I was recently enticed into a cinema for the first time in a while, tolerant and forgiving reader, to see a French film depicting the life of the late Edith Piaf.
Coo, if I might make so bold, what a life.
I had rather expected a happy-go-lucky childhood in the French countryside, a gradual rise to fame during the pre war years, some time as the French equivalent to Vera Lynn or Betty Grable followed by a gentle decline surrounded by adoring fans. You know the sort of thing. A bit like Sir Donald Bradman or Janice Joplin (probably).
But no. Far from an idyllic French childhood spent crouched in the cheese shed gnawing a clove of garlic, it seems that she was plunged pretty much straight into the harsh realities of life and pre-war French plumbing.
Without wishing to be accused of what my nephew could call “soiling” the plot of the film, I should say that with the tension of wondering whether she would emerge from the mire before she had suffered long term damage combined with the uneasy feeling that Gerard Depardieu must not be far away, I could hardly concentrate on my choc-top.
And a choc-top is an item that demands your concentration. My pants got all chocolate and ice-cream on them.
Anyway, I consoled myself with the reflection that these so called “biopics” are not always as icily accurate as they might be. For example, “The Jolson Story” was pretty much complete bunkum. I think Jolson may still have been around when it was made so they did not want to offend the megalomaniacal psychopath, but the film did not contain a single shred of truth.
Similarly the various depictions of the lives of Eddie Cantor, Red Nicholls, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman all lacked any depiction of the gritty drudgery that suggests real life.
In this case, perhaps Piaf’s life was not as bad as depicted in the film. For example, it was strangely silent about her time in Paris during the Second World War. Presumably she led a determined resistance to the German occupation, which must have been fun and rewarding. I am sure that all those stories about collaboration were made up at the time by the British to ensure her safety.
But the really odd thing about the film was that I left the cinema with a yearning for instant coffee, a beverage I generally avoid if possible. “Why,” I wondered, “this odd desire seemingly from nowhere and after all this time?”
It took much further thought before the answer came to me.
One of the great hits of Piaf’s later career was “No Regrets”. It was not much emphasised in the film but it was pretty big and you probably know it. She sings about how tough things had been for her and what a lot she had been through and how crummy her life had been and what a poor hand she had been dealt but how she’s not complaining.
You may think that you don’t know it, but I’ll wager that you do. It was used in an ad for instant coffee some years ago. You remember the one, it had all Parisian street scenes and the tune was played on an accordion (or what my anglophile uncle was given to calling a “discordion” but there I digress).
There were two policemen wandering across one of those distinctive bridges, a mother and daughter stopping at a café for a long loaf of bread, some blokes sweeping the road with witches brooms. Stuff like that. It was all very atmospheric and I think was linked to a contest along the lines of “if you buy sufficient quantities of our vile coffee dust we might send you on a trip to the cafés of France to show you just how wrong you were in so doing” or something like that.
Just thinking about that ad took me right back and I am not ashamed to say that a manly tear rolled down my ruddy cheek. I say “ruddy” as in “red” not as some sort of mild swearword.
Then, perhaps as a combination of the smell of coffee from the snack bar, the wave of nostalgia and the adoring gaze of my beautiful companion, I remembered another campaign for the same company.
Perhaps you do too, sentimental and compassionate reader. Allow me to try to paint an word picture.
I can’t really remember how it starts, but am pretty sure there were some pan pipes playing a lilting and uplifting bar or two. A rural scene. Possibly a moving van or something. Cut to a sweet little cottage. An attractive woman, early thirties. A girl’s voice over saying something about how, as a result of the failure of her parents’ marriage (or possibly of her father’s death or something) she and her mother were seeking a change of scene in the country.
I don’t really remember how it went from there save that there was the inevitable appearance of a tall dark and handsome neighbour or local vet or something and that over a series of these ads, each culminating in a cup of instant coffee, a relationship warmer than that of mere neighbours ( or vet and client) grew.
I am sure that you, the readerboat, can provide further detail because it was a reasonably popular series. It seems that the same storyline had been filmed in many different countries. Presumably in, for example, the South American version it was a neighbouring Gaucho with big chaps on his jeans and in New Guinea it might have been a local headhunter with a friendly twinkle in the eye of his giant mud head.
Anyway, the relationship developed slowly over a series of ponderous ads. I remember reading that the English version culminated in a wedding or something which was one of the most watched television events of its day.
All I can say is that the English version must have been made with a bit more punch than the Australian one. I can’t even remember if they bothered finishing ours off. If they did, I could not tell you what happened. Presumably there was a country wedding complete with yodeling and rope tricks but it passed me by entirely.
Perhaps coincidently, I date my abandonment of instant coffee from about that time. I would not say that I have not had a cup since but generally the only time I do is when I awake in an hotel room with a cracking hangover and no proper coffee available. If you dump two or three sachets of the dust into a cup you can nearly get a whisper of what a coffee is like. If you close your eyes and imagine. It will sustain you until you can get out of your room, at least.
What I would like to know is, does anyone remember the series? How it ended? Or was it just a beautiful dream?
