Yves Montand and the Drowned Woman (La Noyée)

Yves Montand and Edith Piaf in Étoile sans lumière 

(dir. Marcel Blistène, 1946) 

 

Tu t'en vas à la dérive / Sur la rivière du souvenir 

Et moi, courant sur la rive / Je te crie de revenir

 

 

I.

 

Although the singer and actor Yves Montand grew up in a poor suburb of Marseille, he was actually Italian by birth (his father - a committed communist - and his mother - a devout Catholic - decided to abandon their homeland in 1923, rather than live under Mussolini).

After working at a pasta factory, then in his sister's beauty salon, and then on the docks, the young man decided to try and build a professional career as a chanteur in the music halls of Paris where, in 1944, he had the good fortune to be spotted by Édith Piaf, who, charmed by his voice and good looks, invited him to become her protégé - and her lover. 

 

 

II. 

 

Six years older than Montand, Mme. Piaf knew a thing or two about life and how to succeed in showbiz. She it was who convinced Montand to drop his cowboy image and adopt a more romantic repertoire of songs. Critics responded enthusiastically and he was soon being hailed as a new star of the French music scene.

 

Sadly, Montand's romantic relationship with the little sparrow was relatively short-lived, Piaf ending the affair by letter:

 

Yves, we both knew it had to end one day between us and I had known for a long time that we were not made for each other. Forgive the pain I caused you. But be reassured that mine is even greater.  

 

Despite the break-up, however, Piaf continued to support Montand professionally. 

 

In 1946, for example, she helped him land his first screen role, appearing alongside her in Étoile sans lumiere [1] and, the following year, she wrote the lyrics to the amusing love song 'Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai?' in memory of their time together: click here [2]. 

  

'Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai?' is not the only song inspired by the Montand-Piaf relationship, however. There's another, equally beautiful - but much, much darker - song written by Serge Gainsbourg many years later, entitled 'La noyée'. 

 

Apparently, Gainsbourg offered the song to Montand, but the latter turned it down: I don't know why. Perhaps there are some songs that are just too painful to record ... 

 

Indeed, it might be noted that even Gainsbourg's version of 'La noyée' - which he performed live on TV in November 1972, accompanied by Jean-Claude Vannier on piano - was only released posthumously as a single in 1994 [3].    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In this same year, 1946, Montand also starred in the musical Les Portes de la nuit (dir. Marcel Carné) which, although a box office flop, provided him with the song with which he is still associated today; Jacques Prévert's 'Les feuilles mortes': click here.    

 

[2] Known in English as 'But What Do I Have?' this 1947 chanson by Yves Montand (composed by Henri Betti, with lyrics by Édith Piaf) arguably anticipates the classic punk single written by Pete Shelly of the Buzzcocks and released thirty years later, 'What Do I Get?': click here.

 

[3] To watch Serge Gainsbourg's performance of 'La noyée' on Samedi Loisirs (4 Nov. 1972), click here.

      I'm told by someone who knows this kind of thing, that the song was used in the film Romance of a Horsethief (dir. Abraham Polonsky, 1971), but was not included on the film's official soundtrack. The same person also tells me that the star of the film, Yul Brynner, would later become godfather to the daughter - Charlotte - of his co-stars Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.  

 

 

Για τη Μαρία στην ονομαστική της εορτή

Requiem pour un con (Was Jacques Prévert a Jerk?)

Jacques Prévert: Je ne suis pas un con!

 

 

I. 

 

One of the idiomatic expressions that I hate most is: It takes one to know one. 

 

Used by someone who wishes to point out that what they're accused of being is something which also characterises the accuser, it seems a particularly lame form of comeback; the sort of childish retort that only an individual lacking in wit or intelligence would say.    

 

However, I have to admit that when I first read the title of Michel Houellebecq's short piece 'Jacques Prévert is a jerk' [a] this was the first thing that came to mind, and, having now read the text, I'm still not convinced this is a fair thing to call one of France's most celebrated poets and screenwriters. 

 

 

II. 

 

Just to be clear: I'm not a devoted reader of M. Prévert, nor particularly knowledgeable about his life. But I do like some of the verses in Paroles (1946), particularly 'Déjeuner du matin' - Il a mis le café / Dans la tasse ...etc. [b] 

 

That certain intellectuals often looked down on Prévert (and his sentimentalité as they saw it) only makes me admire him a little bit more. As does the fact that he infuriated André Breton, by describing him as the high priest or pope of Surrealism after the latter expelled him from the group for not taking art seriously enough.    

 

Further, Prévert should be admired for writing against the collaborationist Vichy government during the War years, helping Jewish friends, and relaying messages for members of the Resistance, whilst never belonging to any political party himself, or feeling the need to posture like some of his contemporaries who trumpeted their own activities and commitments.    

 

 

III.

 

So, what exactly is Houllebecq's problem with Prévert? 

 

Well, in a nutshell, he seems to resent the latter's enormous success and blame him for the "repulsive poetic realism" which "continues to wreak havoc" upon French cinema. 

 

Houellebecq writes:

 

"Jacques Prévert is someone whose poems you learn at school. It turns out that he loved flowers, birds, the neighbourhoods of old Paris, etc. He felt that love blossomed in an atmosphere of freedom [...] He wore a cap and smoked Gauloises [...] Also, he was the one who wrote the screenplay for Quai des brumes, Portes de la nuit, etc. He also wrote the screenplay for Les Enfants du paradis, considered to be his masterpiece. All of these are so many good reasons for hating Jacques Prévert - especially if you read the scripts that Antonin Artaud was writing at the same time, which were never filmed."       

 

Nor does Houellebecq care for the optimism which Prévert displays in his work; "faith in the future, and a certain amount of bullshit" which is, he says, boundlessly stupid and nauseating at times. Better off, he suggests, embracing Emil Cioran's pessimism. 

 

Push comes to shove, I don't disagree with this, but that needn't prevent one from listening to Yves Montand sing 'Les Feuilles mortes'. For as even Houellebecq concedes, we all need something to relax to ...    

 

And if Prévert's lyrics are a bit sickly sweet and his pun-ridden poetry mediocre - "so much so that one sometimes feels a sort of shame when reading it" - surely that just makes him a bad writer, not necessarily un con as Houellebecq says. However, the latter is insistent on this point and so I shall give him the last word:     

"If Prévert is a bad poet, this is mainly because his vision of the world is commonplace, superficial and false. It was already false in his own time; today its inanity is so glaring that the entire work seems to be the expansion of one gigantic cliché. On the philosophical and political level, Jacques Prévert is above all a libertarian; in other words, basically an idiot."

Notes

 

[a] This text by Michel Houellebecq was first published as 'Jacques Prévert est un con' in Lettres françaises, No. 22 (July 1992). I am using the English translation by Andrew Brown that appears in Interventions 2020, (Polity Press, 2022), pp. 1-3, even though I'm not entirely happy with the translation of the French term con with the (American-sounding) word jerk. 

 

[b] The English version of this poem, 'Breakfast', can be found in Jacques Prévert, Paroles, trans. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, (City Lights Publishers, 2001). Or click here to read on hellopoetry.com 

 

 

Musical bonus number one: Serge Gainsbourg, 'La Chanson de Prévert', from the album L'Étonnant Serge Gainsbourg (1961).       One of Gainsbourg's most popular songs, it was inspired by 'Les Feuilles mortes', written by Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma, for the film Les Portes de la nuit (dir. Marcel Carné, 1946). Click here for the 2014 remastered version.

 

Musical bonus number two: Serge Gainsbourg, 'Requiem pour un con', released as a single in 1968 from the soundtrack to the film Le Pacha (dir. Georges Lautner, 1968), it caused a good deal of fuss at the time, with censors judging the lyrics obscene and scandalous. 

      There's no reason to imagine that the track was inspired by Jacques Prévert, but the title of Michel Houellebecq's critique of the latter obvioulsy makes one think of this song. Click here for the original '68 version and/or here for the 1991 remix.    

 

 

Ce billet a été écrit avec l'aide de Sophie Stas à qui je suis reconnaissant.