La trailer of Mr. Aznavour, film by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade (in theaters October 23), has something to surprise with its sepia realism and its unbridled rhythm. From the first images, we are seized by the actor Tahar Rahim (double César winner for A prophet by Jacques Audiard) in the shoes of the French song star, who died on 1is October 2018, at the age of 94.
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With little make-up and invisible mini-prosthetics, he doesn’t need to look like him to embody the young Charles Aznavourian, born in Paris to Armenian refugee parents and trained at the École des enfants du spectacle. From the outset, he imposes his presence by adopting his veiled voice, his choppy phrasing and that very particular hand gesture which, on stage, is a great art. It is he himself who takes up the great classics that punctuate the film.
Far from being a conventional biopic, Mr. Aznavour traces the highlights of his long and abundant career through some emblematic songs, such as « The Two Guitars”, “I Already Saw Myself”, “La Bohème”, “As They Say”.READ ALSO André Manoukian: “Charles Aznavour leaves us the legacy of a maestro!”
Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade (the successful duo of Patients et School life) take the opportunity to paint the portrait of an exceptional artist who, through hard work, perseverance and talent, became a big name in French song and, towards the end of his life, the symbol of French culture throughout the world.
A decisive meeting with Edith Piaf
Small, poor, clumsy, he apparently has nothing to succeed except an extraordinary will to become the one he already saw himself at the top of the bill. A fabulous destiny combined with an incredible thirst for recognition and glory. We follow the apprentice singer from his beginnings in 1941, at the age of 17, when he meets the pianist and composer Pierre Roche (excellent Bastien Bouillon) who directs the Club de la chanson and with whom he will form a duo full of swing (“Le Feutre taupé”).
In occupied Paris, Charles’ parents were close to the resistance group of the Armenian Missak Manouchian and his companions shot by the Germans on February 21, 1944. At the Liberation, the young Aznavour had a decisive encounter with Édith Piaf, played with disarming naturalness and a lot of cheek by Marie-Julie Baup. The “Môme” would take under her wing the man she nicknamed “the stupid genius”, advise him to have a rhinoplasty and convince him to join her in the United States with his accomplice Pierre Roche. On Broadway, then in Montreal, the two Frenchies got noticed before separating.
We know what happened next in the 1960s, which were a prodigious decade for Aznavour, punctuated by unstoppable hits: “Tu t’laisses aller” (1960), “Il faut savoir” (1961), “Les Comédiens” (1962), “La Mamma”, “Et toujours” (1963), “Hier encore” (1964), “Que c’est triste Venise” (1964), “For Me formidable” (1964), “La Bohème” (1965), “Emmenez-moi” (1967).
There is in Mr. Aznavour some beautiful sequences, notably when he offers the young Johnny Hallyday (Victor Meutelet) a song that will bring him luck, “Retiens la nuit”. Or when he sings “Mes 20 ans”, a time when he fought with all his might against the critics who mocked “his terrible voice”. A voice that Tahar Rahim worked on for months to live up to his character.
Mr. Aznavour, in theaters October 23, 2024
