Christmas Songs

I know it's a few days late, but I've been really quite ill over the past few days. It's a relief to be back though. 


I thought I'd do a post a few posts about Christmas because after talking to the current French assistant at school, it seems that the traditions in France are quite different to the traditions I'm used to in England. 


However, to start, I've decided to write a little bit about French Christmas songs and carols, after my friend Hannah kindly sent me a link to one earlier this month (we share an interest in both Christmas songs and French songs). 

Above is the one she sent to me, although she also told me that Édith Piaf did a version: 

After doing a bit of research, I found a few other songs that are apparently quite popular in France. 

I also found plenty of Christmas songs that are very popular in England that have been given French lyrics. My favourites are probably...


L'enfant au tambour (Little Drummer Boy)

and Vive le vent (Jingle Bells)

Hope you've all had a nice Christmas, I'll be posting again in the next few days.


Caitlin

Film Review #10- Lourdes

This film I ended up watching completely by accident. My parents are members of Love Film, the DVD rental website, and my mum ordered this one because it had won several awards. After she read me the synopsis, I admit that I wasn't too enthusiastic about watching this one, but the other day I was in the lounge and my mum decided to put it on, so we watched it together. 

For those of you who don't know, Lourdes is a small town in the French Pyrenees, and is the largest pilgrimage site in France. This is because it is believed that in 1858, eighteen apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes (supposedly the Virgin Mary) appeared to a local girl, Bernadette Soubirous. 

The film is about Christine, a young woman who is paralysed and goes on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with a group of people hoping to be cured of their various illnesses. 

I'm going to be completely honest and say straight away that I didn't enjoy this film very much. I'm glad I watched it but I wouldn't again- not a lot happened and personally I prefer films with more of a story line. The ending was very ambiguous as well, which annoyed me. 

In my opinion, the main thing that the film lacked was a strong main character. For me, Christine was a bit too quiet and didn't seem to be particularly affected by anything that was happening. I think that this was what gave the film it's slow pace and made it (in my opinion anyway) a little boring. 

I didn't dislike everything about Lourdes, though. The thing I most enjoyed about it was that it was quite funny in places, in a very subtle way. I also found it interesting that, although some of the characters were quite amusing, the film itself dealt with quite a serious topic, and the overall feel of it remained fairly serious too. 

So overall, as you may have guessed, I'm giving this film

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Caitlin

P.S. I can't find a trailer in any language other than German and Italian!

Mika- French Songs?

Sorry everyone, manic few weeks; just finished my last ever performance with my youth theatre... we did Beauty and the Beast, and I was Mrs Potts the teapot. Anyway, it's been a bit emotional, but I thought I'd do another post as I haven't done one in ages.


So I was casually browsing the Internet the other day when I decided to have a look at France's Top 40, seeing as I haven't done a music post in a while. Their number one at the moment is "Elle Me Dit" by Mika. This confused me a lot, as I was convinced that Mika was English, and you don't normally get English or American artists releasing songs in French or any other language, apart from maybe Spanish. After doing a bit of research, I found out that Mika was actually born in Lebanon, with a Lebanese mother and an American father. They moved to Paris when he was one, and then to London when he was nine. He is now working on his latest album, The Origin of Love, which will be out in 2012. He has said that the album will include several more tracks in French. How exciting! When more of these songs come out, expect to find them on here! 


Here's the song:

I love this. It seems to be very popular in France and Belgium, but it doesn't seem to be as popular in the UK. I did wonder when I first heard it whether or not it would appeal to an English-speaking audience, who are so used to hearing songs in their own language. It would be interesting to hear an opinion from someone who doesn't know any French. 


Tell me what you think! Do you like the song? Are you excited for more songs in French from Mika?


Laters
Caitlin

Liberty Enlightening the World

As you may know, I recently got back from a visit to New York (and am consequently extremely tired). Whilst there, I visited the Statue of Liberty, or "Liberty Enlightening the World" ("La Liberté éclairant le monde"), which was a gift given to the USA from France in 1886. I didn't know this until a few weeks before going to NYC but Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (most famous for designing the Eiffel Tower in around 1889) actually also designed the framework of the Statue of Liberty. 

So, in case you didn't already know, this photo (minus the random woman in the corner) is the Statue of Liberty. I don't know why you wouldn't know what it looks like- it's one of the most famous icons in the world- not to mention the most famous statue. 


Nowadays, we mostly associate the Statue of Liberty with immigration; it was the first thing that immigrants would see as they were coming into Manhattan by boat. When we visited Liberty Island, I got an audiotour, which included accounts of people who had actually immigrated to the USA in the 20th century. One man was even reduced to tears by the memory of his first sighting of the statue, as it symbolised the start of his and his family's new life in America. 


However, when France gave the statue to the USA, it was actually to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th July 1776 (a date that is written on the tablet that Liberty is holding). As I learnt by listening to the audiotour, the statue was thought of by the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi during the repressive and unpopular regime of Napoleon III. One of the reasons for giving the statue to America was to show that the French believed in the same values that the Americans believed in. Of course, it was also a symbol of the friendship between the two countries. 


Bartholdi's idea for the statue was inspired by something that Édouard René de Laboulaye (if you've seen National Treasure 2 this name may sound familiar), a law professor and politician. He said: 

"If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations."

The figure for the statue was based on Liberty, a representation of Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. Liberty was a figure which was important to both the USA and France- she could be found on American coins at the time, and is also seen in the painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (although Bartholdi wanted his Liberty to be fully clothed). 


The statue is made of very thin copper- 2.4mm thick, which is very surprising, and I certainly didn't know this before I visited it. The interior of the statue was originally going to be made of brick, and was designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a former teacher of Bartholdi, however, he died before most of the statue and any of the interior brickwork had been made. This is how Eiffel became involved in the statue. He designed a metal framework similar to the one he later used for his tower. In order to fit the copper sheets to this frame, all the pieces had to be exactly the right shape and size, so they had to make probably thousands of measurements. Once constructed, the the statue was taken down, transported to America, where it reassembled. 


There was a ceremony in which the statue was unveiled on the 28th October 1886. The celebration began with a huge parade which made its way down from Madison Square to Battery Park, at which point a nautical parade began. Despite the huge popularity of this ceremony, however, not everyone supported it. Women were banned from watching the unveiling from boats, which many were upset about as the statue was supposed to be supporting liberty and free will. Many suffragettes, who protested by sailing as close to the island as they could anyway. 


Hope you enjoyed this post. To finish with, here is a picture of me as the Statue of Liberty:

Big love, 

Caitlin

Occitan

I've already mentioned several times on here about this episode of Fry's Planet Word. If you haven't already seen it, the above video is a clip from it in which he talks about Occitan, an endangered language that is spoken in parts of southern France (as well as in Italy and Spain). The clip also contains and interesting bit about the French Academy, which I think I've also mentioned before. 


Anyway, this clip prompted me to do a bit of research on Occitan, and what I found really interested me. The first time I listened to the farmer speak the language in the clip, I thought it sounded very similar to French. However, the second time, I could pick out similarities to Spanish (having learnt Spanish at GCSE level). When you look at it written, though, it's so obvious that it is a different language, for example:

Totei lei personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e li cau (/fau) agir entre elei amb un esperit de frairesa.

This is an extract of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in one of Occitan's dialects, Provençal. (I found it on Wikipedia, if you're interested- click here). The article also gave the same extract in French: 

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.

Spanish:

Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.

and Italian:

Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed uguali in dignità e in diritti. Sono dotati di ragione e di coscienza e devono comportarsi fraternamente l'uno con l'altro. 

This is a street sign in Toulouse,
the one below is in Occitan. 

The one in Provençal is completely different to the others, isn't it? I found this really interesting- before I started researching it, I just assumed that Occitan would be really similar to French. I didn't even realise it had so many dialects (the main six being Provençal, Gascon, Languedoc, Limousin, Alpine and Auvergne).


As I mentioned earlier, Occitan is an endangered language- 5-6 million people are able to speak it, although only about 1.5 million speak the language daily. Of course, all of these people can also speak French and apparently, tend to speak it rather than Occitan around foreigners. The majority of speakers are elderly, which is also a problem, as it is often not passed on to the younger generations. 


The episode of Fry's Planet Word that the clip is from talks about language as an identity, and I think it's clear from watching it that the speakers of Occitan would certainly lose part of their identity without the language. As the farmer said, it's an important part of the culture of the area he is from- it makes him belong more to it, so it should continue to survive. 


So that's just a little bit about Occitan. Hope you found it interesting!


Caitlin


P.S. I won't be posting for another week! I'm going to New York, New York!! ^_^ 

Film review #9- Molière

This film is an interesting one. As you may know, Molière (real name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) was a playwright born in 1622, who is famous for writing comedies. The film, directed by Laurent Tirard, is about Molière before he became famous. He is thrown into prison at the beginning of the film for being unable to repay his debt and is released by M. Jourdain, who agrees to pay his debt if he helps him to perfect a play he has written for a beautiful Marquise.  Actually, the film is mostly fictional, although some parts are similar to some of the plays written by Molière, such as Tartuffe (which I have now finished, by the way!), and Le Misanthrope and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. 


What I found most interesting about this film was these similarities- I have watched this film twice now, once before reading Tartuffe and once after- and actually my enjoyment of the film was greatly increased by reading the play (I kinda felt as if I was in on a private joke). One of the scenes is incredibly similar to Tartuffe, in fact, in which Jourdain's wife, Elmire, persuades her husband to hide under a table so she can prove to him that he is an imposter. 


I'd say that this film is a romantic comedy, but not a "Mean Girls" kind of romantic comedy- it's more sophisticated, while still being incredibly funny and very romantic as well. Of course, it's also a historical film (although can you call it historical when it's not actually true?), so I guess that makes it a historical romantic comedy. Genre has always confused me, and this film certainly does not have just one genre. 


As I just said, this film is hilarious. Jourdain, played by Fabrice Luchini, is probably one of the funniest characters; he is naive and a pushover, his attempts to impress the Marquise are so over the top, and he always manages to say the wrong thing to her. One scene I found particularly funny was when he wants to write her a note, and wants to say "Fair Marquise, your lovely eyes make me die of love", using those exact words, but in a different order. Molière makes several suggestions- "Of love, fair Marquise, your lovely eyes make me die", etc, but in the end, they decide that the original is best. Another scene, possibly my favourite, is the first 1 minute 40 seconds of this clip:

If you found this funny, then watch the rest of the film- it's good fun, and I would definitely recommend it!


I've decided to start adding to trailers to my reviews, so here's the one for this film: 

Overall, just to be boring, it's another
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆


Caitlin

French Onion Soup

Note: Before I start, let me make it clear that I didn't make this up- it's from a cook book called "Great Tastes French" that I have. I just thought I'd put it on here because I made it for my birthday party, and it was really popular. I'm not sure how authentic it is, though- it tastes very different to the French onion soup that I've had in the past.


(Serves 6)


Ingredients
50g butter
750g onions, finely sliced (that's a LOT of onions, I put on some skiing goggles while chopping so my eyes didn't water too much. It was rather amusing.)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
45g plain flour
2 litres beef or chicken stock 
250ml white whine
1 bay leaf
2 thyme sprigs 
12 slices stale baguette (I didn't use stale and it was fine)
100g gruyère cheese, finely grated


1. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan (I used a Le Creuset pot) and add onion. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes (until onion is a deep golden brown and begins to caramelise). 


2. Add garlic and flour and stir for 2 minutes. Gradually blend in the stock and the wine, stirring continuously, and bring to the boil. Add the bay leaf and thyme and season. Cover the pan and simmer for 25 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and thyme and preheat the grill. 


3. Toast the baguette slices and divide them between six soup bowls. Pour the soup in over the  bread and sprinkle some cheese on, then put the bowls under the grill until the cheese melts, then serve immediately. 


As I had to do this for 12 people, and didn't really have enough time and space to put 12 soup bowls under the grill, I toasted the bread, put some cheese on top of it and put that under the grill, then put the cheesy bread in the bowls and added the soup. 


This recipe is GORGEOUS. Seriously. Try it. I've had quite a few people asking for the recipe, and it was definitely the most successful of the night. 

This is clearly not my soup, but I couldn't find a picture of the soup I made.

Caitlin

French Friday (French Saturday) #4

Ok, sorry about yesterday, but I felt so horrible. I feel pretty bad as well today so I'm just writing this in bed. 


This week at the film course, the topic was "Sex and Romance", and, I must admit, I was a little nervous about going with my mum. We watched a clip of "Lady Chatterley", which particularly interested me as I have read "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence, on which the film is based. I thought that the use of sound in the clip we watched was particularly interesting as there wasn't any music, just the sound of birds. We also watched a bit of "Choses Secrètes", directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau, who was actually fined and given a one-year suspended prison sentence for sexually harassing two actresses who auditioned for the film. In 2006, he made a film based on this, called "Les anges exterminateurs". We watched other clips from "5x2", and "2 Days in Paris", but I thought the other two were the most interesting. At the course, we were also given an article about Paris's first X-rated film festival. It was very interesting, and talked about how the films shown weren't just "porn", as they changed the way people are portrayed in pornography, broke away from the clichés of it, and almost half of the films were made by and for women. 


Next week, we'll be watching the new film by Céline Sciamma, "Tomboy". It's her second film, her first being "Water Lilies" (we watched a little of this on Monday). From what I've read, it's about a young girl who moves into a flat with her family, and is mistaken for a boy. I'm really looking forward to it- it's not really like anything I've seen before so it should be interesting. 


Other than that...


I found out that we'll be studying Molière's "Le Tartuffe" along with Camus's "L'Étranger"! I'm really looking forward to this, and I'm hoping to finish reading the play this week so that I can write a review. So far, I'm enjoying it, and I understand some of the jokes in the film "Molière" than I did the first time I watched it (I'm planning on doing that review today, by the way).


Also, I've been researching French dialects a little over the past few days after watching an episode of "Fry's Planet Word" (which I think I mentioned in French Friday #2), in which Stephen Fry described how many French dialects are gradually being lost. He also talked about "L'Académie française" (The French Academy), which tries to stop words like "le hamburger" (English and American words that the French have adopted) from being used by the public. So, I'm thinking of writing about that at some point this week, watch this space!


That's all for now!
Caitlin

French Friday #4 coming up!

Hi everyone.


I feel ill this week, so French Friday will be posted tomorrow (French Saturday heehee). Mum's telling me to go and get some sleep, so I had better listen to her! 


See you tomorrow :) 


Caitlin

Congratulations!

Just a short post to say congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni! They now have a baby daughter called Dahlia (well, according to Twitter, so I've heard). The President wasn't actually present at the birth, though, as he was in Germany, attending talks on the eurozone crisis. Apparently the girl is the first child to be born to a serving French president, which I thought was quite interesting. From what I've read, no photos are going to be released, and it's all going to remain quite private. 

Caitlin


P.S. Post on French dialects coming up over the weekend :) 

French Friday #3

UPDATE 21/10/11:

The French Friday #3 video is temporarily unavailable. Dunno what's happened, I'll try and sort this out but if I can't I'll upload a transcript :) 

Random French Phrase of the Week: Le chocolat a une moustache (the chocolate has a moustache).

Yes it makes no sense, but if it did, what would be the fun in that?

Caitlin

Film Review #8- La Vie en Rose

(I normally call it La Mome, but I can't remember how to get the 'hat' on the 'o')

Just a word of warning before I begin.
I love Edith Piaf.
I love her.
I love her songs.
I love this film.
So I may go a bit crazy at some point.

For those of you who don't know, La Vie en Rose is a "biopic" (I believe that's what they're called) about the life of Edith Piaf. It was made in 2007 and was directed by Olivier Dahan, starring Marion Cotillard as Edith.

I suppose the most interesting thing about this film is that it's not in chronological order, so it doesn't "plod" along. In fact, the first scene is set (I think) in 1959, which was towards the end of her life. For me, this is important because you can connect the older woman to the young child (and, believe me, she changes a lot). The contrast between the young and old Edith, in fact, is so great that it makes the film even more moving. I found the last part of the film particularly sad (both me and mum were blubbing along to the music; even my dad looked a bit upset), when the singer is dying and we are shown a clip of her younger self in the middle of a field, if I remember correctly. Writing this now, it doesn't sound, even to me, particularly upsetting, but it really is when you watch it. 

Another thing I found interesting was Dahan's portrayal of Edith. I've heard (although I'm not sure if this is true or not) that he was not particularly a fan of the singer, and he certainly does not portray her as someone you'd want to be friends with. I think the audience is meant to feel sympathy for the younger Edith, but otherwise, she is not the most amiable of characters. In one scene, for example, she is in a restaurant with some friends, and demands that she is given a gift, either a diamond ring or free champagne. She's also often shown taking drugs, and drinking alcohol regularly. I like that about this film, though. It makes it more real, and if Dahan had wanted to portray her in a positive light, it would be too clichéd in my opinion
 

As I may have mentioned before, we discussed this film at my Monday film course (which is tonight, woopee!). I think the main issue that people had with it was that it completely missed out the war period. I'd never noticed this before, and now that I have, it's really annoying! This would, I think, be my only criticism of an otherwise amazing film. Even though Edith herself wouldn't have been very involved in the Second World War, it was still, obviously, a big part of life then, so I don't understand why Dahan hasn't included it.

Despite that, however, I still think that this film deserves
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Caitlin

French Friday #2

French Friday number 2. It's not in a video this week because I have no energy and if I tried to talk, I wouldn't make any sense.

So, what have I been up to this week?

Obviously, there was the film course on Monday. This week we talked about historical films; we watched Molière, Joyeux Noël and Laissez-Passer, all very good (the bits we watched anyway!). I've see Molière before, but not the other two. Watching the clip made me want to watch the entire film again, although I have two reviews to write up already so I might not watch it just yet. Joyeux Noël was also good; it looked like a very uplifting film, but I think I'll save that one for Christmas, and Laissez-Passer was interesting as well.

Last weekend, I downloaded the Le Monde app onto my phone. It's so useful because it doesn't use the Internet so if I have nothing to do at lunchtime at school, I can just read an article or two. And it sends me notifications when there's a new article, which is great. So far I've read about Greece, Steve Jobs (R.I.P. :( ) and a bit about the presidential elections in France. I've finally got my laptop sorted out too, and because I had to wipe everything off the computer, I decided to make my new home page Le Monde.fr.

I watched La Vie en Rose again last Saturday. I won't write too much about it right now, as I'm just writing a review right now, which should be up this weekend. It's one of my favourite films, so expect it to be hyper (if you can describe a film review as hyper).

I also just watched Priceless (or Hors de Prix in French). That review will hopefully be up this weekend as well, but I'm not 100% sure, depends how long my maths homework takes me on Sunday!

The only other thing I can think of is Fry's Planet Word. It's a TV program, I think it's on BBC1 at 8pm on Sunday, and it's about language. It's not really to do with French culture, or French, but it's really good, and really interesting.

That's all this week, I'll try and have those two reviews up asap! :)

(this post has been so picture-less, so I'm finishing with a happy picture)

Have a happy weekend :)

Caitlin