Tag: Marianne

Marianne

Posted on by victorfraga

A medium shot of Isabelle Huppert, talking heads style. She sits on a sofa and looks directly into the camera, occasionally glancing at some notes. She engages in a conversation in English with us members of the audiences, staring us firmly in the eyes. She repeatedly asks: “what do YOU want me to say?”, “who are you?”, while also insisting that she is connected to us through some invisible mirror. Her various musings include the nature of film, the essence of reality, and our knowledge that we are watching a movie. “Wake up!!!”, she screams out loud in the hope to engage viewers who may have drifted away onto oneiric territory. “You are here out of free will, and you stayed for longer than an hour also out of free will”, she exclaims, almost as if encouraging audience members to leave the theatre in abject rejection of the movie’s “fancy pants narrative”.

Michael Rozen sets out to break just about every convention of filmmaking, purposely irritating cinephiles: breaking the fourth wall, jump cuts that serve no narrative purpose, unnecessary repetitions, a boom mic that makes a brief appearance, random subtitles in horrible bold white font that randomly appear and disappear on different parts of the screen. Maybe the filmmaker wishes to turn films-lovers into film-haters. Marianne is a one-woman show, a cinematic tour-de-force and intellectual torture, all at the same time. This is the type of deeply conceptual and contextual movie that only works in a very specific environment during a specific time: the film festival circuit. This is also the type of film that would be dismissed as sheer garbage if it didn’t have a star of such high calibre on the lead. On the same way that Marcel Duchamps’s “Fountain” (the infamous urinal) would be ignored had it been planted in an art gallery by an ordinary citizen at a different time.

The idea of reflection is a recurring one, as Marianne Lewandovsky (the name that Huppert gives her character, shortly before rescinding her identity) ponders about the notion of the mirror, while also referring to Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman (in an oblique reference to the former’s Mirror, 1975). The notion that cinema mirrors real life is discussed. She vehemently affirms the script is “real”, and that she may be reading her text from a teleprompter, only to dismiss her claims as a joke. The director and the actress cleverly toy with concepts of authorship and perspective. In a way, Marianne is a mockery of cinema. A joke that can be quite affecting, but also easily overlooked or misunderstood.

One of the most subversive elements of Marianne is Huppert’s face. The 70-year-old actress subverts time by looking younger and even more beautiful than 20 years. And just as hypnotic and fascinating as ever. Few actresses successfully embody as many contradictions. Huppert conveys a sense of cynicism, while exuding an irresistible allure. Staring her in the eyes for such a long time is both humbling and disturbing.

Marianne shows at the 41st Turin International Film Festival. Writer and director Michael Rozek a former journalist for such publications as Esquire and Rolling Stone.

Faithfull

Posted on by victorfraga

Marianne Faithfull fell into the trap. In order to celebrate a 40-year career, one of the most original singer-songwriters of all times agreed to reveal her secrets to French actor-director Sandrine Bonnaire, only to be disrespected. Faithfull gives it all but Bonnaire wants more. The camera is too invasive. At a certain point, shooting in a car, Marianne commands to stop filming. She begs in vain. The French filmmaker goes on and on, adjusting the focus to a closer frame, until Marianne gives up. What Have I Done Wrong?

The documentary remembers many interviews in which Faithfull had to justify her personal choices through her life. In the 1960s, British TV presenters didn’t forgive her for insisting in her career as a singer and actor rather than being a full-time mother. Her lifestyle was a threat to the status quo. What are we Fighting for? Bonnaire neither challenges these journalists nor provides a more magnanimous take on the subject. She is as manipulative as Shirley Clarke in Portrait of Jason (1966).

Fortunately Faithfull, the woman, is stronger than Faithfull, the film. She may sing “I am not that strong” (as in the song Sister Morphine), but in fact she is. After her relationship with Mick Jagger – the two were together for four or five years – Falling in Love Again was never her business. At a very young age, Faithfull repressed her desire to sing so Mick could reign. She started acting and stopped singing. At 19, she had a miscarriage. The event contributed to their break-up. Mick wanted so badly to become a parent, and he eventually got what he wanted. He is father to eight, none of them with Marianne Faithfull. Why D’Ya Do It????

Marianne wanted another life. She preferred the Vagabond Ways. Inspired by the cult William Burroughs’s book Naked Lunch, she moved to the US. She soon became illegal, penniless, homeless and addicted to heavy drugs. As Faithfull reveals her anonymous life on the streets of New York, Bonnaire lost a good chance to explore more the richness of her subject. The filmmaker was only interested if Faithfull had ever become a prostitute. Truth, Bitter Truth

Faithfull often looks like a formulaic documentary for television, but it still has some intense moments. The way Faithfull selects a track to play, for instance, and then she surrenders into emotion. The viewers can’t help but sit and watch As Tears Go By.

There were oh so many ways for her to spend her days. She could clean the house for hours, or rearrange the flowers. Instead she chose to spend time with her band, a new generation of musicians influenced by her work. Maybe she did not have Great Expectations at first, but this is where she found the real love she always poured into poems.

Faithfull is showing at the BFI London Film festival taking place right now.