January 2012
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| Here is Laurent Gerra with Philippe Chevallier, half of the duo Chevallier et Laspalès. Gerra is imitating Régis Laspalès. They are doing a take-off of a game show - and just to make it all more confusing - it is a game-show that has not been screened as yet. But, ok, it's funny. | This was the traditional last programme in the literary series La grande librairie where actors read selections from their favourite works. This extract is from a work by Jean Tardieu Un mot pour un autre. Instead of substituting nonsense words for real words for comic effect he substitutes other words of similar sound. Homophonic humour ? | |
| This is the celebrated film with Marlon Brando - who I find completely incomprehensible in English. The dubbing actor does a good job of imitating him - but he is still clearer than the original ! | Max Boublil is very much the enfant terrible of the French comedy scene, noted for comedy songs, with 'a message'. Our French friends call that l'humour décalé, and I think we would call it 'daring'. I do not think for one moment that our broadcasters would have allowed a group of children to be the putative audience for this song. The French have a freer attitude to these things - and I think they're right ! | |
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| Barbapapa turns out to be French - you can read about him here. I got an email from a nice person asking for him, and although I don't seem to have a channel that features this amiable shape-shifter (I don't spend a lot of time watching the kids' channels at my age) - I found him on the Internet. So here is the very start of the story - the 'birth' of Barbapa and his inital experience of human society when they put him in a zoo "Was I born for this ?" he muses dolefully. No, indeed, and neither were lions and tigers, actually... | From a super documentary on Françoise Hardy, here is a clip where she talks about her art with that sensitivity - indeed oversensitivity - which was always her hallmark | |
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| I loved the song Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux, part of which Hardy sings in the previous clip, and decided to feature it in its entirety here. What can one say ? Text by the great poet Louis Aragon, music by Brassens, and the sweet, sad voice of the young Françoise Hardy | I am always careful to explain that after spending
years learning French in adult education classes where the most
dangerous subject discussed was climate change, that I cheerfully
include material that may upset or shock. So here we have Honoré
Fragonard. Not Jean-Honoré Fragonard, who is the
painter, but his cousin, who was an anatomist, and who turned
cadavers into works of art Nuff said ? I did warn you. |
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During the Christmas holidays, Arte gave us In a lonely place, in French Le violent. An excellent film, rather different from this great actor's usual work. He plays a successful Hollywood screen writer, a brilliant personality flawed by an uncontrollable temper. Here he dines with his policeman friend and his wife, and describes how he believes a recent murder was carried out - a murder of which he is suspected |
To anyone who loves the sea and ships, the transatlantic liner Le France is something special. Although we are proud of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth II, Le France remains the most beautiful of all. Cousu main, says the voice-over, un navire de haute couture | |
| A propos de Fragonard I was talking about things that upset or shock. Well this series, about the British secret service MI5 and its fight against international terrorism, managed to shock me quite a lot. It's well made in the modern nervy manner. But the terrorist leader is presented as an educated cultivated, and very articulate man, who presents the argument for what he does in a manner that many would find compelling. Specious arguments according to me, but this clip is included in the name of freedom of speech | Here is The lady of Shanghai, the 1947 film of Orson Welles and the decorative Rita Hayworth. Very often the French dubbing studios attempt to recreate the scratchy quality of the sound-tracks of the period - and they succeed only too well. The result fascinates me. Dialogue which should be easy to transcribe - standard voices, moderate pace - becomes very difficult. Each line is a nightmare. But, you know the principal.. if it hurts, it's good for you. This one hurts. | |
| Here is Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English, Secret Service agent extraordinaire. I'm a bit suspicious of the popularity of Rowan Atkinson in France. Is it simply because he is very funny, or because he enshrines the typical eccentric Englishman in the minds of our friends ? But it doesn't matter. That the French watch Johnny English is a credit to the English sense of humour | Every so often I switch the telly on early to see what they are up to in the breakfast show Télématin. The little chroniques culturelles are always interesting. Here is one on the French shoemaker Weston. The music at the beginning is Shakira singing the beautiful Je l'aime à mourir of Francis Cabrel. Here is the YouTube address. And you'll find the soundtrack on the listentofrench site here | |
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What really blew me away in the previous Télématin
piece was of course the song by the lovely Shakira. It's one of my
favourites. So here it is - and you even have the words in Spanish.
Enjoy ! |
Why does the whole world watch American High School series ? Each episode seems about to turn into a horror movie.. But they are well made, and because the French dubbing actors try to catch the rhythm of American adolescent speech, they pose quite a challenge as loistening exercises | |
| I have a weakness for American detective stories dubbed into French. Here the dubbing studio has tried to translate the American '30s slang into French argot. And the dubbing actors reproduce the American drawl in French ! | ||
