Currently in theaters, “Christophe… definitively” recounts the singer’s return to the stage in 2002. Directed by Ange Leccia and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, two visual artists, the film reveals on stage and behind the scenes this extraordinary singer whom was Christopher.
In March 2002, after long years of absence, the singer Christophe is back. The two visual artists Ange Leccia and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster will follow him as closely as possible, in the most intimate of creation. From this meeting comes a documentary, beautiful and bizarre, exactly like the title of Christophe’s eighth album released in 1978, The bizarre beauty.
A dandy in chiaroscuro
The singer Christophe is an album and a song, Aline, which in 1965 sold a million copies. These are The puppets, La dolce vita, The blue words, hits from the 70s. A fan of racing cars, jukeboxes, a dandy look, these seventies made him a star. In the 80s, he experienced a certain crossing of the desert which would last twenty years. Christophe does not do things by halves.
Then a return in 2002 which made him a mysterious icon. Christophe has a second life as an artist, it is this period that this documentary tells. Christophe… definitely is not a filmed concert, nor is it a film biography. It is a magnificent film which pays homage to an artist beyond the lines. An artist’s film.
We follow the singer in rehearsal at home at night, because he mainly lived at night. It’s dark and his ghost wanders through his apartment. Anyone who has entered its lair will recognize the mausoleum dedicated to sound, cinema and music. We find there his picky side, researcher of meticulous sonority. Sorcerer of sound, as during rehearsals for concerts at the Olympia, where he has Dadaist exchanges with musicians and technicians. Thus this dialogue without tail or head but so poetic about the color of the teleprompter. Blue or purple? In Christophe… definitely we also perceive his doubts, his worries. It’s a magnificent portrait of an artist at work, which we followed closely, but also with a lot of distance and above all tenderness.
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A movie buff caught in the beams of the spotlight
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster explains the approach of this three-person film. No pre-established scenario, no song specialist coming knowing, “we were a bit of his confidants”, she says. And so the documentary looks like a road book of three artists. And we can trust Christophe as a true cinephile to love this experimental cinema.
The director adds: “His relationship to the cinema was very strong, he had lots of images in his head, so he showed us film extracts, photos. His room was an early home cinema, with reels of film, his projector, his screen. Christophe was an experimental artist with a lot of ideas, eruptions of thought: bringing a car on stage, arranging someone like this or like that, that wouldn’t stop.” This documentary is a tribute to the one who sang “I may be outdated The winter wind blows in April I love still silence.” A tribute to a dandy poet.
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The sheet
Gender : Documentary
Directors: Ange Leccia and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster with Christophe
Country : France
Duration : 01:24
Exit : 8 March 2023
Distributer : Elisabeth Perlié New Story
Summary: