National Cinema Day: Champagne and Film

This year, National Cinema Day is taking place on Saturday, August 31, and aims to entice film lovers back to the cinema across the country.

Why not celebrate this year’s National Cinema Day with a glass of Champagne? After all, Champagne has featured in films and held a prominent place in pop culture since the end of the 19^th century and continues to do so as a symbol of opulence, celebration and prestige, maintaining its position as the pinnacle of sparkling wine.

With this in mind, the Champagne Bureau UK* highlights some of the most iconic ways in which Champagne has featured in film throughout the years. As Pierre Segui’s character Julien says in 1978 film ‘The Deer Hunter’, “when a man says no to Champagne, he says no to life!”.

CHAMPAGNE’S SIGNIFICANCE IN FILM

In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière held the first public screening for a paying audience in the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris. They used a handmade device called a Cinématographe and thus, cinema was born. A year later, in 1896, Champagne made its cinematographic debut, when the Lumière brothers filmed ‘De La Vigne au Tonneau’ (literally ‘From the Vineyard to the Barrell’) at a Champagne house in Epernay.

Since then, Champagne has appeared on cinema screens worldwide countless times. For example, in 1933 comedy ‘Sons of the Desert’ – a film that, in 2012, was deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry – Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy compete for a bottle of Champagne. In the iconic 1942 film ‘Casablanca’, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s characters are seen clinking Champagne when Bogart quotes his most famous saying “Here’s looking at you, Kid”. In 1955 film ‘The Seven Year Itch’, Marilyn Monroe says “oh, I did do one thing”, when recounting the story of how she celebrated her birthday: “I bought myself a bottle of Champagne.”. This is followed up with her famously explaining “it would’ve been just elegant, lying there in a bath, drinking Champagne. But I couldn’t get the bottle open.”.

James Bond has been seen drinking Champagne many times in his films, in the years between 1962, when ‘Dr No’, the first film premiered in cinemas, and 2021, when ‘No Time to Die’, the latest in the franchise was released. In fact, contrary to popular belief, James Bond is seen drinking Champagne more than he does martinis. In 2006 film ‘Casino Royale’, he says “If you agree, I would prefer to drink Champagne with you tonight. It is a cheerful wine, and it suits the occasion – I hope.”.

There is no denying the role that Champagne has played time and time again in film, and as Cary Grant’s character Nickie Ferrante said in 1957 film ‘An Affair to Remember’, “do you not think life should be fresh and bubbly like Champagne?”. With this sentiment in mind, why not raise a glass of Champagne this National Cinema Day and celebrate the world of film in style!

*Champagne Bureau UK is the trade association in the UK, representing houses and growers in Champagne.

Photo credit: Image belongs to Comité Champagne and Glass of Bubbly was granted permission to use it.