further in having a film w/ no spoken dialogue. Also, unlike New Wave, he made the film with elaborate settings and costumes - and in bright color - again, high production and not the realistic look of New Wave. Also, his expressed goal was to make viewers cry - clearly not a New Wave goal, which might be to make us gasp, and think. (Even the end of 500 Blows: We are astonished, but not tearful.) But it is New Wave in that it uses natural settings (streets of Cherbourg), references to the real world (the Algerian War), and most important it is director-centric, it's very much Demy's film (even some autobiographical references - his father owned a gas station, e.g.), tied to characters in his first film, full of cinemati cross-references and quotations, and driving entirely by Demy's vision - his own screenplay and close collaboration w/ composer, as well as his understanding of the look, the pacing, the perspectives, the editing - like all New Wave it's not a studio work nor an actor's film but 100 percent a director's.