Post by davidhr on Aug 24, 2010 11:54:12 GMT -5
The news this week concerned primarily the release by Alan Badoev of some 13 new ‘making of’ videos from Mlle. Zhivago. You can find some of them on youtube, and a more complete set on larafabiannews.com and Christina’s blogs. Thanks to all of these people for making them available to us! On the official site, an effort has been made to relate the different videos to the songs, at:
www.larafabian.com/forumLara/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10818&sid=f31dfe22bca075cb3dfdf702b7902c00
and Christina has also made a valiant effort to once again hook the story of each video to the songs; see her list at:
www.facebook.com/notes/lara-fabian-greek-music-treasure-box/mademoiselle-zhivago-stories-and-songs/144826995548464
(see also the 'Mlle Zhivago' separate topic on this site).
On watching these snippets of the work, several things stand out:
**How hard and inventive shooting this movie (and probably all movies) is. From camera angles to difficult improvisations in action scenes, so much thought and planning goes into everything we see and often take for granted. Clearly Alan Badoev did not approach this as a trivial video shoot. The participants seem delighted and even surprised when a scene is filmed successfully.
**Lara probably didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to this (a sentiment she seems to agree with in her recent Russian magazine interview). In the various clips you can see her: almost drowned, whirled and thrown around, have punches aimed in her direction, have bruises painted on her (in association with the punches) as well as fake blood, be knocked about inhaling smoke (and even cut up) in a car bomb scene, have some very physical and sexy scenes in low cut dresses, be required to scream/cry on cue, dance, fall, and in general go through the complete range of extreme emotions. When the principals behind this film said it would be concerned with woman’s eternal companions, love and death, they weren’t exaggerating. As exemplified by the scenes from ‘Making of Day 25’, she got to experience what ‘working out in the field’ battling the elements amid rough conditions is really like (as opposed to the controlled conditions of a studio). She also got to see her own limitations working in an unfamiliar medium, as she herself comments on occasionally in these clips.
**The extreme change of mood we’ve heard from the different songs on the album mirror the great changes from scene to scene in the movie – almost as if the two had been planned together from the very start.
**The scenes that look to garner the most attention (at least from certain segments of the audience) are: “Toccami” (episode and song), where Lara has very sexy positions; “Morphine”, with Lara as a vampire (song Miss Hyde); “Beating” where Lara gets those bruises (song which used to be thought of as Leora, now recognized most likely to be “Llora” [rain in Spanish]); and “Lullaby” with Lara in the concentration camp (song ‘Lou’). These all bring forth extreme actions and emotions. This is not to downplay the remaining vignettes, which often deal more directly with love and loss.
In the latest releases, we get to see for the first time, some of the scenes from “The Beginning” with ‘Demaine n’existe pas’ in the background; and we get to hear a part of ‘Llora”, available before only from Igor Krutoi playing an instrumental version on a TV show. We also see much more of “Mr. President”, with children dressed for both peace and war. Lara is seen saying that “children all over the world are the same, are innocent, and we have to protect them”. The song of course emphasizes that point directly (even if it mistakenly says that 'winters are getting longer'...). [Despite what people think of as its similarity with Michael Jackson’s ‘We are the World’, it is a song that I find very infectious, and hard to forget]. And of course there is Lara being 'put through the ringer' in 'Making of Day 25"...
One of the fans on the official site said that Lara’s career may very well be thought of as ‘before Mlle. Zhivago’ and ‘after Mlle. Zhivago’. It seems possible that this indeed may be a career changer for her, in the sense that she may finally attain the worldwide popularity and the appreciation of her quality that is long overdue. One can only hope! The initial reaction in France also seems to be intrigued and positive – perhaps the timing is such that they are now bored with knocking her, and will start building her back up again in respect for this audacious venture. Lara said that she had to overcome some inhibitions on her own part to play these roles, and maybe that will free others to see her in a different way.
Lara repeated in an interview what we’ve heard rumored previously, that the Mlle. Zhivago CD and DVD will be released together, although it’s hard to know whether she meant that literally (i.e., in the same package). It certainly seems as if Lara’s confidence concerning her popularity in these ‘eastern countries’ (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) is growing – as Christina first pointed out on this site, Lara has increased the number of upcoming concerts in that region from 6 to 12, all within an 16 day time frame (October 28 – November 12). We’ll see whether these all really take place, i.e., whether there is enough of an audience to sustain it. In the past Lara has retained ‘options’ for specific days, to be used if warranted.
Perhaps now that she’s gotten her feet wet in the acting world, and if it hasn’t discouraged her completely, she may be even more interested in the film “Charlie” where she has been slated to play the role of “Mimi”, the wife of one of the principals. Larafabianweb.com said that given the state of its financing, it will begin production in March of 2011, at the earliest.
Lara’s renewed effort for the Canadian market with TLFM got some more clarity this past week, as her Quebec promo is now listed on the official site for Sept. 27 – October 4. Hopefully Canadian denizens (and the new Canadian website) will keep us up to date on her appearances. Her official site seems newly invigorated in posting Lara’s promo dates, so it may be of use in this regard as well. The fact that she will not be there on the day of the CD’s actual release (Sept. 7th) may be indicative of how crowded her schedule will be in the fall. As first reported by 'bward' on this site, Lara has already released a second ‘single’ from this album for the Canadian market, with “Il venait d’avoir 18 ans’ following ‘Soleil soleil’. The press response to this was very complimentary, and many fans noted that the Canadian press so far seems much more positive about these songs then the French did. ‘Benjaminbelgium’ on the forum suggested that the Quebecois (media) are fundamentally nicer than the French who tend to overanalyze everything. We’ll see if there are enough Canadian press reviews to make a comparison once the album is formally released.
It does not appear as if Lara’s delay in appearing in Canada is due to promotion for the “TLFM font leur show” live DVD, which is still not listed on any of the French on-line sites. Laetitia on larafabianweb.com reported that it is currently expected to be released in October, although whether it will include TLFM1 as a bonus is still uncertain.
And speaking of which, Laetitia has opened a new version of larafabianweb.com; the previous one was 5 years old and she indicated it had accumulated a lot of bugs. Unfortunately they were unable to transfer the previous registrants, so if you’d like access to it, you need to re-register. It is located at:
larafabianweb.forumgratuit.fr/index.htm
Nothing official is listed on the schedule for Lara for this next (last) week in August. We can expect an acceleration of activity after that.
David
Ps – On a personal note, I’ll be away for most of the next week, with uncertain internet connectivity. So next week’s update may or may not be delayed, and if the delay is sufficient, it will simply be skipped in favor of the next regularly scheduled update in two weeks.
www.larafabian.com/forumLara/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10818&sid=f31dfe22bca075cb3dfdf702b7902c00
and Christina has also made a valiant effort to once again hook the story of each video to the songs; see her list at:
www.facebook.com/notes/lara-fabian-greek-music-treasure-box/mademoiselle-zhivago-stories-and-songs/144826995548464
(see also the 'Mlle Zhivago' separate topic on this site).
On watching these snippets of the work, several things stand out:
**How hard and inventive shooting this movie (and probably all movies) is. From camera angles to difficult improvisations in action scenes, so much thought and planning goes into everything we see and often take for granted. Clearly Alan Badoev did not approach this as a trivial video shoot. The participants seem delighted and even surprised when a scene is filmed successfully.
**Lara probably didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to this (a sentiment she seems to agree with in her recent Russian magazine interview). In the various clips you can see her: almost drowned, whirled and thrown around, have punches aimed in her direction, have bruises painted on her (in association with the punches) as well as fake blood, be knocked about inhaling smoke (and even cut up) in a car bomb scene, have some very physical and sexy scenes in low cut dresses, be required to scream/cry on cue, dance, fall, and in general go through the complete range of extreme emotions. When the principals behind this film said it would be concerned with woman’s eternal companions, love and death, they weren’t exaggerating. As exemplified by the scenes from ‘Making of Day 25’, she got to experience what ‘working out in the field’ battling the elements amid rough conditions is really like (as opposed to the controlled conditions of a studio). She also got to see her own limitations working in an unfamiliar medium, as she herself comments on occasionally in these clips.
**The extreme change of mood we’ve heard from the different songs on the album mirror the great changes from scene to scene in the movie – almost as if the two had been planned together from the very start.
**The scenes that look to garner the most attention (at least from certain segments of the audience) are: “Toccami” (episode and song), where Lara has very sexy positions; “Morphine”, with Lara as a vampire (song Miss Hyde); “Beating” where Lara gets those bruises (song which used to be thought of as Leora, now recognized most likely to be “Llora” [rain in Spanish]); and “Lullaby” with Lara in the concentration camp (song ‘Lou’). These all bring forth extreme actions and emotions. This is not to downplay the remaining vignettes, which often deal more directly with love and loss.
In the latest releases, we get to see for the first time, some of the scenes from “The Beginning” with ‘Demaine n’existe pas’ in the background; and we get to hear a part of ‘Llora”, available before only from Igor Krutoi playing an instrumental version on a TV show. We also see much more of “Mr. President”, with children dressed for both peace and war. Lara is seen saying that “children all over the world are the same, are innocent, and we have to protect them”. The song of course emphasizes that point directly (even if it mistakenly says that 'winters are getting longer'...). [Despite what people think of as its similarity with Michael Jackson’s ‘We are the World’, it is a song that I find very infectious, and hard to forget]. And of course there is Lara being 'put through the ringer' in 'Making of Day 25"...
One of the fans on the official site said that Lara’s career may very well be thought of as ‘before Mlle. Zhivago’ and ‘after Mlle. Zhivago’. It seems possible that this indeed may be a career changer for her, in the sense that she may finally attain the worldwide popularity and the appreciation of her quality that is long overdue. One can only hope! The initial reaction in France also seems to be intrigued and positive – perhaps the timing is such that they are now bored with knocking her, and will start building her back up again in respect for this audacious venture. Lara said that she had to overcome some inhibitions on her own part to play these roles, and maybe that will free others to see her in a different way.
Lara repeated in an interview what we’ve heard rumored previously, that the Mlle. Zhivago CD and DVD will be released together, although it’s hard to know whether she meant that literally (i.e., in the same package). It certainly seems as if Lara’s confidence concerning her popularity in these ‘eastern countries’ (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) is growing – as Christina first pointed out on this site, Lara has increased the number of upcoming concerts in that region from 6 to 12, all within an 16 day time frame (October 28 – November 12). We’ll see whether these all really take place, i.e., whether there is enough of an audience to sustain it. In the past Lara has retained ‘options’ for specific days, to be used if warranted.
Perhaps now that she’s gotten her feet wet in the acting world, and if it hasn’t discouraged her completely, she may be even more interested in the film “Charlie” where she has been slated to play the role of “Mimi”, the wife of one of the principals. Larafabianweb.com said that given the state of its financing, it will begin production in March of 2011, at the earliest.
Lara’s renewed effort for the Canadian market with TLFM got some more clarity this past week, as her Quebec promo is now listed on the official site for Sept. 27 – October 4. Hopefully Canadian denizens (and the new Canadian website) will keep us up to date on her appearances. Her official site seems newly invigorated in posting Lara’s promo dates, so it may be of use in this regard as well. The fact that she will not be there on the day of the CD’s actual release (Sept. 7th) may be indicative of how crowded her schedule will be in the fall. As first reported by 'bward' on this site, Lara has already released a second ‘single’ from this album for the Canadian market, with “Il venait d’avoir 18 ans’ following ‘Soleil soleil’. The press response to this was very complimentary, and many fans noted that the Canadian press so far seems much more positive about these songs then the French did. ‘Benjaminbelgium’ on the forum suggested that the Quebecois (media) are fundamentally nicer than the French who tend to overanalyze everything. We’ll see if there are enough Canadian press reviews to make a comparison once the album is formally released.
It does not appear as if Lara’s delay in appearing in Canada is due to promotion for the “TLFM font leur show” live DVD, which is still not listed on any of the French on-line sites. Laetitia on larafabianweb.com reported that it is currently expected to be released in October, although whether it will include TLFM1 as a bonus is still uncertain.
And speaking of which, Laetitia has opened a new version of larafabianweb.com; the previous one was 5 years old and she indicated it had accumulated a lot of bugs. Unfortunately they were unable to transfer the previous registrants, so if you’d like access to it, you need to re-register. It is located at:
larafabianweb.forumgratuit.fr/index.htm
Nothing official is listed on the schedule for Lara for this next (last) week in August. We can expect an acceleration of activity after that.
David
Ps – On a personal note, I’ll be away for most of the next week, with uncertain internet connectivity. So next week’s update may or may not be delayed, and if the delay is sufficient, it will simply be skipped in favor of the next regularly scheduled update in two weeks.