Fresh Air - Remembering British Singer Marianne Faithfull

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Discovered at a Rolling Stones party at the age of 17, Marianne Faithfull broke out in the early '60s with the Jagger/Richards song "As Tears Go By." Faithfull's liaison with Mick Jagger kept her in the public eye. In the '70s, she struggled with addiction, but she made a triumphant comeback in her 30s, and became a critically acclaimed rock cabaret singer. Also, critic-at-large John Powers reviews the Brazilian film I'm Still Here, which he describes as a "moving, inspiring, beautifully made story about learning to confront tyranny."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air, I'm David B. Inculli. Today, we're remembering Mary Ann Faithfull, the recording artist and actress who died last week at age 78. We'll listen back to two interviews Terry Gross conducted with her, one from 1994, the other from 2005. In 1994, Mary Ann Faithfull had just published

her autobiography. When she was 17, a chance meeting in London with Andrew Lug Oldham, who managed a young blues group called the Rolling Stones, led her to record, before they did, one of the day. I sit and watch the children vio-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o. Smiling faces I can see, but not for me. I sit and watch as tears goodbye. She had a string of popular recordings in the UK and established quickly a reputation she would develop and build upon all her life, interpreting the songs of others in her distinctly

emotional way. She appeared on TV lip-syncing her hit records but seldom looked at the camera, caught instead in some sort of pensive mood. And she acted on stage and film as well. In 1967 she appeared on stage opposite Glenda Jackson in Chekhov's Three Sisters. In 1969 she appeared in a film version of Hamlet playing Ophelia. But with success came complications. Famously, she became Mick Jagger's girlfriend, then overdosed in a suicide attempt and fell into a coma.

She survived that, as later in life, she also survived heroin addiction, breast cancer, a decade-long bout with Hepatitis C, and, most recently recently a hospitalization for COVID-19. But when she could she performed as a cabaret artist and acted on film and television, including playing God in three episodes of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Mary Ann Faithful recorded 22 solo albums and the range of songs she covered over the decades was breathtakingly diverse, just as her vocals were raw and intense. She recorded songs by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kurt Weill, and collaborated with Steve Earle and Angelo Badalamenti.

Terry Gross first spoke with Mary Ann Faithfull in 1994 upon the publication of Faithful, an autobiography. In the book, she writes that when she went into rehab in 1985, part of the therapy process was for each person to tell his or her story. That's when she realized there was a blank in her life. She had a sense of being in the Rolling Stones scene when she and Mick Jagger were lovers in the 60s, but she had no idea what her own story was. I think that's one of the saddest things in the book, that bit, where I'm in Hazelden and they ask me to tell my story and I actually rang Ellen Smith, my publicist, and said to

her, please send me up and down with the Rolling Stones because they want my story. Which was a book about the Stones? Yes. That's what I, It's sort of very telling, you know. Danielle Pletka What led to that feeling that you didn't know what your personal story was? Danielle Pletka Well, I didn't know when I said that that I didn't have a story. I mean, I still thought that my story was the same story as the Rolling

Stones. I didn't learn... I didn't figure this out for another year. I'm very slow. Danielle Pletka So tell us the story of how you met Mick Jagger. I didn't learn, I didn't figure this out for another year. I'm very slow. So tell us the story of how you met Mick Jagger. Well, I went along to a party with my first boyfriend, John Dunbar, who was a friend of Peter and Gordon. And Paul McCartney was going out with Jane Asher. It's so hard to remember all these things. And somehow

John was always up for a party. And especially then when we were very young. I mean, I was 17. He must have been 19, 19, 20, no more. But, you know, it was just a party. But it was a dead glam party, I suppose, even for London. And it was a lot glam party, I suppose, even for London. And it was a lot of fun, I suppose, yes. I mean, it's somewhat sort of colored in my imagination now by the fact that I was discovered there. But... Danielle Pletka What do you mean you were discovered there?

I was just... Well, that's where Andrew Oldham saw me. I was discovered by several people at that party, actually. Andrew Oldham is the only person I gave my address to. And he was the producer of your first record and of the Rolling Stones. Yes. He managed the Rolling Stones, made their early records. Now what did he discover in you? Was it your luck or did he know that you sang? No, no, no, he didn't know I sang. That was just a sort of bit of luck, I think.

In your memoir, you reprint a press release that was written for when As Tears Go By was released and it says, Mary Ann Faithfull is the little 17-year-old blonde who still attends a convent in Reading, daughter of the Baroness Ariso. She is liceome and lovely with long blonde hair. Lots of alliteration in this press release, isn't there? Yes. A shy smile and a liking for people who are long haired and socially conscious. Mary Ann Diggs, Marlon Brando, would-bind cigarettes, poetry, going to the ballet and

wearing long evening dresses. She is shy, wistful, waif-like. Now what did you think of that image of yourself? I thought it was a hoot. I remember taking it back to my mom and sitting in Millman Road, reading it to my mother and Chris, my brother. We just fell about laughing, you know. I never in my wildest dreams thought that people would think I was like that. Although I did dig Marlon Brando, that's true. And I was at a convent. And my mother was a baroness but apart from that but then

again you know I can't be too sort of sticky about this because it's quite obvious that we, none of us really see ourselves as others see us. Now you ended up doing a lot of drugs, doing a lot of heroin. How did you start doing heroin? I used it as a coping mechanism, I think. For coping with what? For coping with my life. And it worked for a while, but it did have a tremendous drawback, which was that it was addictive

and it would kill you. How long did it take you to figure that out? Ages. Very long time. But I did figure it out eventually, thank God. Now, I want to play a song that you wrote the lyrics for called Sister Morphine that was released in England in 1969. Tell me a little bit about where you were in your life when you wrote the song and what the lyrics are about.

I don't know. It's a very weird thing about Sister Morphine because it was knocking about the house for six months and Mick was playing it all the time. Playing the melody? Yes, the basic thing. Da da da da da da. That thing. All the time. So it went into my sort of whole nervous system, blood, bones, everything. I really had it in my head. I knew it by heart, let's say that. And then, I mean, I remember it. I'm sure Mick does too. It was very peculiar. I just sat down,

picked up a legal pad and a pencil and wrote it out. And there it was. But I do that sometimes. It's obvious. I work on it in my head, and then when it's all ready, I do it. Why don't we hear Systemorphine? This is Marian Faithfull, recorded in 1969. The sound of the ambulance is sounding in my ear Tell me, sister Morphe, how dark have I been lying here? What am I doing in this place? Why does the doctor have no faith? Oh, I can't crawl across the floor. Can't see system morphine, just trying to scoff.

Marian Faithville is Mike Gaston. She's written an autobiography called Faithfull. The record company, DECA, you say yanked this record about two days after it was released. They took it off the shelves. What was their objection? Well, there were many. The lyrics were very ahead of their time. It's one thing for Lou Reed to sing Heroine, obviously. This is something I really didn't understand, that this thing about me being this beautiful

little angel was real. I never really believed that. I couldn't believe it. So I suppose for Dekker, you know, the last thing they put out by Mary Unfaithful, I can't remember what it was, was Summer Nights, I think it was. That was in 1965. And then in 1969 they're given systemorphine and they couldn't handle it. You said that after you became a junkie that it actually brought you an anonymity that you hadn't known since you were 16, since 17 that is, you were living on the street. I'm sure that wasn't exactly though the kind of anonymity that you wanted.

Well, I hadn't wanted celebrity from the first place. I just went to a party and got discovered. And I hadn't had time to think about whether I wanted it or not. So the anonymity I got in the street was very valuable to me. Where were you living? How did you live during those years? Well, I lived on a wall. I lived on a wall in Soho. And it was an amazing time for me. When I really couldn't take it, I could always go back to my mother's. It wasn't like I had nothing. I wasn't exactly the same as the street people. But they didn't mind that. Mary Ann Faithfull speaking to Terry Gross in 1994.

After a break, we'll listen to a later conversation from 2005. This is Fresh Air. The indicator from Plano Money is diving into the world of batteries. Not the kind you buy at the grocery store. We're talking really big batteries. The kind that can power thousands of homes. This technology came seemingly out of nowhere. We're digging deep into the battery industry in three back-to-back episodes.

Listen to the indicator from Planet Money podcast on NPR. Listen to the Indicator from Planet Money podcast on NPR. Matt Wilson spent years doing rounds at children's hospitals in New York City. I had a clip on tie. I wore Heely's size 11. Matt was a medical clown. The whole of a medical clown is to reintroduce the sense of play and joy and hope and light into a space that doesn't normally inhabit. Ideas about navigating uncertainty. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. We're continuing our remembrance of singer, songwriter, and actress Mary Ann Faithfull,

who died last week at age 78. Let's switch now to an interview Terry recorded with her in 2005. Mary Ann Faithfull had just released a new CD called Before the Poison, featuring several songs she had co-written with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. This song, Mystery of Love, has words and music by PJ Harvey. by my side The world's in tune and I'm a fool When you're not in my sight Then everything just fades from view The mystery of love belongs to you. Your voice is very dark.

Your voice is very different from the way it was at the start of your career. Well obviously. Yes. Well, some people's voices change more than others. Mine was always, you know, I studied singing at school when I was young and my singing teacher used to say to me in hushed tones, you know, you have a soprano now but I think if you're very, very lucky it will become a contralto. Why did your teacher think that that would be good luck if it didn't? Well, it's a very rare thing to have.

It's Kathleen Ferrier. There are very few real contraltos, and I'm one of them. I don't know what you'll make of this, but I think of you as being similar to Billie Holiday and Lottie Lenya as having great singers whose voices were very different at the beginning and end of their careers. Indeed, yeah, of course. But that's partly technical, like I told you, but it's also experience. In my case, I mean, thank you very much for comparing me in any way with my great heroines Billie Holiday

and Lotte Lenya. But in my case, and I'm sure in their case, a lot of it is down to experience. You get the voice you really want. You get what I suppose a writer would call it finding my voice. Was there anything that you missed about that pure soprano that you had? You know, the high notes or that? Oh sure, yeah. I mean if I hadn't been discovered by Andrew Oldham and gone into the pop business, I would

have probably either become an actress or I might have gone to the Royal Academy of Music in London and I could have sung Mozart. I would have enjoyed that. But on the other hand, I kind of, it was very exciting to be in at the beginning of a new thing, which is what was happening in London in the early 60s, and I was right there You know it's interesting like as tears go by which is your famous first hit You're singing in an almost uninflected voice That's what Andrew wanted. That's what he wanted why mm-hmm? Andrew Luke Alden was yeah your producer, and he was the Rolling Stones producer. He was my manager.

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. And I suppose he was the producer too, yeah. So why did he want it uninflected? I don't know. I think he wanted me to sound like Mick. Huh.

I really don't know. You'd have to ask Andrew. It's so interesting because there's so much drama in your singing now. Well yeah but that's my natural thing. Maybe I didn't have that yet. Mm-hmm. Well you know you mentioned that... I was only 17. Right, right. I don't think I had any. Any drama? No and I was terribly, terribly nervous. So probably the natural thing I did was just sort of do what I do when I'm very frightened is pretend I'm very small and stay very still

and do as little as possible. Now you mentioned that La Telenia is one of your music heroes. So I thought maybe we could listen to a recording in which you sing Kurt Weill. And you made a recording, you've done a lot of Kurt Weill over the years. I've done two records of the Brecht Weill canon. The first one was the Cabaret record, which was 20th century blues, which I love.

But my actual total favorite of all time is The Seven Deadly Sins. But play something from from 20th century blues, play Pirate Jenny. I like Pirate Jenny because it's so fierce. And Paul Trueblood is at the piano and he sounds great with you. Paul Trueblood is such a great musician and I was so lucky to work with him and I'm very fond of him. Well let's go for the drama and hear Pirate Jenny and this is from Marion Faithful's album 20th Century Blues with Paul Trueblood at the piano. You lads see me wash the glasses, wipe the floors, make the beds, I'm the best of servants. You can kindly throw me pennies and I thank you very much. And you see me ragged and tattered in this dirty sh**ty hotel.

You don't know in hell who's talking. You still don't know in hell who's talking. Yet one fine day there will be rods from the harbour And you'll ask what is all that screeching for And you'll see me smiling as I dunk the glasses And you'll say what's she got to smile at for? And the ship Eight sails shining, 55 cannons white, sir, waits there at the key.

You say, work on, wipe the glasses, my girl, and just slip me a dance. Marianne Faithfull, how were you introduced to the music of Kurt Feier? Well, I sort of grew up with it, you know. Both my parents, I don't know how they did it, I don't know how my mother did this, but she brought 78s with her from Vienna. And a lot of the songs on 20th Century Blues are my mother's favorite songs or my father's favorite songs. Like my father's favorite song was Falling in Love Again. And he loved Cole Porter and he loved all sorts of things like that. So is that like the first music you heard? I suppose it is, yes.

Was your mother a singer? I had read that she... No, no, no, no, no, no. My mother was a dancer. Oh. She was very young, of course, and she was only 24 when Mr. Hitler marched into Vienna in the Anschluss. But she was a dancer in Berlin. And she, as she would be coming into the theater to rehearse as the corda ballet for Mr. Reinhardt,

would see Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht staggering out in the morning, having been up all night writing the Threpny opera. And they would all bob a little curtsy and say, good morning Mr. Vile, good morning Mr. Brecht. When you were growing up did she have like clothes from her costumes from when she danced in the closet? Not much, no. I just have a very beautiful piece of chiffon and some beads. I have very little she didn't bring any of that much with

No, I don't know what happened to it But that sense of theater was it says if she wanted to leave it all behind and have a new life She'd had quite a hard time I think during, during the war. My grandmother was Jewish, you know, and she met my father was a spy. I mean, it's so incredible. It's amazing. And she was his contact in Vienna. So it was really, I think she was really happy to marry my father and get out. Unfortunately, of course, the marriage was a disaster.

Well, I think they separated when you were six or something, right? Yes. And then you lived with your mother. I did, yes. Mary Ann Faithfull speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. Mary Ann Faithfull died last week at age 78. After a break, we'll hear more of their conversation, And critic-at-large John Powers reviews I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film nominated for an Oscar this year as Best Picture.

I'm David B. Inculli, and this is Fresh Here. But whatever you wish to keep, you'd better grab it fast. Now I want to mention another song that seems a little out of character for you on your previous CD. My previous CD, which I do love, you mean Kissing Time, was in fact a very experimental work. I wanted to learn about the new technology. That's what I did it. And so I went to the best people, like Billy Corgan, like Beck, like Jarvis Cocker, like

Damon. Well, the song, a song here that strikes me as a really interesting choice, a very kind of out of character is I'm Into Something Good, which was... Oh, that was just fun. Yeah, well, it's, I mean, that was a Herman's Hermits hit in 1964. I love doing that. And this is, you know, you've got to remember when we did Kissing Time, the world was a different place.

And we could have fun. And we did. And we loved it. We know the year that that was a hit into something good 1964 was I think the year it was the year as tears came out. Yeah the year and I think it was about that time that you started on tour and you went on a tour not with Herman Hermes but with Freddie and the Dreamers and the Hollies. And the Hollies, they were good. Jerry and the Pacemakers.

Yep. Where did you see yourself fitting in as? I didn't fit in. I was completely out of place. And I actually believed that I would go back to school when the tour was over and pick up my life again. Were you like the only girl in the tour? I was.

And what I was doing was reading my A-level books. Oh, because you were still in school? That's what I thought I was, yes. So I do remember very well how kind the Hollies were to me. Really sweet. Did the guys on the tour try to be protective or try to take advantage of you? No, of course they didn't. I mean I kind of, you know, I did learn the meaning of the word tour romance. I thought that was rather fun. Why not? Well I'm gonna play I'm into something good from

your previous album Kissin Time. Good. I think it's charming. Me too. And you know now in this world I could never do something like that again. That's why it's called Before the Poison. That's why the new CD is called that. Yeah but let's remember the days when we could do something like this. Okay, so this is Marion Faithful from her previous CD, Kissin' Time. Last night I met a new guy in the neighborhood, oh yeah Something tells me I'm into something good He's the kind of guy who's not too shy And I can tell he's my kind of guy

He does close to me like I hope to you That's Marianne Faithfull from her previous CD, Kissin' Time, the 1964 hit, I'm Into Something Good, and she has a new CD called Before the Poison. Much darker. At what point did you start getting to know the, and I assume that you did at some point, the Andy Warhol factory crew? I didn't. You never knew them? No, I never did. It just seems to me you'd have connected at some point.

Never, never, never, never, never. I went to New York once with Andrew, and what I did do was meet up with Al Grossman and Bobby Neuerss. And it was the time when Bob Dylan had his motorbike accident. And I think I had my first joint with Bobby Neuerts. And I was up all night being sick. From the joint? Mm-hmm.

I was 18. Right. I wasn't able, didn't know anything. From the joint? Mm-hmm. I was 18. Right. Wasn't able, didn't know anything. Just couldn't deal with it. Hmm. So, you know, I'm wondering what you thought, because you must have been aware of this, whether you knew the Velvet Underground personally or not.

Oh, I thought they were wonderful. But I had a sense of self-preservation, which told me, do not go to New York, you will die. Right, because you'd get so deep into it. I would be, it would have been another Edie Sedgwick, you know. It was quite bad enough in London, if I may say so. But I mean, it would have been too much for me.

At least I knew London. What did you make of it when The Velvet Underground recorded Venus and Furs? I didn't really think about it. I asked this in case our listeners are confused. Well, no, my great-great uncle was Baron Leopold von Sacha Masoch, who gave his name to masochism and wrote a book called Venus in Furs. Yeah,

I sort of noticed it but didn't really notice it. There were other songs on the Velvet Underground that I thought were better. I didn't think that was one of the best. I'm a huge and was always a huge fan of Andy Warhol. And before I got discovered and all that stuff happened, my mother took me to see a huge Andy Warhol retrospective at the Tate. I went to see the Picasso retrospective. I went to see the surrealist retrospective.

It was wonderful. You know, I had a wonderful life before all that stuff happened. Did you feel, I mean you you've lived in a very unconventional world your whole adult life. Well I and my whole life as a child. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. My parents were extremely unconventional and I was brought up in a delightful bohemian manner. So I sailed right into swinging London with no problem. Tell us a little bit about the delightful bohemian manner that you were brought up in.

Well, my father was a real idealist. After the war, he formed a commune, not like a 60s commune, a 50s or even a 40s commune, more like an Irish Murdoch kind of thing, and the purpose of this place, which was called Braeser's Park, was to change the world and to teach people, only Europeans, he couldn't really go further than that, to live together in harmony so that war would never happen again. And that was my father's mission. My mother was also an idealist in a way, but not quite as serious as my father. And she didn't really like it at Braziers Park. She didn't like living in a commune. And it split up. And she thought she was marrying an English gentleman, you know? And she thought she would have a much more conventional life. She didn't realize she was marrying this wonderful

world-class loon. Did you live on the commune at all? I used to go at weekends. I had a wonderful time. What was it like as a girl? There was a farm. I watched calves being born. I had a friend who had a pony. I didn't have anything to do with the commune. I was just out from dawn till dusk. And did your father talk to you about the philosophy behind it? No, not till I got much older. And then I would, then I found it very interesting. You know, he used to give courses on Alexander Pope and things like that. Before I wrote my book, he used to give courses on Alexander Pope and things like that before I wrote my book He did a course specially really for me on the writing of autobiography You're kidding. No

How did it affect the writing of your 1994 autobiography? He really helped he was a really great teacher, you know He was a professor at Bedford College in London. He taught me a lot. For instance, I learned in his course about autobiography that it was absolutely essential to put dialogue in or it got very boring. Well, that's always interesting to me because I read so many autobiographies and I always think who has the memory to really remember what somebody said and what you said back?

Well you can't really but you can make a rough guess. I wrote it from my perspective. I don't put thoughts and feelings into other people. I wrote about me and what I felt and what I did. And I remember everything. And I remember how I felt. I remember my motives. I remember what I did and what I thought of things I saw around me. And in fact, I was very very very hard on myself I realized that

now but I didn't see any other way any other honorable way to be. How far away does the really hard time seem to you when you were homeless? Seems like a long long time ago. Mm-hmm. Really and I know I was very lucky to get through it. It was obviously something I needed to learn and in a strange way I learned some very positive things, you know. Have you asked yourself why you think you survived? No. Why so many other people don't? I guess guess no junkie dies in vain. Everybody who dies, for each one who dies, another survives. I don't really know why I survived.

I tried incredibly hard not to, but finally I did accept that I had to survive and there must be some reason why I had to survive and I might as well accept it. And when I did that, everything got a lot easier, of course. You occupy a kind of unique spot in pop music now because you were a teenage pop star, but what you're doing now is somewhere between... A pop princess, yes. a teenage pop star but what you're doing now is some words between princess yeah what you're doing now is a kind of what you're doing now is a kind of hybrid of of cabaret and theater music and pop and rock and I don't really do cabaret I do rock and roll sort of with a lot of drama I don't know what I do. I do what I do, you know. And if you

don't mind my mentioning your age? I don't mind. I've just turned 58. Right. And you know, back when you were starting in the 60s, there still was the sense of what do rock and rollers do when they get older? Well, I didn't think I would. You didn't think you'd live that long? No way. I thought, I mean, I thought broken English was the end. I thought after that I would die. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I had to make another record.

And broken English was in, what, 1979? Yep. I thought that was it. I thought go out in a blaze of glory. Off you go. Before the interview started, you mentioned to me that you stopped smoking about three weeks ago. Three weeks now. Yeah. And why did you decide to stop after all these years? Well, I've been wanting to stop for about a year because I've got the beginning of emphysema and my mother died of emphysema and alcoholism. So I kind of didn't really want history to repeat itself. So I did everything I could. I went to a hypnotist, I read Alan Carr, I did all these things. Nothing worked.

And just before I came to a Medicaid, I got really bad bronchitis, really bad. And I could not even think of smoking. So I didn't. I stopped. And I'm using a patch, of course. I'm beginning to not need the patch now. It's sort of getting easier. I've done this whole interview without a patch. They make me sick.

They actually are rather like bad speed patches. But you know, time went by, the bronchitis got better. I've had some terrible moments of craving, But my doctor in Paris it did it's very like giving up drugs, you know, they don't last long the cravings They last about five minutes. So you just find something else to do Talk to somebody you you put your makeup on you do anything wash your knickers, anything you can think of. And the craving will pass and then it's gone. What is the action that you typically take that seems most incomplete without a cigarette? Well, the one I'm really worried about

is face-to-face promo. Because in that, I wasn't using nicotine just as a drug. I was using it as a prop and as a smoke screen. That's going to be pretty scary. I've got to think of something else to do with my hands, and I've got to give myself a smoke screen. Jostics? I don't know. A candle? I've got to think of something

dark glasses No, I think people should see my eyes So do you feel that's not a bad idea dark glasses is a possibility, but you know, I think that's been kind of covered by Yoko Do you bless up by Yoko. God bless her. Do you feel like your speaking or singing voice is changing at all or that you're breathing better when you sing? Well, not yet, no, but I think that will come. Marianne Faithfull, thank you so much for talking with us. Thanks, Terri. It was a pleasure. Marianne Faithfull speaking to to Terry Gross in 2005. The singer, songwriter, and actress died last week.

She was 78 years old. ["I Walk Along the Street of Sorrow"] I walk along the street of sorrow The boulevard of broken dreams Where Jigalow and Jigalette Can take a kiss without regret So they forget their broken dreams their broken dream. You'll laugh tonight and cry tomorrow when you behold your shadowed scheme. And Jiggalo and Jigalette wake up to find their eyes wet with tears that tell of broken dreams

Here is where you'll always find me Always walking up and down But I left my soul behind me But I left my soul behind me In an old cathedral town The joy that you find here you borrow You cannot keep it long at sea But Jigaloh and Jigalot still sing a song and dance along The boulevard of broken dreams La da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da Coming up, critic-at-large John Powers reviews I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film that's nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year. This is fresh air.

In the new film I'm Still Here, the Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles tells the true story of a Rio de Janeiro mother who reinvents herself when Brazil's military dictatorship goes after her husband. The movie has been Oscar nominated for both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film. Its star, Fernanda Torres, has been nominated for Best Actress. She already has won the Golden Globe. Our critic at large, John Powers, says that I'm Still Here is a moving, inspiring, beautifully made story about learning to confront tyranny. It's one measure of Latin America's arduous history that it spawns so many books and movies about dictatorship.

Over the years I've been through scads of them, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, to the landmark documentaries of Patricio Guzmán, to Hollywood thrillers like Missing and Under Fire. What they share is the awareness that history hurts. Few films have shown this with more delicate intelligence than I'm Still Here, a moving new drama set during Brazil's military dictatorship that began with an American-backed coup in 1964 and ended in 1985. Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salles's movie is no political tract

or manipulative tear-jerker, although it may make you cry. Exploring the dictatorship indirectly, I'm Still Here tells the heroic true story of a wife and mother who steers her family through the rapids of tyranny. The story begins idyllically on Ipanema Beach in 1970, when we first meet the Pi of a Family. The father is Rubens, played with easy charm by Sultan Mello, a warm-hearted man who was a congressman before the coup. charmed by Sultan Mello, a warm-hearted man who was a congressman before the coup. And by Eunice, that's Fernanda Torres, a rather traditional-seeming wife who bakes great soufflés and wrangles their five high-energy children.

Theirs is a happy upper-middle-class family whose home is a kind of Eden, complete with a view of the beach. Buzzing with openness to friends, to ideas, to laughter, to music the movie's soundtrack is fabulous, their house is Brazil as we might dream of it being. Yet such openness is precisely what the Junta mistrusts. It tortures or disappears anyone it considers a threat to its notion of an orderly, anti-communist society.

Even as the family dances, plays foosball, and amulet bickers, we await the dreaded knock on the door. It comes. Rubens is taken away for questioning, security men occupy the house, and Eunice herself is called in for a nasty interrogation. Rubens' disappearance is the turning point in Eunice's life. Over the next months, in fact the next decades, she transforms her practical maternal virtues into something mighty. Channeling her grief, she becomes a stronger, tougher, wiser person, who protects her kids,

digs into the cruel facts of her husband's fate, and learns to fight for other people's rights as well. From the start, Eunice is a woman of impressive self-command, and the movie shares that virtue. Salas has always been a gifted director, but earlier films like Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries were so busy being artful and important, they often felt impersonal. Here you feel his profound emotional engagement. Salas grew up in the same milieu as the Pivas. Indeed, he hung out with the kids. And you feel his affection for that family and its values. He captures them, and 1970 Rio, in a way that feels loving and true. Salas does a superb job of depicting how the dictatorship colored daily life. We see how

things could often appear normal, with fun at the beach and happy visits to the ice cream shop. Yet without laying on the violence or heavy-handed moralism—even the secret policemen we meet aren't monsters—Salas also conjures a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety. We feel it in the sounds of helicopters hovering overhead, the TV newscasts filled with lies, the spasms of fearful mistrust that grow between friends, and the way that once your family is singled out, you're treated differently out in the world. Like Brazil, their house of freedom is now in lockdown. The counterweight to the dictatorship is the unglamorous strength of Eunice, who goes from making soufflés to becoming at 48 a lawyer who helps make Brazil a better place to live. She's played with surpassing brilliance by Torres, whose performance is so subtle,

so internal, and so quietly shattering that in a just world she'd win all this year's big acting awards. Registering each flicker remotion as precisely as a seismograph, Taurus captures Eunice's pain and horror at her husband's fate, but also her endurance, her faith that life goes on. A faith that time vindicates. Even as it's buffeted by misfortune, the family survives and thrives. At one point, a newspaper photographer comes to take a picture of the family and tells them to look somber.

After all, Rubens is missing. But Eunice insists that everyone smile. She will not let them face the world looking beaten. John Powers reviewed the new movie, I'm Still Here. On Monday's show, Questlove returns. He'll talk about the life and legacy of Sly Stone. His new documentary, Sly Lives, aka The Burden of Black Genius, premieres February 13th on Hulu. Questlove won an Oscar for another of his music documentaries, Summer of Soul. I hope you can join us. The drama and then makes no difference what group I'm in

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