The Artistry of Juliette Greco

The style was there. It grew out of the muted songs of Auvergne, the distorted echo of the religious chant, the lament of the cocotte who must discover unhappiness to justify corruption. It found its apotheosis in Edith Piaf, standing stark and motionless under the feverish light of a baby spot in the Paris boîtes, as she rehearsed the love, requited and unrequited, of the demi-monde. Piaf, in the shapeless black dress of the shopgirl, her hair bushy on a head too large for a diminutive body, all the flashy and busty accoutrements of the American entertainer missing— Piaf made it sing.

But the French, they are a funny race. It is not enough to celebrate those broken hearts of Montmartre which must have moved Toulouse- Lautrec. Beyond the act, there must be philosophy. There must be the thought which compromises the emotion—and the emotion which makes valid the thought. This is what the Existentialists did to the real song of Paris—the song that went far beyond the vapid and charming music-hall quavers of a Chevalier or the purring bump-and-grind of a Lilo.

RT

About the Author

Ralph de Toledano

Featured Tags

The style was there. It grew out of the muted songs of Auvergne, the distorted echo of the religious chant, the lament of the cocotte who must discover unhappiness to justify corruption. It found its apotheosis in Edith Piaf, standing stark and motionless under the feverish light of a baby spot in the Paris boîtes, as she rehearsed the love, requited and unrequited, of the demi-monde. Piaf, in the shapeless black dress of the shopgirl, her hair bushy on a head too large for a diminutive body, all the flashy and busty accoutrements of the American entertainer missing— Piaf made it sing.

But the French, they are a funny race. It is not enough to celebrate those broken hearts of Montmartre which must have moved Toulouse- Lautrec. Beyond the act, there must be philosophy. There must be the thought which compromises the emotion—and the emotion which makes valid the thought. This is what the Existentialists did to the real song of Paris—the song that went far beyond the vapid and charming music-hall quavers of a Chevalier or the purring bump-and-grind of a Lilo.