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Quand j'étais chanteur (2006)

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43 out of 51 people found the following comment useful :-
Biggest surprise of Cannes, 28 May 2006

Author: mp65steady from Munich, Germany

In a rather disappointing fortnight, „Quand J'étais Chanteur" was the nicest discovery at the Cannes film festival: a simple story, beautifully told and acted. A middle-aged, overweight and worn-out ballroom singer (Gérard Depardieu, in his best role since "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1990) falls in love with a tormented woman half his age. And although both know that more than a brief affair is almost impossible, there's is a chemistry between them that has become rare in movies. The unknown director Xavier Giannoli displays a phenomenal sense for atmosphere and is clever enough not to spell everything out. You might actually feel that you can breathe more freely during this movie - and certainly afterwards. Merveilleux!

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20 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A special ambiance and a special experience from Giannoli, Depardieu, and de France, 17 February 2007

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The French press has been understandably ecstatic about this film. It brings together one of the most distinguished and prolific actors in French cinema with one of its most luminous and vibrant young female talents. But this isn't just a film about stars and authentic-feeling chemistry. It's a film about character and situation. First and foremost it's a film about dance halls and the singers who work in them. Gérard Depardieu is the aging, almost over-the-hill Alain Moreau –"Alain Moreau et son Orchestre". Cécile de France is Marion, a fragile young woman, tough and beautiful on the outside but inside rather shattered, in a new place, Clermont Ferrand, in a new job, selling real estate, with her young son she doesn't get to spend much time with.

Marion meets Alain when her new boss, Bruno (Matthieu Amalric) takes her to a dance hall where the singer is performing. Used to women who swoon over him, Alain comes on strong to Marion – but with an edge of reserve and timidity – and she resists, but spends a night with him. Then she resists again, and he pursues. Hunting for a house with her as his agent, Alain continues to see Marion and to woo her. She continues to resist – and to be charmed, to laugh with him, to find in him something she's never seen in a man before. She's outwardly brilliant and hard, but she has horrible phone conversations with her ex and bad encounters with her little boy and alone in her hotel room she dissolves into tears. He's out of style and overweight, with his little Seventies pocketbook and his leather jacket and his dyed hair with highlights; and she calls him names like "Ladies Man" and "Mr. Corny Loser." But beyond that he's a life force and for now at least he's filling a large space in Marion's world. She goes away for a while, he loses his voice for a while, their house-hunting stops and starts, Bruno makes passes at Marion, but she and Alain still continue to connect on some special emotional level, and when they part, after a stadium concert he walks out on, they're both been changed by their time together and are ready, in their different ways, in their different places, for new beginnings.

The film's most prominent element is character. It lets us get the feel of what it's like to be in Alain's and Marion's skin. But an equally important element is ambiance, the music and the place, which go together: Giannoli's warm acceptance of the provincial world of Clermont Ferrand is in harmony with the seriousness with which Alain and the film itself take the sometimes corny, sometimes subtly poetic chansons that it's Alain's life's work to deliver, to make people dance. The Singer keeps coming back to Alain's world, his faithful wife-manager Michèle (Christine Citti), to his struggle to survive and maintain his dignity, his respect for the songs. When he sings a love song it has to be real; he has to mean it; he must sing it for himself. If you open yourself to the film's bittersweet mood and it works for you, you will also open yourself to the songs and welcome them into your heart.

The Singer is a film that breathes. Its beauty is that it has no easy tragedies or easy resolutions; that things are almost as uncertain between Alain and Marion at the end as they were that first night when she sat in front of him blonde and bright, like a diamond in a red dress. Giannoli is a young director who works with independence and drive. His Les corps impatients was a distinctive and risk-taking film but this one is a leap forward beyond passion and conviction to larger conception, deeper commitment and broader communication. This time Giannoli's done something that can reach a lot of people. Depardieu does his own singing, and his performance as Alain Moreau is one of the best things he's done in a long time – at least over a decade – and a great thing it is. This was a magnificent opportunity for Cécile de France and she's met it with her best and richest performance to date. It's a tribute to both actors work in The Singer that you find it hard to separate either them from their characters. The film ends with a song, "Quand j'étais chanteur," when I was a singer. "Je m'éclatais comme une bête quand j'étais chanteur," I had a hell of a good time when I was a singer. The Singer is one of those films that isn't putting on a show for you: it's inviting you to come in and hang around a while.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
a bittersweet love story, punctuated by music, 31 October 2007

Author: didi-5 from United Kingdom

'Quand j'étais chanteur' (or 'The Singer') is a lovely, funny, bittersweet film which gives Gérard Depardieu an excellent leading role as cynical, arrogant, washed-up singer Alain Moreau, who sings love tunes for middle-aged lady dancers who adore him. He meanwhile searches for love and finds something akin to it in the person of damaged, deep, prickly Marion (Cécile De France), many years his junior and out of his league.

Depardieu, even approaching his sixties, brings a mix of bravado, charm, and vulnerability to the character of Moreau. Sometimes you can see where he is coming from, sometimes you sympathise, sometimes you laugh, sometimes you are irritated - a well rounded character, believable, and just that little bit broken from a lost chance to rebuild a marriage, the idea that he just might be a nicer guy than the ladykiller he has become.

With Mathieu Amalric as Bruno, friend, estate agent, adversary, and Christine Citti as Michèle, former wife and backing singer, muse and manager, 'The Singer' is an intimate portrait of where life can take you if you just stop and let it. It does not shy away from poignancy and the ubiquitous happy ending, but on the way it makes its creations real and their problems and preoccupations realistic.

The songs, incidentally, are sung by Depardieu and although the lyrics may be lacking in style (certainly in their translation), the delivery and ambiance proves there may well be life in the old dog yet, making it understandable why Moreau has become the obsession and fixation of lonely single, divorced, or widowed women. But under the gloss and the stagecraft is someone just as lonely, just as envious of the passing of time, and this is the ultimate strength of the film, making that obvious.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
surprisingly enjoyable, 8 October 2007

Author: (gsygsy) from london uk

After seeing the trailer I didn't expect to enjoy this movie. Lesson: don't judge a movie by its trailer.

Although it is a fairly corny affair, the setting is an unusual one, the performances and production values are high, and the script unexpectedly funny.

However, without a star of considerable magnitude the entire soufflé would fall flat. Fortunately the great Depardieu is on hand, his giant presence matched by his lightness of touch. It's curious how the old American lions - de Niro, Pacino and the others - don't seem to be able to both play their image while sending it up at the same time: they only manage one thing or the other. In this modest movie, Depardieu is both himself and something of a parody of himself. The result is two-for-the-price-of-one enjoyment.

The songs he sings - very well - are all genuine French pop songs which themselves border on self-parody, in the way that so many country-and western songs do - a seam of humour richly mined by Altman in Nashville. There's nothing so subtle here: Quand J'Etais Chanteur is so loosely woven that close scrutiny would unravel it. But for all that, it's surprisingly enjoyable.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
All about the actors, 12 July 2007

Author: Bob Taylor (bob998@sympatico.ca) from Canada

On the basis of this one film, Xavier Giannoli seems like a limited director, one who can coax a good performance from an actor--or simply stand out of the way when it's the monumental Depardieu--but who shows little sense of style or drama. I lost count of the number of scenes that go nowhere, that serve only to bring out another of Alain Moreau's foibles. Why does the singer have to share scenes with a goat, for heaven's sake? Poor Mathieu Amalric: here's one of the most interesting actors in France, and his character can only open doors and make introductions.

Gerard Depardieu is splendid, it's one of his five best career performances. He's entirely at ease, spinning his stories to the enchanted but watchful Cecile de France. To play Marion, she has had to turn down the Audrey Hepburn gamine quality; she's very effective in a few scenes.

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Two people with baggage, strangely drawn to each other., 22 October 2006

Author: jasoneden from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this film this afternoon at the London Fim Festival and loved it. You clearly got a sense of a singer in the twilight of his career observing either younger singers much better than understanding the needs of the audience than himself, or realising that his companions from years ago have done much better than he has.

I sometimes felt that we were watching two stories, one about the Singer and another about the younger woman. Each had baggage, both were drawn to each other in ways they did not expect.

go see this if you get the chance, and stay and watch the credits to find a few extras thrown in.

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When he was a singer..., 9 June 2008

Author: TrevorAclea from London, England

Xavier Giannoli's Quand J'étais Chanteur aka The Singer isn't a great film, but it is a very good character piece that's lifted to a higher level by Gerard Depardieu in a superb return to form after years of slumming it in well paid but increasingly undemanding production line efforts.

Alain Moreau (Depardieu) is an ageing singer trading on forgotten hits to get gigs on the provincial nightclub circuit - tea dances, openings, office parties, old folks homes or restaurants where the diners don't even notice when he takes a break, he's strictly smalltime and he knows it. Singing songs with lyrics like 'You know those photos of Asia/That I shot on 200 ASA' and practising his pickup technique on bored wives and girlfriends during a break in his act for a tombola, his job is to get them to drink champagne – "They don't care about the songs, so I'm often just singing for myself." That threatens to change when one-night stand Cecile De France's realtor walks out on him and he starts to pursue her, first out of wounded pride but later out of genuine need as he begins to realise what's missing from his life. Not that it's a typical romance – the only way he can get close to her long enough to work his way past her defences is to spend weeks looking at houses he won't buy.

While it sounds like the setup for either a broad comedy or Le Fabuleaux Boulangere Garcon, it's rather more unexpected. De France's character is struggling to get over the collapse of her disastrous marriage and even as affection starts to grow between them, the best that's on offer is a rebound relationship based on the fact that she can't see him a serious longterm proposition. Nor, it's revealed, is it the first time that Depardieu's singer has had such a romantic epiphany, with his ex-wife and manager (Christine Citti) recognising all the signs, resenting the possibility that he wants to give another the kind of family life he denied her. Yet it's not a bitter film, more a wistful one about relations born more of quiet desperation at what's missing rather than real love. It's no accident that he falls for her when his career is increasingly under threat from karaoke, DJs and the realisation that his voice may not hold out much longer.

De France and a largely wasted Mathieu Almaric are excellent, but it's clearly Depardieu's show. It's tempting to see similarities in Depardieu's own career, having gone from working with the best directors in Europe on great films to doing the rounds of cameos in increasingly perfunctory international co-productions, but the real joy here is seeing the star rediscovering his own talent throughout the film with a performance that ranks among his very best. Unlike his character, there's not a trace of vanity in his performance as he happily chats away with De France about highlighting his hair or his tanning regime like a schoolgirl exchanging beauty tips (at one point he even sings about feeling like a girl!), managing a perfect balancing act between the singer's mediocrity and his dignity. It's a fully rounded portrait so beautifully realised that you can even overlook the fact that (perhaps deliberately) he's not much of a singer, though he's at his best in end credits with a truly delightful rendition of the title song (When I Was a Singer) when the character has reconciled himself to his life. It's almost worth the price of admission on its own, but thanks to Depardieu there's much more going for it than that. Well worth a look.

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A singer in singer's clothes, 22 October 2007
Author: Cliff Hanley from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Depardieu has been rather untrustworthy in his choice of film roles; the occasional gems like Le Dernier Metro and Tous Les Matins Du Monde being unbalanced by strings of ordinaire throwaways, but with Alain Moreau (et son Orchestre) he has a character that really fits him in every way. Alain, as in 'Tous les Matins', is a musician who cares about his craft and feels under threat by changing fashions and by his own diminishing abilities. Supported by his faithful wife/manager (Christine Citti), he is just keeping his band scene going despite the rise of karaoke and younger, smaller, rock-based combos, when he meets Marion (Cecile de France), sparky but fragile, an estate agent. The aging and corpulent singer is used to having women swoon over him, so he gives Marion the big treatment when her boss (Matthieu Amalric) brings her to the dance hall. She resists at first, but spends the night before running off without stopping for coffee. Although Alain is not as sure of himself as he once was, he decides to pose as a house-hunter so that he can get close to Marion again - barely credible, as he already has a large rambling, crumbling house in its own grounds, with a live-in goat. She disappears for a while, as does his voice. Despite the stop-start relationship, they continue to connect somehow, and it falls into place after he decides to walk out of his chance at the Big Time in a stadium concert. There are no certainties, really, although they end up together; and the film's strength is really in recreating the tiny provincial world where Music elevates the people to a better world for just one evening at a time. Alain, in his white suit and streaked hair maintains his dignity, believes in the songs he sings for his customers, be they ever so corny (but life is corny), and Depardieu fills the skin so well. The original French title, Quand J'étais Chanteur, is better than the one we have here, with its bittersweet overtone. I'm looking forward to a CD featuring Depardieu singing Brel, including, of course, Jackie.

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5 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
The Singer Not The Song, 21 October 2006

Author: writers_reign from London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The London Film Festival is only three days old and already we've had the finest film, this one. Not that the pretentious pseuds who actually run the BFI will agree - if they did I'd be seriously frightened - even as I write they've probably got scouts out scouring the world for something from the Galapogas Islands shot from the point of view of a turtle and redolent with her inner torment as she watches her offspring being picked off by scavengers as they make for the sea but those of us who actually LIKE film as, dare I say it, Entertainment and think it is at its best exploring the Human Condition with tenderness, sensitivity, wit, etc will respond to this entry as positively as last night's packed audience i.e. with applause and cheers. It scored heavily at Cannes and on its release in France last month there was agreement amongst the critics and punters that this was Depardieu's best role in a long time and I am pleased to endorse that opinion. The problem with someone as versatile as Depardieu who can do anything is that he's frequently prevailed upon - and too often consents - to do Everything. Here he is inch perfect as a middle-aged third-rate singer - the English equivalent would be Vince Hill with charisma - making a living in clubs and discos and waging a war against karoake. It's a measure of his charm that his ex-wife, now his manager and living with a new partner, still loves him and watches over him like a mother. Short of a mid-life crisis he hits upon - both literally and figuratively - Cecile de France, half his age, a single mom and 'troubled' as they say in the soaps. As a rule Cecile de France is asked to light up the screen with her faux Audrey Hepburn smile as she did so winningly in her last outing Danielle Thompson's brilliant Fauteuils d'orchestre but here she is allowed to do 'serious' and save the smile for isolated moments which is, of course, doubly effective. At best the relationship is doomed and both parties know this deep down but the joy for the audience is how they get to that good place that we all covet. This is the kind of wonderful movie that those BFI mandarins probably used to love themselves when they were kids and thought that if they went to work for the BFI they'd be able to watch stuff like this all day long and get paid for it then, having joined, they realised that pleasure is no match for pretension. For film lovers only.

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