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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 5:57:38 GMT -7
"I'd rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes."
~ Jane Birkin
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Post by Jaga on Jul 22, 2023 9:20:21 GMT -7
Pieter, she was an interesting woman. It is hard to believe that although French was not her original language she did so good singing with Serge Gainsbourg
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 11:59:31 GMT -7
Jaga,
I love French cinema with English or Dutch subtitles and the Briritish actresses Charlotte Rampling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jane Birkin played excellent roles in these movies. They were and are top actresses. And Jane Birking could sing as well.
With one of the big stars of French cinema Alain Delon
Charlotte Gainsbourg with her mother Jane Birkin in Februari 2023
Jane Birkin with her daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon in a French tv show
Francophone people like my parents always were fond of and loved French Chansoniers (singers), actresses, actors, movie directors, Fashion, style, the French language, French literature, French Poetry, the French composers Camille Saint-Saëns, Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Georges Bizet, Francis Poulenc, and of course I knew that Frédéric Chopin was half French. Among the influences on Chopin's style of composition was the atmosphere of the Paris salons, of which he was a frequent guest. Chopin lived in Paris from 1830 until his death in 1849. He was one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. For my parents the French had style, class and elegance. Everything the Dutch do not have in the eyes of Francophone Dutch people.
In a strange way the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian people have the same, they are all latin, Romanesque and European peoples. But different. In sense of humor Italians are like in a Fellini movie, a lot of theater, drama and dynamics, fast speakers. And the Spanish have their temper, pepper, Arabic or Berber blood mixed with Latin blood. French is different and because in many Euroepan countries it was the language of the nobility, Diplomatic class (Corps Diplomatique), literature, culture, poetry and philosophy it was associated with civilization, class, style, sophistication, being educated and etc. Many non-French European youth are smart enough but not interested enough to learn good French, since they are more Anglophile, Americanophile (Yankophile) today, influence of their own specific European languags, regional languagues and dialects (nations and regions). But Pan-European influences and American, British and Australian influences are certainly there on the continent. A lot of Europeans speak a bad sort of Coal English, also called Euro-English. So a lot of Continental and British influences today and mixing. In a linguistic sense that is less pure, but that is the way it is. The Yiddish and Ladino language of the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim were born this way as well.
In that Americanization of Europe with that Euro-English there is maybe more French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese influence than I might imagine folks. We North-Westerners love the warmer Southern cultures and languages and our own 'Southern Belles'. It is incredible how many friends of mine had Latin American, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese girlfriends, partners or lovers. There is something in the warm, elegant, stylish, charming, fluent, more easy going, dymamic, latin-Romanesque European cultures that attracts us Northerners. They say opposite attracts. 'We' are blond, blue eyed, tall and long and the French, Italians, Spanish and Portuguese are smaller, darker (Brunette and black hair, black eyes and white skin) and more temperamental. We North West Europeans in a Romantic, sensual, emotional, desire, and longing way see that as real life, living, energy, dynamic and etc. In contrast we see our self as Nordic, over organised, lack of risk taking, schedueled, boring and dull. I am exaggerating here, but try to explain the mutual attraction. For instance in the rather nude sensual French Moulin Rouge and Folies Bergère in Paris they prefered tall, long legged Scandinavian, North German and Dutch girls or exotic girls/women like Josephine Baker.
Jane Birkin like Chopin, Charles Aznavour (Armenian), Yves Montand (born as the Italian Ivo Livi in Florence Italy) and Josephine Baker (American) was part of the French and loved by the French, but not French of origin and she kept her Britishness all here life. In the way her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg speaks perfect English, you see she had a British mother. Anf they had a good but turbulent relationship. And that is normal in artistic, musical, creative families.
That time that Paris was the capital of the world, and that the French language, Fashion and culture was dominant in the European Upper classes, and amongst intellectuals (Intelligentsia), University students, Diplomats, Industrialists, rich business families, Bankers, Billionaires, and even a certain element of the American East-Coast elite (Upper West Side and Upper East Side Manhattan New York, New England and etc.) was over. After the Second World War New York took over the role as the Art & Culture capital of the world (being a very European and North-American city in the same time), and Paris gpt competition from London, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Rome. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, the United West-Berlin and East-Berlin became sort of the Art & Culture capital of Europe. Paris is stil a cultural center, but anymore the center of the world, and French does not has the dominant position she had as the language of the European elites, diplomats, nobility, Royal houses and the Old Rich Business families (the patriciate).
But in the end I want to make a counter statement to my previous words, but the Francophone world is still large, and let's do a counting. France, Wallonia (the French speaking part of Belgium), the French part of Switzerland, Quebec in Canada, and many French speaking former colonies.
Wikipedia writes: French (français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛz]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.
Encyclopedia Britannica writes: At the beginning of the 21st century, French was an official language of more than 25 countries. In France and Corsica about 60 million individuals use it as their first language, in Canada more than 7.3 million, in Belgium more than 3.9 million, in Switzerland (cantons of Neuchâtel, Vaud, Genève, Valais, Fribourg) more than 1.8 million, in Monaco some 80,000, in Italy some 100,000, and in the United States (especially Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) some 1.3 million. Furthermore, more than 49 million Africans—in such countries as Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, and Tunisia—use French as a first or second language, and millions of inhabitants of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia use it as their principal international language. Many creole French speakers too use standard French in formal situations. In total about 270 million people in the world speak French as their First or second language.
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 12:35:15 GMT -7
Jane Birkin'daughtersLou DoillonCharlotte GainsbourgMother & Daugher song Jane & CharlotteJane Birkin's oldest daughterKate Barry (photographer)Kate BarryKate Barry (8 April 1967 – 11 December 2013) was a British fashion photographer, who worked for Vogue and The Sunday Times Magazine.Life Barry was the daughter of Anglo-French actress and singer Jane Birkin and the composer John Barry, whose birth surname was Prendergast. Her maternal grandmother was the actress Judy Campbell and her uncle was the director Andrew Birkin. She moved from England to France as a child, and was raised by her mother and her mother's partner Serge Gainsbourg. She was estranged from her birth father until after her mother and Gainsbourg split up in 1980.
Barry had two half-sisters on her mother's side, French actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg and actress and singer Lou Doillon. She had two half-sisters on her father's side, Suzy and Sian and a half-brother, Jon-Patrick. In 1987, she gave birth to her only child, a son named Roman de Kermadec, with her partner, Pascal Huon de Kermadec.Kate Barry with her younger sister Charlotte GainsbourgCareerKate BarryBarry was known for her intimate photographs of famous people. She worked frequently with her mother and sisters, and was also responsible for the album cover of Carla Bruni’s debut album Quelqu'un m'a dit.Carla Bruni, photo © Kate Barry / ELLE France The exhibit highlights a series of sensitive and intimate portraits by Kate. Starting with her muses, who she immortalizes like no one else: her sister Charlotte, in bed with a cigarette between her lips, or photos of Lou Doillon and Jane Birkin.Carla Bruni’s debut album Quelqu'un m'a ditIn 2012, Barry released a book Dinard : Essai d'autobiographie immobilière in collaboration with journalist Jean Rolin.Kate Barry's photo of French actress Audrey TattouKate Barry's photo of French actress Cathereine DeneuveDeathBarry suffered from an addiction to drugs and alcohol over many years, a problem which began when she was a teenager. In the early 1990s she founded the charity Aide et Prévention des Toxicodépendances par l’Entraide (APTE) to help drug addicts recover via therapy, which successfully kept her clean for years.On 11 December 2013, Barry died as a result of a fall from her fourth floor apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, in what was assumed to be a suicide. Her half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg later disputed the reports of suicide, saying "I want to believe it's an accident" but admitting that it was impossible to know whether Barry's death was accidental or a deliberate act. Barry was buried in Paris.A lot of French celebrities were at the funeral of Kate Barry, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Carla Bruni and others.
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 13:04:46 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 13:08:48 GMT -7
When I listen to this interview with Charlotte Gainsbourg I am sorry that I didn't learned proper french, because I lacked to the disciplin to learn it. In this interview she talks about the death of her sister and her father.
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2023 13:22:45 GMT -7
Kate Berry photographing her mother and sister
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