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The World Beyond BetterMost => The Culture Tent => Topic started by: Aloysius J. Gleek on March 25, 2008, 02:38:14 am
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Love Songs
(Les Chansons d'amour) Trailer (2:31)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s54vpKAFmS0[/youtube]
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/movies/19love.html?scp=1&sq=%22Love+Songs%22&st=nyt (http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/movies/19love.html?scp=1&sq=%22Love+Songs%22&st=nyt)
From the New York Times:
Movie Review
Love Songs (2007)
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/19/arts/19love600.jpg)
From left, Clotilde Hesme, Ludivine Sagnier and Louis Garrel, a threesome in “Love Songs.”
Parisians Singing From Bed to Bed
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 19, 2008
The Paris of Christophe Honoré ’s “Love Songs” (“Les Chansons d’Amour”) belongs unmistakably to the present. Its residents talk on cellphones and drop the name of Nicolas Sarkozy (still an aspirant to the Élysée Palace rather than an occupant when the movie was being shot). But they also dwell, just as noticeably, in the Paris of classic French movies — in a vague, bracing atmosphere of good old Nouvelle Vague. The opening titles present the surnames of the actors in unadorned block capitals, à la mid-’60s Jean-Luc Godard, while the camera poetically prowls the streets of the city. And, among other sly quotations, an early shot of a couple reading in bed evokes a memorable, much-reproduced image from François Truffaut’s “Bed and Board.”
Except that, in this case, the couple is a threesome. Ismaël (the mischievous and soulful Louis Garrel ) and his live-in girlfriend, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), have expanded their arrangement to include Ismaël’s co-worker Alice (Clotilde Hesme), an addition that fascinates Julie’s mother (Brigitte Roüan). But the girl-boy-girl threesome, which turns out to be short-lived, is perhaps the most straightforward emotional configuration in this odd, witty, touching film. Eventually, you see, Alice — who insists early on that her primary sexual interests are in women and celibacy — takes up with a young Breton man named Gwendal (Yannick Renier), whose younger brother, Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), develops a crush on Ismaël, who is also the object of nonsexual stalkerish attention from Julie’s older sister, Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni).
And I haven’t even mentioned that, every now and again, one or more of these attractive, articulate, love-addled people bursts into song. What do they sing about? What do you think? About love, naturellement, and also — pourquoi pas? — about Paris. (A nightclub singer croons some verses about Manhattan, but who’s he kidding?)
The songs, written by Alex Beaupain, belong to a strain of contemplative, literate French pop that is, for music fans not from France, something of an acquired taste. The English subtitles may not help, as they sometimes turn Mr. Beaupain’s delicate erotic metaphors into lines like: “Keep your saliva as an antidote/Let it trickle like sweet venom down my throat.”
The melodies are charming, though. And so, for the most part, is “Love Songs,” even if it doesn’t entirely work. It takes some nerve nowadays to conceive a musical that is both realistic and earnest, frank in its emotions and cognizant of the complicated states of feeling encountered by frisky young city dwellers. There is nothing mocking or knowing in Mr. Honoré’s fusion of sexual comedy, intellectual seriousness and music, and he is not shy about throwing strong, even shocking moments of drama into the mix. Hovering over the generally good-humored sexual confusion is the specter of mortality, as the bed-hopping is interrupted, at the end of the film’s first act, by a sudden, senseless death.
But even though Mr. Honoré is trying something very interesting — and even though his nimble cast executes it with grace and more or less in tune — the execution doesn’t quite live up to the concept. No single element (apart from those song-lyric subtitles) is bad, exactly, but an element of coherence is missing. The musical numbers are restrained and not especially showy, but their tact makes them feel more rather than less self-conscious. The songs don’t sunder the naturalism that surrounds them, but they don’t quite enhance it either, and the result is a movie that feels, curiously, at once modest to the point of diffidence and feverishly overwrought.
Still, for all its imperfections, “Love Songs” is a worthy and intriguing experiment, the latest sortie in an international rescue operation aimed at saving musical cinema from extinction or self-parody. Like other movies that have been involved in this undertaking — “Once,” say, or “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” — Mr. Honoré’s film is likely to inspire ardent love among its admirers. The rest of us may envy their passion.
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Love Songs (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996605/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996605/)
(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg1NjM3NDIzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjkyOTg1MQ@@._V1._SY400_SX600_.jpg)
(http://www.enorazik.fr/image/les_chansons_damour_beaupain.jpg)
Ma mémoire sale (4:32)
Louis Garrel (& Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, silent)
Love Songs: Les chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX3GIhWNxbU[/youtube]
La distance (3:16)
Louis Garrel & Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Love Songs: Les chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6eP7VsqQnM&feature=related[/youtube]
As-tu-déjà aimé? (2:54)
Louis Garrel & Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Love Songs: Les Chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkZnH82_7v0[/youtube]
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/16/arts/16hohe600.1.jpg)
Louis Garrel with Ludivine Sagnier, left, and Clotilde Hesme in “Love Songs.”
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767695.jpg)
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and Louis Garrel in “Love Songs.”
(http://bp2.blogger.com/_GWL3LyNaQGw/R6GYtwaMeKI/AAAAAAAABno/owMVq5o5a4o/s400/PDVD_051.BMP)
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet in “Love Songs.”
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http://www.list.co.uk/article/5858-les-chansons-damour-profile-of-christophe-honore/ (http://www.list.co.uk/article/5858-les-chansons-damour-profile-of-christophe-honore/)
Les Chansons d’Amour - profile of Christophe Honoré
Source: The List (Issue 592) Date: 13 December 2007 Written by: Tom Dawson
(http://files.list.co.uk/images/2007/12/13/christophe-honore.jpg)
PROFILE
Name Christophe Honoré
Born 10 April 1970, Cahaix, France.
Background Having grown up in Brittany, Honoré studied literature and cinema at Rennes university, before moving to Paris in his mid-20s, where he contributed to Cahiers du Cinema. A novelist, playwright, screenwriter and author of children’s books, Honoré has already directed several films: these include his sexually transgressive George Bataille adaptation Ma Mere, for which he cast Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel, and the critically acclaimed Dans Paris, a playful hommage to the Nouvelle Vague, which starred Garrel again and Romain Duris.
What’s he up to now? Honoré’s latest film is Les Chansons d’Amour (Love Songs), which played in competition at last May’s Cannes festival, and is now gaining its British release. Featuring an exciting young cast including Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni and Clotilde Hesme, it’s a naturalistic musical containing 13 songs, which unfolds in Paris’s bustling tenth arrondissement and explores how lovers and family members deal with an unexpected bereavement.
What he says about the inspiration for Les Chansons d’Amour ‘It was inspired by the death of somebody whom I loved as a friend and whom the composer Alex Beaupain loved as well. When that person passed away, Alex wrote some songs, and I referred to the feelings of grief in my novels. But we came together with the idea of transforming this grief into the joy of making a movie.’
What he says about Jacques Demy ‘I love the work of Jacques Demy, to me he is a godfather of French cinema. You can’t make a French musical without acknowledging Demy, but I didn’t want to make a copy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In my film love is threatened not by war, but by everyday tragedy.’
Interesting Fact Honoré lost his own father when he was 15 years old.
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From
Les chansons d'amour:
J'ai cru entendre
by Alex Beaupain and Doc Matéo
Listen:
http://moulou.imeem.com/music/ord5zAqt/grgoire_leprinceringuet_jai_cru_entendre/ (http://moulou.imeem.com/music/ord5zAqt/grgoire_leprinceringuet_jai_cru_entendre/)
(2:54)
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/rsz/434/x/x/x/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767694.jpg)
Ismaël
(Louis Garrel):
Mon petit depuis ce matin
J'ai traîné comme un crétin
Au niveau du caniveau
De Montparnasse à Château d'Eau
J'ai bu des verres, des verres, et puis des verres
Zubrowska, Riesling, Piper
À court de tout à bout de moi
Je suis revenu chez toi
Moi je voulais juste un corps
Je cherchais seulement des bras
Un lit de réconfort
Des délices sous les draps
Mais hélas au lieu de ça
J'ai cru entendre "Je t'aime--"
J'ai pensé c'est son problème
J'ai cru entendre je t'aime
J'ai pensé c'est son problème
Peu importe que tu y croies
Peu importe que je sois
À bout de moi, à court de tout
Mais pas de ça entre nous
(http://bp2.blogger.com/_GWL3LyNaQGw/R6GYtwaMeKI/AAAAAAAABno/owMVq5o5a4o/s400/PDVD_051.BMP)
Erwann
(Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet):
Être un corps je suis d'accord
T'offrir mes bras pourquoi pas
Mon lit, ok, encore
Pour rire en salir les draps
Mais je crains que pour tout ça
Tu doives entendre "Je t'aime--"
Tu doives entendre "Je t'aime!"
Ismaël:
je suis vieux, veuf et sectaire
Un pauvre imbécile secrétaire
Erwann:
Je suis beau, jeune et breton
Je sens la pluie, l'océan et les crêpes au citron
Ismaël:
Tais-toi un peu petit trésor
Erwann:
Tu as tout faux une fois encore
J'suis très précieux, épargne moi
Ismaël:
D'accord, mais--entre nous pas de ça
Erwann:
Être un corps je suis d'accord
Ismaël:
Je cherchais seulement des bras
Erwann:
Mon lit, ok, encore
Ismaël:
Des délices sous les draps
Erwann:
Mais je crains que pour tout ça
Tu doives entendre...
Ismaël:
(Je t'aime!)
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767695.jpg)
"You need to hear 'I love you!'"
;)
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From
Les chansons d'amour:
Au parc
by Alex Beaupain
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/xkvPbUO/music/IDlPhAPl/chiara_mastroianni_au_parc/ (http://profile.imeem.com/xkvPbUO/music/IDlPhAPl/chiara_mastroianni_au_parc/)
(2:16)
(http://www.lequotidienducinema.com/modules/upload/upload/!divers/chanson2.jpg)
Jeanne
(Chiara Mastroianni):
Même soleil d'hiver
Mêmes bruits de brindilles
Le bout des doigts glacé
Le givre sur les grilles
Mêmes odeurs d'humus
La terre qui se terre
Tout y sera, tout y sera
À part toi
Parc de la Pépinière, fin de semaine,
Encore une heure, encore une heure à peine,
Encore une heure de jour et la nuit vient
Même température,
Le mercure à zéro
Même mélancolie fauve
Au portillon du zoo
Mêmes parents pressés,
Leurs enfants en manteaux
Tout y sera, tout y sera
À part toi
Parc de la Pépinière, fin de semaine,
Encore une heure, encore une heure à peine,
Encore une heure de jour et la nuit vient
J'aurais beau décalquer
Refaire les mêmes parcours
Reprendre les mêmes allées
Au mêmes heures du jours
J'aurais beau être la même
J'aurais beau être belle
Tout y sera, tout y sera
À part toi
Parc de la Pépinière, fin de semaine,
Encore une heure, encore une heure à peine,
Encore une heure de jour et la nuit vient
Et puis... rien.
:(
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jmmgallagher can we be BFF!! ;D
I just discovered this thread and I'm thrilled with all the stuff you posted, thanks!
I am so looking forward to seeing LOVE SONGS , I can taste it!! Just yesterday, I was about to pre-order the DVD from Amazon, it apparently comes out in June, but thought I should wait a while yet. Louis Garrel is one of my favourite French actors and I absolutely love THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG which I understand was an influence.
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Oilgun,
I'm so glad you liked the posts--you will love the film; as you may have guessed, Les Chansons d'amour is one of my new obsessions. I have lots to say on the subject, the actors, the director, the composer, the whole story, too much, so--
Anyway, I'll be adding more to the thread when I can, and--see the movie as soon as possible!!
John
;D
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From
Les chansons d'amour:
Les yeux au ciel
by Alex Beaupain
Listen:
http://moulou.imeem.com/music/uXCcvK1B/louis_garrel_les_yeux_au_ciel/ (http://moulou.imeem.com/music/uXCcvK1B/louis_garrel_les_yeux_au_ciel/)
(3:49)
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/rsz/434/x/x/x/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767697.jpg)
Ismaël
(Louis Garrel):
Les yeux
Au ciel
Les nuages blancs dans le bleu parfait
Nulle trace de dieu
Au ciel
Ces nuages lents dans le bleu défait
Le soleil inonde
Le ciel
Mes jours en hiver passés à t'oublier
Où chaque seconde
Est une poignée de terre
Où chaque minute
Est un sanglot
Vois comme je lutte
Vois ce que je perds
En sang et en eau
En sang et en eau
Je jette
Au ciel
Ces galets polis que tu peignais en vert
Mais nulle reponse
Du ciel
Nul ricochet sur cette mer a l'envers
Le soleil inonde
Le ciel
Mes jours en enfer passés a t'enterrer
Où chaque seconde
Est une poignée de terre
Où chaque minute
Est un caveau
Vois comme je lutte
Vois ce que je perds
En sang et en eau
En sang et en eau
J'éspère
Qu'au ciel
Des diables malins coupent au anges leurs ailes
Pour que tu retombes
Du ciel
Dans mes bras ouverts, cadeau providenciel
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mais chaque seconde
Est une poignée de terre
Mais chaque seconde
Est une poignée de terre
Mais chaque minute
Est un tombeau
Vois comme je lutte
Vois ce que je perds
En sang et en eau
En sang et en eau
(http://european-films.net/images/stories/cannes07/garrel.jpg)
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Love Songs
(Les Chansons d'amour) Trailer (2:31)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s54vpKAFmS0[/youtube]
"Christophe Honoré makes a case as one of the most exciting filmmakers of our generation with the exuberant and tender Love Songs (Les Chansons D'Amour). A modern day musical told through unforgettable songs sung entirely by the cast and scored by Alex Beaupain, the film has overjoyed audiences at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals while earning recognition in its native country with four French César nominations.
"In the hope of sparking their stalled relatioinship, Ismaël (Louis Garrel of Dans Paris, The Dreamers) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier of Swimming Pool) enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice (Clotilde Hesme of Regular Lovers). When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love. For Ismael, this means negotiating through the advances of Julie's sister (Chiara Mastroianni of Persepolis) and a young college student (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet of Strayed); one of which may offer him redemption."
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From
Les Chansons d'amour:
Il faut se taire
by Alex Beaupain
Listen:
http://lebaisermodiano.imeem.com/music/3EfifbEq/alex_beaupain_il_faut_se_taire_louis_garrel_clotilde_hesm/ (http://lebaisermodiano.imeem.com/music/3EfifbEq/alex_beaupain_il_faut_se_taire_louis_garrel_clotilde_hesm/)
(2:33)
(http://medias.fluctuat.net/films/1/4/14847/les-chansons-d-amour/photos/70595-clotilde-hesme-et-louis-garrel.jpg)
Ismaël (Louis Garrel) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme)
Ismaël
(Louis Garrel):
Se taire
Tu m'en as tant dit, plus rien ne m'etonne
Se faire
Des serments muets, des promesses aphones
Les mots
De trop
Il faut
Se taire
Nos langues se fatiguent, menageons les pour
Alice
(Clotilde Hesme):
Se faire
Langue contre langue un dialogue de sourds
Ismaël :
Parfois
Crois-moi
On doit
Se taire
Alice:
Gardes ta salive que je puisse enfin
La faire
Couler dans ma gorge comme un doux venin
Ismaël
Les mots
Ismaël and
Alice:
De trop
Il faut
Se taire
Alice:
Nos levres sont seches et nos bouches ont mieux
À faire
Que se prendre au mot que se prendre au jeu
Ismaël :
Parfois
Crois-moi
On doit
Se taire
Enfin
Alice:
Se taire
À la fin
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Loved that Mémoire sale clip!
Je te remercie!!
Au revoir,
hugs!
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Merci, de rien, Artiste!
Yes, Ma mémoire sale is--uh--hot, no? But, when you look at the words closely, it's sad, sad, sad--and angry. Despite seemingly tender, Ismaël has not accepted Erwann, let alone learned to love him--yet. (And poor Chiara Mastroianni coming in at the end with "des croissants" and then running away--that is my rôle , I'm afraid!)
Anyway, here are the lyrics below. Those with better French than me can explain Lave--"wash"--and Lave--"lava."
Ma mémoire sale (4:32)
Louis Garrel (& Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, silent--and beautiful)
Love Songs: Les chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX3GIhWNxbU[/youtube]
Ismaël
(Louis Garrel):
Lave
Ma mémoire sale dans son fleuve de boue
Du bout de ta langue nettoie-moi partout
Et ne laisse pas la moindre trace
De tout
Ce qui me lie et qui
Me lasse
Hélas
Chasse
Traque-la en moi, ce n'est qu'en moi qu'elle vit
Et lorsque tu la tiendras au bout de ton fusil
N'écoute pas si elle t'implore
Tu sais
Qu'elle doit mourir d'une deuxième mort
Alors
Tue-la
Encore
Pleure
Je l'ai fait avant toi et ça ne sert à rien
À quoi bon les sanglots, inonder les coussins
J'ai essayé, j'ai essayé
Mais j'ai
Le coeur sec et les yeux gonflés
Mais j'ai
Le coeur sec et les yeux gonflés
Alors brûle
Brûle quand tu t'enlises dans mon grand lit de glace
Mon lit comme une banquise qui fond quand tu m'enlaces
Plus rien n'est triste, plus rien n'est grave
Si j'ai
Ton corps comme un torrent de
Lave
Ma mémoire sale dans son fleuve de boue
Lave
Lave
Ma mémoire sale dans son fleuve de boue
Lave
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Merci jmmgallagher !!
Il y a de telles autres scènes sexées entre les deux hommes??
Clip(s) ??
Au revoir,
hugs!
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Ok, rather than give it scattershot as previously, here I will give you the full list of the pieces of the 14 song "cycle" from the score, in chronological order, with YouTube links if possible, or imeem audio links if not.
I'll first mention: ALL the songs, lyrics and music, are by Alex Beaupain, EXCEPT the last one, number 14, 'J'ai cru entendre,' which was written by Alex Beaupain (words) and Doc Matéo (music).
All of the songs are sung by the principal actors themselves; number 5, 'Brooklyn Bridge,' as sung by Alex Beaupain himself, as he does have a scene in the movie, singing in a club (Les étoiles, I think) in the 10th arrondissement.
5 Youtube video links
(6 songs) and
8 imeem audio links of the full
14 songs in correct order of the movie score.
By the way--although all of the songs are represented here, I think you still have to see the movie if you really want to experience it! Thanks to Oilgun/Lee Ryder's tip, you can preorder the (American Continent) NTSC format version of the DVD at Amazon.ca in Canada; the approximate release date is June 3, 2008. See here:
http://www.amazon.ca/Les-Chansons-D-Amour/dp/B0016AKSQO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1207095494&sr=8-4 (http://www.amazon.ca/Les-Chansons-D-Amour/dp/B0016AKSQO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1207095494&sr=8-4)
So, here it is:
Les Chansons d'amour
a film by Christophe Honoré
1.
De bonnes raisons &
2.
Inventaire (4:37)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Ludivine Sagnier (Julie)
Les Chansons D'Amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UnKTsyBhE[/youtube]
3.
La Bastille (3:24)
In order, verse by verse:
Ludivine Sagnier (Julie), Jean-Marie Winling (Le père), Alice Butaud (Jasmine),
Chiara Mastroianni (Jeanne), and Brigitte Roüan (La mère)
Les Chansons D'Amour
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/Z-UcopqR/ludivine_sagnier_jeanmarie_winling_alice_butaud_chiara_mast/ (http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/Z-UcopqR/ludivine_sagnier_jeanmarie_winling_alice_butaud_chiara_mast/)
(http://medias.fluctuat.net/films/1/4/14847/les-chansons-d-amour/photos/70598-ludivine-sagnier-et-chiara-mastroianni.jpg)
Ludivine Sagnier (Julie) at left, Chiara Mastroianni (Jeanne) at right
4.
Je n'aime que toi (2:43)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Ludivine Sagnier (Julie) & Clotilde Hesme (Alice)
Les Chansons D'Amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoTcfsk09Ak[/youtube]
5.
Brooklyn Bridge (4:06)
Alex Beaupain (Himself)
Les chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/UZhkY5RI/alex_beaupain_brooklyn_bridge/ (http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/UZhkY5RI/alex_beaupain_brooklyn_bridge/)
(http://images.google.com/url?q=http://www.cinezik.org/critiques/jaquettes/chansons_amour03.jpg&usg=AFQjCNHvDj_MhxTVhhRj0__lDUU79luLmg)
6.
Delta Charlie Delta (3:05)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël)
Les Chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/208v1Hw/music/aU2uJavm/louis_garrel_delta_charlie_delta/ (http://profile.imeem.com/208v1Hw/music/aU2uJavm/louis_garrel_delta_charlie_delta/)
(http://www.afcinema.com/local/cache-vignettes/L550xH297/Les_Chansons6-0f911.jpg)
7.
Il faut se taire (2:33)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Clotilde Hesme (Alice)
Les Chansons D'Amour
Listen:
http://lebaisermodiano.imeem.com/music/3EfifbEq/alex_beaupain_il_faut_se_taire_louis_garrel_clotilde_hesm/ (http://lebaisermodiano.imeem.com/music/3EfifbEq/alex_beaupain_il_faut_se_taire_louis_garrel_clotilde_hesm/)
(http://medias.fluctuat.net/films/1/4/14847/les-chansons-d-amour/photos/70595-clotilde-hesme-et-louis-garrel.jpg)
8.
As-tu-déjà aimé? (2:54)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (Erwann)
Les Chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkZnH82_7v0[/youtube]
9.
Les yeux au ciel (3:49)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël)
Les Chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://moulou.imeem.com/music/uXCcvK1B/louis_garrel_les_yeux_au_ciel/ (http://moulou.imeem.com/music/uXCcvK1B/louis_garrel_les_yeux_au_ciel/)
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/rsz/434/x/x/x/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767697.jpg)
10.
La distance (3:15)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (Erwann)
Les Chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6eP7VsqQnM&feature=related[/youtube]
11.
Ma mémoire sale (4:32)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) (& Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, as Erwann, silent)
Les Chansons d'amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX3GIhWNxbU[/youtube]
12.
Au parc (2:16)
Chiara Mastroianni (Jeanne)
Les Chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/xkvPbUO/music/IDlPhAPl/chiara_mastroianni_au_parc/ (http://profile.imeem.com/xkvPbUO/music/IDlPhAPl/chiara_mastroianni_au_parc/)
(http://www.lequotidienducinema.com/modules/upload/upload/!divers/chanson2.jpg)
13.
Si tard (3:08)
Ludivine Sagnier (Julie) (& Louis Garrel, as Ismaël, silent)
Les Chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/6q3XCN0A/ludivine_sagnier_si_tard/ (http://profile.imeem.com/UaP8i1J/music/6q3XCN0A/ludivine_sagnier_si_tard/)
(http://www.afcinema.com/local/cache-vignettes/L550xH297/Les_Chansons1-4d755.jpg)
14.
J'ai cru entendre (2:54)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) and Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet (Erwann)
Les Chansons d'amour
Listen:
http://moulou.imeem.com/music/ord5zAqt/grgoire_leprinceringuet_jai_cru_entendre/ (http://moulou.imeem.com/music/ord5zAqt/grgoire_leprinceringuet_jai_cru_entendre/)
(http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/medias/nmedia/18/64/22/69/18767695.jpg)
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (Erwann) at left, Louis Garrel (Ismaël) at right
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http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/03/19/love_songs/index.html?source=search&aim=/ent/movies/btm/feature (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/03/19/love_songs/index.html?source=search&aim=/ent/movies/btm/feature)
From Salon:
Beyond the Multiplex
By Andrew O’Hehir
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 13:32 EDT
Ménage à trois: The musical!
(http://images.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/03/19/love_songs/story.jpg)
Ludivine Sagnier as Julie, Clotilde Hesme as Alice and Louis Garrel as Ismaël in "Love Songs."
Prowling the chilly, rain-swept streets of Paris like a disconsolate cat, pursued by at least four actual or potential lovers of various genders (one of them a ghost), Ismaël Benoliel, played by the startlingly handsome Louis Garrel, is a classic lonely hero of French cinema. To be specific, Ismaël belongs to the socially disconnected, emotionally damaged tradition of French New Wave protagonists. "Love Songs ," the rapturous and compelling new film from 37-year-old writer-director Christophe Honoré that features Garrel amid a tremendous supporting cast, is part of an ongoing effort to reanimate the spirit of the New Wave in the context of a new century and a vastly different French society.
You could describe "Love Songs," in fact, as a blend of François Truffaut's wistful Parisian sentimentalism and Pedro Almodóvar's acrid polysexual comedy, which were never far apart to begin with (given the difference in climate and native temperament between France and Spain). But Honoré is also tapping into another French tradition, one he hinted at in his lovable and miscellaneous "Dans Paris," also starring Garrel. You see, "Love Songs" is a musical that blends young love, bedroom farce and tragedy in the bittersweet-chocolate vein of Jacques Demy's classic "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (or, more precisely, in the vein of Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's underappreciated 1998 AIDS musical, "Jeanne and the Perfect Guy").
Built around 14 doleful, funny, dark, dance-floor-accented songs by French pop composer Alex Beaupain -- the movie was written to fit the songs, rather than the other way around -- "Love Songs" follows Ismaël's progress through a bumpy ménage à trois with blonde, high-strung Julie (Ludivine Sagnier of "Swimming Pool") and vivacious brunette Alice (Clotilde Hesme, who played alongside Garrel in "Regular Lovers"). As Alice sings to her two bedmates in one of Beaupain's best numbers, "Je suis le pont entre toi et toi", or "I am the bridge between you." It's clear that Ismaël and Julie are passionately in love but wrestling with the usual big questions about commitment and the future. Alice is an intriguing detour for both of them, and a mode of communication on the way to getting married or breaking up.
Neither of those things happens, and while I can't totally avoid a spoiler, it's better if you don't know too much about the sudden and devastating tragedy that descends on this awkward threesome. Let's just say that Ismaël is sent wandering sleepless from place to place, unable to find much solace with Alice or with Julie's charming parents (Brigitte Roüan and Jean-Marie Winling), and avidly fleeing the attentions of both Julie's older sister (Chiara Mastroianni) and an idealistic and clearly gay Breton college student (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) who's developed a massive crush on him.
If Ismaël's ultimate destination surprised me, and if I felt that "Love Songs" ended a little too abruptly, the fact is that I didn't want it to end at all. At first it's startling when Garrel and Sagnier move from naturalistic dialogue into a pop song -- performed in their own pleasant, natural, nonprofessional singing voices -- but Honoré soon wraps you in his distinctive universe of realism and artifice, erotic comedy and heartbreak. It's a seductive, absorbing, treacherous realm, photographed with unshowy grace by Rémy Chevrin.
Honoré works fast and cheap on the margins of the French cinema mainstream; his four features so far haven't tackled hefty social issues like race or immigration, and with the exception of his 2004 incest drama "Ma Mère" they aren't sexually explicit. ("Love Songs" is remarkably chaste, given the subject matter: There's no on-screen nudity, let alone sex.) So he really hasn't been recognized at home as anything beyond a niche art-house director with a '60s obsession, and he has zero profile overseas. This inexpressibly tender and lovely picture suggests that he's developing into a major talent, one who can make the spirit of classic French movies come alive in a new world.
"Love Songs" opens March 21 at the IFC Center and Paris Theatre in New York, with other cities to follow. It will also be available on demand via IFC In Theaters on many cable-TV systems.
― Andrew O'Hehir
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Interview with
CHRISTOPHE HONORÉ
(http://medias.lemonde.fr/mmpub/edt/ill/2007/05/22/h_3_ill_913179_cannes-honore-bis.jpg)
The origins of LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR lie in pre-existent musical material: the songs written by Alex Beaupain...
I’ve known Alex ever since we were both twenty. He has composed the music for all of my films, I myself have written a few lyrics for him. After the warm reception given to DANS PARIS I was allowed to work quickly on another project, I asked him if I could use his songs - some from his latest album, others that were much older - and I placed them within a screenplay that told a fairly painful story that we both shared. I subsequently adapted some of his lyrics and asked him to write a few new songs.
This is the first time that you have dealt so directly with the emotions of love...
In DANS PARIS, I dared to present people who felt love for each other but it was above all brotherly love, I still felt embarrassed about the emotions of love. For me, it was a big step to place emotion at the heart of a story, I’ve never been able to do it before. This led to the idea of a film in which the characters start singing as soon as they are in a state of love because they are incapable of expressing it otherwise. I have always loved songs, the way they allow you to express a strong emotion in a fleeting manner, with a permanent need for lightness. I have always been a huge fan of love songs, I can be moved by a French popular song that, in theory, holds no interest for me musically, simply because I am touched by a chorus, a voice or an emotion that I find expressed in a pertinent manner.
Had you wanted to make a musical for a long time?
Yes, but I wanted the choice of the genre to be justified rather than make a lampoon of its codes. Irony is often very flattering because you feel you’re being smart but it is totally devoid of interest. There was no question of me making a parody of the genre. I simply approached it by saying, "This film is a musical because the characters can only express their feelings by singing." I like the spirit of musicals, which resembles that of pop music: never complain, never dwell on things, offering the possibility of lyricism with its roots in everyday tragedy.
Did the fact of using pre-existent material alter the way in which you approached the screenplay?
LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR tells such a personal story that I knew it by heart. The issue of the story was never raised in fact, only the idea of how to deal with it without becoming petrified, how to tell it and make it work in a musical structure that reflects on the whole film. The settings, such as the parents’ apartment, return like a chorus, with a different tone according to what happened in the previous verse. And, as in a song where certain instruments return or vanish while others are added on, the secondary characters give fresh impetus to the story while others are ejected from it.
How did the musical work on the film unfold?
We re-arranged Alex’s songs with Frédéric Lo, who has worked notably with Daniel Darc - never losing sight of the fact that we didn’t have a whole year ahead of us, nor the budget to bring in an orchestra. We tried to match our desire to our means and I think that this has ended up creating an aesthetic approach and a form of precision. People often talk about the precision of an actor, about the right distance adopted by a director but the general aesthetic approach of a film has to be just as precise. Alex and I did not want the songs to sound "cheap". The actors rehearsed a great deal with Alex. We did the first readings all together in early November, then recorded the songs just before Christmas so that the actors could lip-synch to them during shooting that began in early January.
Did filming characters who sing change your approach to directing?
Filming characters who sing is very complicated in physical terms. You have to make sure that the changeover from speech to song, then the return to speech again, looks completely natural... but, at the same time, something that is "not natural" takes place. Direction has to take a step back from realism, but without becoming a music video. The fear of turning my film into 13 music videos made me come out in a cold sweat. To the extent that the first song I filmed was shot as a single take and I refused to break it down into different shots. However, I saw right away that this was a very bad idea because I was going to end up in the cutting room with a series of single takes that I wouldn’t be able to cut. I therefore opted for increasingly complex direction and shots depending on the songs or according to the emotion that they express.
"The departure", "The absence", "The return"... A three-part structure...
It was during editing that I realized there were three parts to the film. This is the classical structure of any romantic comedy or drama. In LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, the return of the emotion of love comes about through a third party exterior to the tragedy and through the appearance of a ghost. In fact, perhaps the basic idea of the film was to allow that ghost to return to earth just long enough for a song.
Each character reacts differently to the sudden arrival of tragedy...
I have the impression that they react above all at different speeds. Ismaël (Louis Garrel) walks along blindly but he keeps walking in spite of everything. From the very beginning of the story, I have filmed him in motion and I refused to halt that motion in spite of the sudden tragedy. And then Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) quickens his pace a little. Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni), on the other hand, is condemned to be immobile: she remains a fixed point. The tragedy freezes her. As for Alice (Clotilde Hesme), she walks alongside Ismaël, then she turns away from his path to follow another story with this Breton guy that she meets. In my previous films, tragedy arose from the expectation of disaster. LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR is more about the consequences of it and how to resist. It’s a film more rooted in the present in fact. Here, the tragedy opens up new lands to explore.
Does our period have a right to its own tragedies?
Tragedy arrives unannounced, we don’t need the Trojan War for it to burst into our lives. The idea was to physically locate the story in the city... Without necessarily making a documentary or militant film, I wanted a topical dimension, resulting in the idea of Ismaël being a newspaper editor, in order world someone in charge of the fold’s news. The end of his idyll and his carefree days does not take place outside that world.
You are gaining a reputation as a filmmaker of the early 21st century who films today’s world and is fully implicated in it...
Yes, I feel this need to deal with the modern world very strongly. I believe that this need is also linked to the production conditions of this film and my previous one. Very little time went by between the moment when I expressed the desire to make these films and the moment when we shot them. Paulo Branco can make very quick decisions, deciding in October to make a film in January. As a result, you don’t have time to build up another world in your mind, you can only deal with what you are experiencing personally in the present, the present lives of the actors, the city, society...
This grounding in reality is all the more striking since the film has elements of the musical...
In musicals, you often have the impression of being in a fairly kitsch bubble, with slightly acid references and songs that create a distance with reality. When the exterior world is present, it is there as a guest. In LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, I treat the real world as a partner more than as a guest. I think that the fact of filming the city where I live has its importance. In DANS PARIS, it was a "museum" Paris. With LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, on the contrary, I opted to stick to the 10th arrondissement of the city. The 10th is one of the few neighbourhoods where people work out in the open, with men unloading delivery trucks... There was no question of blocking streets to shoot: I wanted life to slip into the shots as much as possible and, at the same time, respect the geography of the setting. I forced myself to abide by this constraint, not so much as to produce an effect of reality as to prevent myself from toppling into fantasy.
How did you go about casting the film?
The first obvious choice was Chiara (Chiara Mastroianni). I had wanted to work with her for a long time and I had heard her sing. Working with her was a revelation. I had the impression that I had found my female double and I plan to make many other films with her. As for Ludivine (Ludivine Sagnier), I met her in an unexpected manner, I had heard her sing too. On a human level, something resembling a form of trust quickly fell into place between us. But I still didn’t have the male lead at the time of our meeting and so I couldn’t really commit then. That didn’t bother her: she simply told me, "Remember, I’m here if you need me." And, of course, I needed her. Needed and wanted. I had worked with Clotilde Hesme on stage a long time ago, even before she made LES AMANTS RÉGULIERS. I found it amusing to reform, in a totally different manner, the couple that she created with Louis in LES AMANTS RÉGULIERS. And, above all, I wanted to make her perform in a livelier register. Her character continually turns up to refuel the story. In my opinion, Clotilde will soon be making her place in French cinema with the force of a dainty bulldozer.
This is the third time that you have worked with Louis Garrel...
Yes, but I nearly didn’t pick him! I thought that he couldn’t sing. And, in the beginning, I was looking for an Ismaël older than Louis. And so I started seeing other actors and I realize that the way in which the character spoke was that of Louis, his specific music. During that time, Louis was calling me regularly to ask how the casting process was going and to suggest actors. Then he asked me if he could read the screenplay. He left me messages on my voice-mail: "You know, I sing a little too..." I never considered making a third film with him but he kept insisting! So I sent him one of Alex’s songs, suggesting that he prepares it. One day, he came to my place to present his work to Alex and me. He asked us to turn round so that he could sing without seeing our faces and he took the plunge... His voice was quaking with fear but, for Alex and me, he was the obvious choice. In fact, the role was his from the beginning, I think that I had written it for him without realizing. Something has been built up between us with all these films, something that eludes us but that has helped us to grow and change. He has helped me to find my style, my identity as a filmmaker.
And Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet as Erwann?
He was in André Téchiné’s LES ÉGARÉS. I remembered his voice well; it has a very specific quality like Chiara’s or Ludivine’s. Indeed, we found out later that André had spotted him in a choir. Grégoire represents a certain idea of youth without falling into the clichés or sexual fantasies of our times. His beauty has an open and unostentatious side to it. I wanted the character to be a young man who has no doubts about his homosexuality but who hasn’t had an affair yet. Erwann isn’t tormented by his sexuality but by his feelings. Grégoire displayed a form of simplicity and kindness that quickly convinced me that he was the right actor for the part.
These days, it’s still possible to die of love...
Yes, the feeling has its dangerous side. I belong to a generation for which the idea of "dying for love" was necessarily linked to Aids and I wanted to relocate this danger in the realm of the emotions without the sexual side. Aids is still there, but the danger also lies in the way in which you don’t feel loved or don’t know how to love.
With the idea of finding your own rhythm too. "Love me less but love me for a long time," as Ismaël asks...
In the 1980s, one of Carax’s characters asked: "Is there such a thing as love that moves fast but that lasts forever?" Twenty years later, LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR expresses this same feeling but with an extra shot of lucidity. Ismaël isn’t asking for proof of love, he would rather be loved in a covert manner but with doggedness. In fact, today, I think contrary to Cocteau: "Proof of love doesn’t exist, only love exists."
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Interview with
ALEX BEAUPAIN
(http://www.arcadi.fr/medias_tempo/alexbeaupain.jpg)
Would you define LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR as a musical?
Not really. When you talk about a musical, you think of music-hall movies, sheer entertainment, the way the Americans know how to make them, with choreographed numbers and songs that comment on the action. Or the films of Jacques Demy, who invented a new musical language: sung words. I feel that LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR is more part of a French tradition of the 1960s and 70s, films like Truffaut’s JULES ET JIM for instance where the characters suddenly start singing "Le tourbillon de la vie". Except that instead of having one or a few songs, as was also the case in DANS PARIS, here we have 13 songs that give structure to the film.
How did you work on the musical arrangements?
For us, it was obvious that we needed to rearrange the songs to create homogeneity between those from by first album and those that exist separately. That was very exciting! But I knew the songs too well, I needed an outside gaze. We quickly decided to work with Frédéric Lo, producer of Daniel Darc’s "Crève-coeur", a very lyrical and rich album in spite of its minimalist arrangements. Frédéric had managed to make Daniel Darc use "speech-song", something that resembled our problems in adapting the songs for actors: favouring the reading rather than the vocal technique.
Unlike a song that you listen to over and over on an album, a song in a film must have an immediate effect on the audience and inscribe itself in the story...
There’s the idea of a path through the film, the songs and the moments when the characters sing them are never innocuous. Nor how they sing them: alone, as a duo, as a trio, as a family... The film starts with fairly light-hearted songs. And we slowly move towards a more intense and lyrical musicality. We worked a great deal on the aural atmospheres according to how the scenes would be built up, whether they would take place out of doors or in a bedroom. But these orientations occurred in a totally natural manner, probably because Christophe, in writing his screenplay, hadalready thought out precisely how to integrate the songs in the scenes.
The decision not to dub the actors but to have them sing for real was that an obvious choice?
Yes, because of the experience of having made Romain Duris sing in DANS PARIS, which had convinced us that an actor, even without any vocal technique, has qualities of interpretation and intention that make him ten times more moving than a professional singer. But since there were 13 songs and not just one as in DANS PARIS, we could no longer play on the surprise effect of hearing an actor sing, something that makes the audience less critical and less attentive to his vocal limitations.
Did the actors rehearse the songs with you?
Yes, we had three weeks of rehearsals at my place before going to the studio. I simply worked with the piano and their voices. Since they were actors, I thought that we would work on the «speech-song» technique but, in fact, they all had a lot of capabilities, they really sang, they dared to tackle the melody and rhythm.
In "Pourquoi viens-tu si tard?", sung by Julie’s ghost, there’s the idea that a song can be sent through time...
I hadn’t written the song with that in mind. For me, it was a "separate" song that had no ties with the story told in the film. I had written it for someone else. Therefore, I was very surprised, on reading the screenplay, that Christophe should use it in such a way. You would think that once Julie is dead, she could no longer sing. But she suddenly reappears with this song. I think that it is a very beautiful idea, especially in this film that was written to keep someone alive somewhere...
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Interview with
LOUIS GARREL
(http://www.chictrills.altervista.org/foto_louis_1.jpg)
Christophe Honoré didn’t originally consider you for LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR. Was it important for you to persuade him to make this third film together?
Yes, I like working with Christophe, it’s easy and amusing, natural even. I played on fate, on the old saying that "things come in threes"! One day, I went to Christophe’s place to prove to him and Alex Beaupain that I could sing. For me, singing in front of others was more shocking than what I did in MA MÈRE! Singing... That’s something you can’t control, it’s so unnatural to start singing in front of others. Most of the time, we sing alone... For me, there is a feminine side to singing, it is part of women’s charm, of their siren side!
For the film, how did you approach the sung scenes?
The hardest thing in the film was performing on screen the songs that we had pre-recorded. How can you show the effort of singing when you’re not really singing? For me that was as tough as a mathematics problem! It drove me mad, even if Christophe told me to let myself go, to assume the unnatural side of singing in a film...
According to you, what specific things does singing allow you to express?
At the Conservatoire, I realized on singing Don Giovanni that singing has a divine side to it. It is a way of addressing heaven, it allows you to go beyond your earthly tie. In singing, we communicate with distant times. Singing in a film means bringing together a very ancient art and an art that is 110 years old, a venerable old man and a baby... I think that singing allows us to express the tragedy of apparently banal lives. Singing is the way in which tragedy can enter the story.
You have worked with Christophe Honoré on 3 films now, have you noticed an evolution in his work?
In DANS PARIS, there was a great deal of improvisation. His direction on LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR was tighter, it was like an old film for Christophe, he had been carrying the story with him for a long time. I could tell that his desire came from a long way back, it was like a late birth. In MA MÈRE, I was the son; in DANS PARIS, I was the brother; in LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, I play a potential father who refuses to play that role. We never see Ismaël’s family, we don’t know where he comes from. I wondered why Christophe had made him Jewish... Perhaps simply because the Jewish people have always been drifting, with no ties. I know of Jews who never feel more at home than in other people’s homes, like Ismaël in Julie’s family clan.
And Julie’s heart...
In the screenplay, the couple argued because he didn’t want a child. This aspect is less present in the film but I kept that guilt in mind to play my character: killing a woman because you don’t give her a child. If Julie has a heart attack, it’s because she cannot go on living without a child. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Ismaël then meets a boy. Ismaël falls in love with someone who cannot have a child someone totally different from Julie who will not encroach upon his love with her. Erwann quickly enters Ismaël’s life. Desire and laughter snap their fingers at death...
Even at the heart of the tragedy, you bring a breath of lightness to your character...
On reading the screenplay, the scene with the puppet in the kitchen struck me as particularly tricky... How can you be light with Julie’s family just after she has died? Laughter isn’t moral and I try to approach it as a clown. Ismaël is living through tragic events but he tries to be light-hearted, without necessarily losing his awareness of the tragedy...
In LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, did your past complicity with Christophe Honoré place you in a special position?
In French the "hôte" is both the host and the guest... Well, I was the «hôte» on this film: I was Christophe’s guest on his film and I was a host for the others who were working with him for the first time. It’s a very pleasant position to be in: I left all the inconvenience to Christophe and, at the same time, I felt responsible for making everyone happy.
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Interview with
GRÉGOIRE LEPRINCE-RINGUET
(http://www.cinezik.org/critiques/jaquettes/chansons_amour07.jpg)
How did you come to work on LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR?
I knew all of Christophe’s films. I saw DANS PARIS on the day it was released and I sent text messages to everyone: "Don’t miss this film, it’s brilliant!" The next day, by pure coincidence, I had a call from the casting director of LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR...
How would you describe Erwann, your character?
Erwann isn’t very mysterious or very complicated. He’s a young man who has his whole life ahead of him and who experiences love instead of going to school. That’s very beautiful, we’ve all dreamt of doing that! Erwann quite simply accepts the fact of falling in love with a guy ten years older than he is and who may not necessarily be homosexual. Erwann is naïve enough to believe that if he gives all his love, shouting it from the rooftops, it’s bound to work...
Do you know why Christophe Honoré chose you?
For a start, because I look Breton, even though I’m from Normandy! In the screenplay, Erwann was described as a beam of sunlight and I tried to get that across by singing the notes a little higher, by adding thirds, some of which made it into the film, notably in the final song, "J’ai cru entendre je t’aime".
Did singing help you to build up your character, to figure out who he was?
Yes, the desire to try for high-pitched and clear notes helped me to get a handle on the character. In fact, I think it would be a great exercise if you always needed to sing a song to know what your character is like... When you sing, the vocal work is necessarily more evolved. If only to hit the right note. You listen to yourself more carefully when you sing than when you speak, you are more aware of the tone of your voice and your intonation. I sang when I was little, I was in the Paris Opera children’s chorus, as an contralto.
How would you describe Christophe Honoré’s cinema?
Christophe’s cinema is very modern in its ideas and its characters that are on the cutting edge of today’s adventures and sorrows. Melancholy is a very contemporary feeling. Christophe is someone very modern in his way of being and living and this is reflected in LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, that films sexual - and emotional - liberty with a great deal of simplicity.
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Interview with
LUDIVINE SAGNIER
(http://celebrite.aol.fr/content.do?id=204491&v=1189176919000)
How did you come to work on LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR?
Ever since 17 FOIS CÉCILE CASSARD, Christophe had been among the people I wanted to work with, he was on my "list". We met by chance in a bar and then my agent organized a meeting with him... At first, he was a little hesitant but then everything quickly came together. One month later, we were recording the songs. This film was made in a rush, with a small budget, in a fairly light and impromptu manner. The expressionism of the songs heightens this spontaneity, notably in the way of approaching the dialogue. The songs are explicit enough and require no further stress. They allow us to be more direct, to create a situation without a lengthy set-up. It’s very enjoyable to make a film in which the music is a character in its own right that drives the situations along. Before beginning the film itself, we were already fine-tuning our performances, thanks to the songs that we had pre-recorded. We each had a CD, the whole crew bathed in this musical ambiance as in a bubble.
Were you apprehensive about performing a sung role?
It was a pleasure in fact... I had sung before, in François Ozon’s films, and these songs don’t require incredible skill. We don’t force our voices, we’re in a very intimate register. And the intimate is less scary than the showy. At the end of the day, the film doesn’t use our talents as singers but rather our talents for performing and listening, our precision and sensitivity. Christophe’s film unfolds in an everyday and naturalistic register. It was hard for me at first to hold myself back: I wanted to walk to the beat, dance, twirl or nod my head! We could hear the music over a loudspeaker, it was very hard to stay still and ignore the rhythm.
Each character reacts differently to Julie’s death...
What I like about Christophe is that he’s never judgemental, in particular in relation to Ismaël who seeks refuge in the arms of a boy. Jeanne, meanwhile, tortures herself with material details. I understand that well, it’s a very human reaction, rendered sublime here by the musical aspect. LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR echoes UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME. The film is set in the same area of Paris, a woman wants a child... Godard also had a very light-hearted way of dealing with adultery and a ménage à trois. On the surface, the dialogue is very light but, deep down, it tells a tragic story.
How did your work with Louis Garrel go?
Louis has become a key figure in Christophe’s cinema. He has an aura, a singularity, a freedom of performance and a way of representing his times that has nothing artificial about it. He is in an off-key mode that it is a delight to watch. Opposite him, I was in the type of cinema that I love.
Does Christophe Honoré have a special way of working?
He is very relaxed and devotes a great deal of time to the actors. There is great complicity between him and his actors, he likes to touch them, position them, stand in their marks, we have the impression of fusing with him in a way. I like it when a director is a double for his actors, when he performs with us.
Julie’s family is very present...
I love the scene in which all the sisters are lying on the couch with their father who looks like a fat cat surrounded by his kittens. On reading the screenplay, I had the feeling that I knew this family. There was something obvious about it. Christophe has a totally incredible feeling for dialogue. He has humour, a sense of detail and complicity. I love the character of the youngest sister (Alice Butaud). She displays incredible cynicism, she seems indifferent, she is like the young girl that I could play in the past.
Can we perceive the end of an overly agitated heart?
Julie is fond of Alice but she also wants to move ahead in her couple. Deep down, I think that she is in a state of self-denial, she goes along with the threesome to keep her man happy. There is a form of devotion in her character. Julie has an elevated vision of love and she expects her man to be the same. What she hasn’t realized is that men are self-centred! The film doesn’t focus on Ismaël’s egoism but it nonetheless, in a cover manner, asks the question, "Why do I give you everything I have and why don’t you give me all your love? Why don’t you tell me that you love me, why don’t you tell me that you want children, why do you beat about the bush and why don’t you tell me what I want to hear?" Julie is looking for something that will last, she fights against fleeting love affairs, she has a fairly classical vision of love. Sometimes, people die for no reason, that’s the brutality of life... What I love in the film is that this threesome is not presented as a form of dissoluteness or transgression. Christophe’s cinema has nothing subversive about it, he accepts anything that comes along. That’s fairly symptomatic of this period of ours that is trying to get over the Aids years and to feel less guilty about the emotions of love. From this angle, Erwann is a magnificent character: he’s the angel of redemption.
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Interview with
CHIARA MASTROIANNI
(http://www.lequotidienducinema.com/modules/upload/upload/!divers/chanson2.jpg)
Did you know Christophe Honoré’s films before appearing in LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR?
I had seen DANS PARIS and liked it a lot, especially the song between Romain Duris and Joana Preiss, which was my favourite moment. When he talked to me about LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, I was delighted to see that he was taking the use of songs in a film even further. I love Christophe’s spontaneity. He is both shy and audacious at the same time.
For you, what do songs allow you to express in the film?
For a start, they allow you to have fun! Songs have a very playful dimension. Even if I don’t perform the happiest song in the film! Jeanne doesn’t talk much, she is a fairly withdrawn character. In the song "Parc de la Pépinière", she can express herself at last. Christophe wanted this moment to be a dramatic one. He told me that if I could cry, that wouldn’t be bad either... I think it’s beautiful that Christophe decided to use songs to tell this painful story. The songs are a breath of fresh air that eases the characters’ suffering. Songs never take themselves seriously.
Despite your experience as a singer, were you afraid of these moments of song?
Yes, I was afraid. I’m always afraid anyway! But my fear stimulated me rather than paralyzed me. I’m not sure that my experience as a singer really helped me because there’s a big difference between singing alone in a studio and being filmed while you sing. But I was encouraged by my love of musicals, from Minnelli to Jacques Demy. And Christophe really played down the stakes in the sung scenes. He approached them in a simple manner, without overdoing it. He almost «trivialized» his project to avoid intimidating us.
Do you like love songs?
Of course, especially the sad ones! I’m a real sucker for them.
Your character, Jeanne, is perhaps the one who is the saddest when Julie dies. Unlike Ismaël or Alice, her grief immobilizes her...
Jeanne doesn’t lead a very fulfilled life. So sorrow necessarily takes up a lot of room when she loses her sister. Jeanne has less spirit than the others. This period of mourning comes very early in her life, too early... especially as Julie’s death remains unexplained, as if fate had come knocking at the door of this family. This leads to Jeanne’s feelings of guilt: why was Julie the one who died and not her? Jeanne has the guilt of the one who is left behind. Ismaël rebounds more easily. Julie’s grief overwhelms her and centres her at the same time, forcing her to pull herself together, to wake up. It is accompanied by an impulse to live.
Julie has a "cardiac arrest". Symbolically, do you think it is possible to die from too much emotional suffering?
Yes, I think it’s possible to die because of one’s feelings, to let oneself die. It happens to animals, so why not to human beings?! I love Christophe’s film because of that to: he is proud to tell a love story, literally, without any snobbery.
In making this film, did you think about LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG, about your mother in that film?
Not at all. Christophe never referred to it. It was only when I saw the stills of Ludivine in her little white coat that I thought about it. But when I read the screenplay and when we were filming, not at all. The film was made in a very spontaneous manner, in very easy conditions. Christophe put the film together very quickly, he wanted to capture a moment of life. I’m used to these low-budget films produced by Paulo Branco and the economic constraints don’t bother me. As long as the director can make the movie he wants to make, as long as there’s enough film in the camera!
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Interview with
CLOTILDE HESME
(http://www.linternaute.com/sortir/cinema/jeunes-et-jolies-les-etoiles-de-demain/image/44394.jpg)
How did you come to work on LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR?
I had already worked with Christophe Honoré on stage in one of his plays called LES DÉBUTANTES. Unfortunately, it only ran for four performances in Dijon. We regretted it and we promised to work together again one day. He called me for a part in DANS PARIS but I was working on stage at the time. With LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, I couldn’t miss the boat again! I have a great deal of admiration for Christophe, for his work as a writer, a filmmaker, a playwright and a director of actors. He is very fond of language and words but doesn’t approach them in a cerebral manner. With him, the rehearsals are very physical, the language passes through the body.
This is especially true of the very vibrant Alice, the character you play...
Yes, Alice has a hellish delivery, when she speaks she sounds like a machinegun going crazy. When Christophe got me to work on Alice’s rapid manner of speaking, I had the impression that I was having a diction work-out!
Weren’t you afraid of singing?
At the Conservatoire, I skipped all the singing classes because I was terrified by the idea of having to sing. I would burst into tears, to the extent that the teacher thought that it hid some kind of trauma, that maybe my mother was a famous opera singer! It was only later that I took classes. I followed a year-long course with a brilliant teacher who made me want to sing. And a good job too! Without knowing it, I had prepared myself for Christophe’s film...
Do you like love songs?
I love them ! I’m a big pop fan. My sister writes songs, I’m very close to that form of culture.
According to you, what do the songs bring to this story?
They provide the opportunity to talk about death while remaining grounded in life, while being joyful. Joy is something that typifies Christophe. He is an artist firmly on the side of life. Like Alex Beaupain too. I believe that it was very important for them to tell this story together. I thought that the sung scene on the phone between Romain Duris and Joana Preiss in DANS PARIS was fantastic. I would have liked it to last even longer, with more scenes like it. That is now the case with LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR and I’m happy and proud to have been involved in this adventure.
What is your view of the bonds that unite Julie, Alice and Ismaël?
Love is possible between them because there are three of them. As soon as Julie is no longer there, everything becomes shaky, the love between Ismaël and Alice no longer has any reason to exist. It would be almost indecent for Alice to carry on loving Ismaël now that Julie is no longer around. Alice has to come to terms with a dual loss: that of Julie and that of her love for Ismaël. Julie’s loss reveals to her the love that she feels for Ismaël. Up until that point, her bisexuality protected her from her love for Ismaël, she sheltered behind her feelings for Julie.
In LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, Christophe Honoré tackles the emotions of love without beating about the bush...
Yes, he is not at all afraid of emotion and feelings. He approaches all that without any cynicism but occasionally with a hint of self-derision, notably thanks to my character when she makes fun of Julie and Ismaël: "All this soppiness makes me sick!" But there is also a hint of envy in Alice’s words. In a way, she would like to be in their shoes... In LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR, Christophe films people who love each other and I find it very noble and brave to be like that these days, to tell such a story. We are living in an age where we find it hard to accept great and noble feelings...
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Three nominations (including Christophe Honoré and Clotilde Hesme),
one win (for Alex Beaupain), for Les Chansons d'amour at the
Étoiles d’Or 2008
2007 French Film Critics’ Étoiles d’Or
2007 Étoiles d’Or winners: Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, February 18, 2008
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
Best Female Newcomer / Étoile d’Or de la Révélation Féminine française 2007
Clotilde Hesme, Les chansons d’amour
Audrey Dana, Roman de gare
* Hafsia Herzi, The Secret of the Grain
Best Screenplay / Étoile d’Or du Scénario français 2007
Christophe Honoré, Les Chansons d’Amour
* Abdellatif Kechiche, The Secret of the Grain
Valéria Bruni Tedeschi and Noémie Lvovsky, Actrices / Actresses
Best Original Score / Étoile d’Or du Compositeur de Musique Originale de film français 2007
Bruno Coulais, Le Deuxième souffle
Alexandre Desplat, L’Ennemi intime
* Alex Beaupain, Les Chansons d’Amour
http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/etoiles-dor-2007/ (http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/etoiles-dor-2007/)
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Four nominations (including Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Clotilde Hesme and Guillaume Le Braz, Valérie Deloof, Agnès Ravez, Thierry Delor for sound), and again,
one win (for Alex Beaupain), for Les Chansons d'amour at the
César Awards 2008
French Academy of Film Arts and Sciences’ 33rd César Awards - 2007
2007 César du Cinéma winners: the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, on February 22, 2008
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
BEST MALE NEWCOMER / MEILLEUR ESPOIR MASCULIN 2007
Nicolas Cazalé, Le fils de l’épicier
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Les chansons d'amour,
Johan Libéreau, The Witnesses
Jocelyn Quivrin, 99 F
* Laurent Stocker, Ensemble, c’est tout
BEST FEMALE NEWCOMER / MEILLEUR ESPOIR FÉMININ 2007
Louise Blachère, Water Lilies
Audrey Dana, Roman de gare
Adèle Haenel, Water Lilies
* Hafsia Herzi, The Secret of the Grain
Clotilde Hesme, Les chansons d’amour
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE / MEILLEURE MUSIQUE ÉCRITE POUR UN FILM
* Alex Beaupain, Les chansons d’Amour
Olivier Bernet, Persepolis
Alexandre Desplat, L’ennemi intime
Zbigniew Preisner, A Secret
Archie Shepp, Faut que ça danse!
BEST SOUND / MEILLEUR SON
Antoine Deflandre, Germain Boulay, Eric Tisserand, L’ennemi intime
Guillaume Le Braz, Valérie Deloof, Agnès Ravez, Thierry Delor, Les chansons d’amour
Thierry Lebon, Eric Chevallier, Samy Bardet, Persepolis
Jean-Paul Mugel, Francis Wargnier, Dominique Gaborieau, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
*Laurent Zeilig, Pascal Villard, Jean-Paul Hurier, La Vie en Rose
Also...
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS / MEILLEURE ACTRICE DANS UN SECOND RÔLE
*Julie Depardieu, A Secret
Noémie Lvovsky, Actrices
Bulle Ogier, Faut que ça danse!
Ludivine Sagnier, A Secret
Sylvie Testud, La Vie en Rose
http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/cesar-awards-2008/ (http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/cesar-awards-2008/)
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Hmmmm--I'm not the only obsessional one around here!
Ok, it sure isn't Alex Beaupain's music--but a clever Youtuber has made a 'slash' Les Chansons d'amour video using a Michelle Branch song ("All You Wanted")--very cute! I like it!
Ismaël and Erwann (in love) (3:38)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUOC5GBcIRM[/youtube]
I wanted to be like you
I wanted everything
So I tried to be like you
And I got swept away
I didn't know that it was so cold
And you needed someone
to show you the way
So I took your hand and we figured out
That when the tide comes
I'd take you away
If you want to
I can save you
I can take you away from here
So lonely inside
So busy out there
And all you wanted
was somebody who cares
I'm sinking slowly
So hurry hold me
Your hand is all I have to keep me hanging on
Please can you tell me
So I can finally see
Where you go when you're gone
If you want to
I can save you
I can take you away from here
So lonely inside
So busy out there
And all you wanted
was somebody who cares
All you wanted was somebody who cares
If you need me you know I'll be there
Oh, yeah
If you want to
I can save you
I can take you away from here
So lonely inside
So busy out there
And all you wanted
was somebody who cares
Please can you tell me
So I can finally see
Where you go when you're gone
;D
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http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2008/03/review_sweet_no.html (http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2008/03/review_sweet_no.html)
Reviews
(http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2008_love_songs_002.jpg)
A scene from Christophe Honoré's "Love Songs." Image courtesy of IFC First Take.
REVIEW | Sweet Nothings: Christophe Honoré's "Love Songs"
by Michael Koresky (March 15, 2008)
[An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.]
As in last year's "Dans Paris," 37-year-old filmmaker Christophe Honoré ventures back to that lost Eden known as the French New Wave, this time to punch up a featherweight tale of young love and loss with high-concept tomfoolery. And though "Love Songs" (or, if we could please use its original, more melodic title, "Les Chansons d'amour") better evokes that era's carefree cinematic spirit, it's similarly bound by dictates and referents, twice-removed and over-rehearsed. Hence "Love Songs" is not merely a musical -- in which passionate, lost twentysomethings wend their way through difficult times by breaking into pop tunes with puppy-love ingenuousness -- but also a riff on musicals, performance, play-acting, etc. Part of this is just by postmodern design, yet often the result is simultaneously ingratiating and distancing. Those looking for the exhilarating crescendos of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (the film's declared inspiration: Honoré borrows Jacques Demy's structure, separating his narrative into the same three distinct chapters -- Departure, Absence, and Return) might be put off by the film's less dramatic swooniness; "Love Songs" is the brief dalliance to "Cherbourg"'s intense affair, perhaps too shy to fully take the plunge, but nimble enough to give off a flirtatious buzz.
"Dans Paris" winked and nudged itself to the edge of oblivion, while "Love Songs" merely wants to smile and shrug its way into your heart. Thanks to a magnetic cast of up-and-coming certified French hotties frolicking through a roundelay of appealing polysexual pleasures, it almost gets there. Louis Garrel plays magazine editor Ismaël with a sly, self-aware Belmondo twinkle in his eye, whistling and goofing through a tenuous three-way relationship with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier, putting her pixie past behind her and growing more formidable with each passing film) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme, striking an audacious, animated opposition to her lovely, detached Lilie from "Regular Lovers"), until unforeseen tragedy befalls them. This event radiates throughout their lives, affecting Ismaël in thoroughly unexpected and ultimately disarming ways, most of them better left for the viewer to uncover. If the third act of "Love Songs" isn't quite as emotionally (or physically) plausible as the narrative requires, at least Honoré has clearly psychologically worked out his conclusion, leaving his characters on a precariously lovely edge.
To keep afloat all this catchy, erudite gossamer, Honoré employs previously written pop tunes by composer/performer Alex Beaupain; if they're far from the traditional "chansons" of Jacques Brel or Piaf, they evoke sixties French standards with their distinct lyrical playfulness and tinny delicacy. Yet for all Beaupain's minor musical charms, this is where the film's insistent comparisons to Demy leave something of a gaping wound; "Love Songs" would undoubtedly have benefited from Michel Legrand's operatic schematics, in which melodies overlap, repeat, and echo to create a dynamic interior space for the characters, as well as a consistent artistic framework on which to hang vaporous themes of love vs. romanticism. Beaupain's songs are dispersed throughout, mere ephemera, drifting away as soon as you grasp them (the obnoxious subtitles, which of course try to impose rhyming English verse onto the original French lyrics, don't help); the result doesn't feel wholly unified, even if, it can be handily argued, it speaks well to the characters' less than shrewd grip on their emotional and sexual identities.
If "Love Songs" fundamentally lacks musical grandeur, the same could be said for spectacle. There's no genre that as explicitly invites expressionistic flourish as the musical, yet Honoré often just films his actors, even at their most lovelorn, desperate, or tunefully giddy, in flat midshots and cramped frames; there's an especially dully blocked moment in which characters sing to each other through their cell phones that's decidedly less clever than the filmmaker evidently thinks it is, and I'm truly sick of girls sassily sashaying away from pleading pursuing boys as standing in for viable choreography. "Love Songs" often just isn't visually enticing, relying too much on well-appointed scarves and metropolitan cityscapes (as a friend mentioned, it looks like a Gap ad).
Honoré's better at plucking moments out of time (there's a splendid cut from a shot of a bartender pouring a drink to her coming out of Ismaël's bathroom in panties and T-shirt) than at sustaining narrative momentum, which can leave some of his terrific supporting players stranded (Chiara Mastroianni, magnetically melancholy as Julie's sister, and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, adorable as a cocksure schoolboy crushing on Ismaël, are often shoved to the peripheries, so their crucial character arcs don't always shine through). As an implicit longing for a cinema of white, Parisian, middle-class intellectuals, "Love Songs" often feels like a rusty trinket; that it hasn't yet completely lost its luster is thanks in no small part to its vibrant portraitures, steeped in the heartsick pangs of young love.
Michael Koresky is co-founder and editor of Reverse Shot and the managing editor and staff writer of the Criterion Collection.]
(posted on Mar 16, 2008 at 02:02PM)
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IMDb Chansons d'amour, Les (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996605/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996605/)
A Wonderful Surprise, 11 April 2008
9 out of 10 Stars
Author: hollyfairbanks-usa from Los Angeles, CA
"I wonder why this gem of a film was released in secret, at least in the USA. I was literally dragged to see it by some friends - to whom I'll be eternally grateful. The film lives on its own with glances to the great Jacques Demy. Rains and umbrellas, songs and impossible love. Louis Garrel must be, by now, considered one of the greatest film presences of the new millennium. He is devastating and his relationship with the doomed Ludivine Sagnier has all the warmth and sexiness of the great romances. The entrance of the adorable Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet takes all our preconceptions and turns them around. This sensual coupling full of innocence has the power to seal a tragedy with love. I adored this movie and the makers should protest vigorously as the way the film was distributed in the United States."
;)
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An interview--in which we learn there may be a sequel in the offing to Les Chansons d'amour!
http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/index.php?itemid=1828 (http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/index.php?itemid=1828)
20/04: Interview:
EXCLUSIVE 1 On 1 with Christophe Honoré
(Love Songs)
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080316-IMG_33225.JPG)
Christophe Honoré walks into the hotel room where I'm waiting anxiously to meet him. Sure we met briefly the night before at a Q&A he was doing and we spoke over the phone for thirty minutes or so last year, but this would be my first real time sitting face to face with one of my new favorite directors. “I know you!” Honoré says playfully when he sees me. I'm kind of surprised, did he recognize or remember me from the night before?
We shake hands- it turns out he was told we had already spoken over the phone. It's funny because only after that interview was over did my obsession with seeing "Love Songs" really start. Sure it was there already, but I became a real supporter for the film as the months went by (you can search the site and see) and was checking in with festivals and other people making sure the movie was picked up and ready to be shown in the U.S. almost every week. Soon enough, I heard that IFC picked the film up and it would be shown in 2008.
Speaking through a translator (and at times speaking coherently in English) I sat down with Honoré for an EXCLUSIVE 1 on 1 to talk about the U.S. release of "Love Songs", his many influences and a very possible sequel to one of the best films of the year. Read on for more with director/writer Christophe Honoré...
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080316-16hohe600.1.jpg)
MPF: I’m so excited to be sitting here with you, face to face at last talking about the film that I’ve been following for over a year.
Christophe Honoré: Thank you, yes I know you’ve been writing about it.
MPF: So when did IFC get involved? I know I was pressuring a lot of studios to pick up the film since last August.
CH: The discussions began around May of last year at the Cannes Film Festival. As you know, IFC also picked up “Dans Paris”. Eventually it was picked up, I don’t know when exactly.
MPF: It’s incredibly hard to find your films in the U.S. I’m constantly forced to import most of your work and a lot it doesn’t even have English subtitles-
CH: It’s true. I sort of trust my French distributors; I don’t really know how to get my work over seas. I’m often not even told if the films are being shown or coming out.
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080421-still3.JPG)
MPF: I’ve seen “Love Songs” five times now, seeing it with all different kinds of crowds and every time I do see it- there is an audible nervous laughter during the love scene between Louis and Grégoire. What has the reaction been like in France to that particular scene?
CH: In France it wasn’t seen as a gay movie. You’re talking about the scene in bed and they’re singing, right?
MPF: Yes.
CH: I can understand the reaction but I think that the scene has a certain sensuality which isn’t aggressive. In France the movie has a cult following, I’d say with High School students. But not really in the Gay community, I don’t even think it was seen much by them. It was quite popular in the age bracket of 15-20 year olds. I’ve done other films as I’m sure you know, that are much more explicit sexually (like "Ma Mere"). So in fact now I feel I’m blasé. Maybe it’s because it’s a scene that is both sung and intimate at the same time. I think the reaction its had is because Louis’ character has had a relationship with many various women and then he takes a sudden turn. There is something that disturbs the audience on that level.
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080421-still4.JPG)
MPF: Is it true a lot of the film’s dialogue is from Adam Thirlwell’s book “Politics”?
CH: Yes, very good. Coming from a literary background, I always borrowed a lot from novels in my screenplays. In fact in a clandestine fashion, you could say I stole. It’s true that there is this American author Adam Thirlwell and he’s at the same publishing house that I belong to in France. What I found interesting about “Politics” is that it was sort of a English variation of “Jules and Jim”. Starting from this English version, I came back to a French version of this kind of ménage a trois. So the film is this mixture of Truffaut, Thirlwell and me. But it’s really only in two scenes where I borrowed something from his novel.
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080421-still1.JPG)
MPF: I keep on hearing about your next film-
CH: It’s called “The Beautiful Person” and I shot it in a High School with mostly adolescents. Half the actors weren’t professionals, they were amateurs. The other half are some people from “Love Songs”. Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet is one and Louis Garrel plays an Italian professor. The movie is a very loose adaptation of a novel from the sixteenth century called “The Princess of Cleves”. It’s a story of absolute love between a young woman and a man that’s a little bit older. It’s a real drama. I’m a big fan of pop music as well and in this new film I used a lot of Nick Drake music.
*spoilers* MPF: Is the film’s last piece of dialogue: "love me less but love me a long time" open to interpretation at all?
CH: I think that it’s not a happy ending. Even if Ismaël is in the arms of a boy he loves he has the awareness to know that he’s only 17. At 17 you fall madly in love but it can last a week. That’s why I ended the film on a ledge, they could almost fall off. So when he says “love me less but love me a long time” he knows it’s not going to last a long time.
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080421-still5.JPG)
MPF: Why leave the film so open? Is there a possibility of a sequel at all or is that just me having wishful thinking?
CH: (laughs) In three years or so, you know- there could be the possibility of a sequel.
MPF: Seriously? Don’t tease me Christophe, I’ll go crazy if that’s true.
CH: (laughs) The story is very personal in terms of me and Alex (Beaupain, the songwriter). I myself know what happens next; but Alex is continuing to write the music and it’s very much apart of his life. So yes, there are songs for a sequel. I’m just worried about doing it and it being thought of as just a commercial venture. It’s very possible we’ll find Ismaël again and see how he has evolved in his life so far.
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20080421-20080421-Still7.JPG)
MPF:Thank you so very much for sitting down with me Christophe.
CH: Thank you Scott, good luck with your website.
"Love Songs" is in theaters and on demand now.
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As an aside, I must say in the interview above--either Christophe Honoré or the interviewer, Scott Hoffmann of moviepicturefilm.com--who seems to be very nice--has made mistake in re: the nationality of the young writer Adam Thirwell, of the novel Politics, referenced in Les Chansons d'amour. Adam Thirwell is not American, but British. Interesting that the original sexual trio in the movie--played by Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme--are all reading either English or American books (in translation), whereas the youngest sister, played by Alice Butaud, is always reading (many!) French books only. ('Erwann,' of course, is reading mostly gay books!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Thirlwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Thirlwell)
Adam Thirlwell (born 1978) is a British novelist and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and ex-pupil of the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree. He is assistant editor of Areté, an arts tri-quarterly. He also writes a column for Esquire magazine. In 2003 he published his first novel, Politics, and was included in Granta's list of the twenty best young British novelists. As an undergraduate (reading English) at New College, Oxford, he won several essay prizes and excelled in his final-year exams.
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Here is an interview made about a year ago between Christophe Honoré and Scott Hoffman of moviepicturefilm.com
http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/index.php?itemid=1448 (http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/index.php?itemid=1448)
15/08: Interview:
EXCLUSIVE 1 on 1 with Christophe Honoré
(Dans Paris)
Posted by: Scott Hoffman
(http://www.moviepicturefilm.com/media/gallery/20070816-christophehonore.jpg)
Director and writer Christophe Honoré spoke with Scott over the phone about his new film "Dans Paris"...
What can I say without sounding like I'm gushing over director/writer Christophe Honoré? The man is imaginative, handsome, soft-spoken and kind, his new film "Les Chansons d'amour" ("Love Songs") is on the very, very top of my must see list and currently its soundtrack is blasting off my iTunes. I was beyond disappointed earlier this month when I found out that Honoré had some trouble getting into the U.S. and that he might not be able to do press for his current film "Dans Paris". A few days after this snafu, I was contacted by the folks handling the film and was lucky enough to set something up on over the phone with him. Not his latest film, but the one he did before it, "Dans Paris" which he made 05' and played Cannes in 06' is now just coming out in limited release the U.S.
It's currently playing at NY's The IFC Center and also on IFC in Theaters on your cable box (a very cool service). Speaking to me from France through a translator, Honoré was currently getting ready to promote his newest film at the Toronto Film Festival, but he took some time off to talk with me about his career, his passions and his tribute to French new wave: "Dans Paris". Read on for a fascinating conversation with director and writer Christophe Honoré...
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MPF: Hi, glad to be able to speak with you.
Christophe Honoré: Hello, nice to make you acquaintance.
MPF: I was disappointed that you couldn't make it to U.S. to promote "Dans Paris", do you plan on trying to come back in the future?
CH: Yes, I might come to the U.S. in the near future, not necessarily New York though. I also might attend the Toronto Film Festival.
MPF: You like to work a lot with Louis Garrel, what keeps you returning to work with him? Also, why have him break the fourth wall and talk to the audience during segments of the film?
CH: The first time I worked with Garrel he was young, younger than twenty years old I think and it was my second feature film ("Ma Mere"). We met on this occasion and worked very well together, we sort of found each other. Our styles match very well. As for him breaking the fourth wall, there was always a desire for Louis to be sort of another director or a spokesperson in the film. I pushed this intention as far as making him a direct narrator to the spectator, he was almost representing me as a director.
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MPF: You always seem to be winking at your audience in this film. From Garrel reading "Franny and Zooey" in bed (both works have a dead sister character in common) and him glancing over at the audience and smiling when walking by a poster for Van Sant's "Last Days" (Garrel co-starred with "LD" star Michael Pitt in "The Dreamers") and Cronenberg's "A History of Violence"...
CH: Indeed. I've always intended to do that. As far as the books are concerned, I happen to be a writer as well as a director so I suppose I'm making the link between both worlds. The two film posters shown in the end was just an idea of some of the cinema that I found exciting at the time I was shooting the film.
MPF: What I love about your films is that they're essentially multi-layered think pieces that all add up to a bigger meaning. Is that always your intention?
CH: Yes of course. As a director you always try to deliver a piece of work that isn't predigested, that has something more to say. In "Dans Paris", there are some contradictions between appearances and underlining themes. An example would be the two main characters, sure one is depressed, but the other one could be as well, just not in an obvious way. The character played by Garrel might have something deep down inside him that is not so secure.
MPF: You mentioned before you were an author in France. Any plans to release your books in the U.S. in English because I don't want to have to translate them all online...
CH: (laughs) Unfortunately besides some of my children's books, it's not happening yet in English. The books are available in other languages though- German, Italian and Spanish.
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MPF: A lot of foreign filmmakers are making the jump to American cinema. Michael Haneke and Wong Kar Wai , among many others. Do you have a desire do a film here?
CH: Yes of course. It would be very tempting. I'm a cinephile though, it almost makes me want to question French cinema permanently. In doing so, I'd be confronted with cinema from other countries...the whole thing would be very interesting. I'm more of an art director, so I'm not sure there would be demand from American producers for my style of filmmaking. But I love American cinema. I'm a huge user of the internet. In some research for my movies, I'll find myself reading some amusing blogs that are made in America. I have absolutely no prejudice against American culture though. I'm a big fan of film directors Tim Burton, Gus Van Sant and Wes Anderson. I liked "Spider-Man 3" as well. I also enjoy many TV series like "The West Wing". I definitely have an open mindedness of American culture.
MPF: What's the status of "Les Chansons D'Amour?" ("Love Songs?") I've been hyping it on my website and am dying to see it. Do you have an American distributor as of yet?.
CH: We hope so. There are some discussions happening but nothing is confirmed yet.
MPF: The soundtrack is wonderful, I've been listening non-stop.
CH: That's nice to hear. Do you understand it?
MPF: Some of it, but mostly I just like the music and the beats.
CH: That's a good start.
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MPF: There's one shot I'm obsessed with that occurs during the begininng part of "Les Chansons D'Amour" which was released over here. It involves actress Ludivine Sagnier moving down an alleyway but her feet aren't moving. I feel like I've seen it before.
CH: Yes, it's a special trick- in English I think it's called 'traveling', I'm not completely sure. It was invented by Cocteau then used by Demy. So yes, it's intended as this film is very much playing with the ghost of the new wave, in particular Demy's cinema. It's also embodied by the character of Sagnier in the film. Thank you for noticing this.
Je n'aime que toi (2:43)
Louis Garrel (Ismaël) & Ludivine Sagnier (Julie) & Clotilde Hesme (Alice)
Les Chansons D'Amour
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoTcfsk09Ak[/youtube]
Check out the 'traveling' technique in this scene from the Honoré' flick "Les Chansons D'Amour"
MPF: Perhaps this will get people interested in those films again or for those who haven't seen them, they could discover them for the first time-
CH: Indeed. These movies are related to each other as well. Someone like Demy had references to Cocteau and you can watch Coppola movies- he evokes other directors. There is always this inheritance in the world of cinema, directors inventing directors. It's like a big family tree, you make movies because you saw some previous one you like. So obviously it's related and transmitted to the next generation of filmmakers.
Final Impression:
I was particularly inspired by Honoré's final words in my time talking to him. Filmmakers doing tributes to other filmmakers has always resonated in cinema, but now more than ever with younger filmmakers like Tarantino and Wes Anderson taking notes from the old pros in their works. I expect once Honoré's newest creation "Les Chansons D'Amour" hits cinemas over here, he will garner many new fans as it is being described as his 'most mainstream film yet'.
For those that want to see Honoré's previous films, I recommend his first, "17 fois Cécile Cassard" and his latest, "Dans Paris" which are my favorites of his so far. As all of you know already, I'm dying for "Les Chansons D'Amour". "Dans Paris" is out now. See it. Thanks to Honoré for agreeing to do the phone chat.
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I saw LOVE SONGS last night. It was the first of about 8 films I'll be seeing at the InsideOut Film Fest and I'm afraid it will be hard to beat. It lived up to my high expectations, I completely fell in love with it! Louis Garrel is such a wonderful actor and probably the most gorgeous man in cinema today but everyone was wonderful in it. I can't wait to get my DVD copy when it's released, I've already ordered it.
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Yup!
In the meanwhile....
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;D
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The DVD of LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR that I ordered from Amazon.ca arrived today! YAY! Unfortunately, it's completely bare-bones...
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The DVD of LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR that I ordered from Amazon.ca arrived today! YAY! Unfortunately, it's completely bare-bones...
Me too.
Sigh.
At Amazon.fr, they sell a two disc set which, I believe, has a "making of the film" kind of film, but the disc set in region 2. I must ask our 'Shelter' confreres how to learn how to play a disc from another region of your own...
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Is it really more than ten years?? :( :(