Les Rita Mitsouko, as filmed by Godard

Godard has done some gorgeous work with music over the years, and while his taste seems to run more to classical than pop, he has crafted some unforgettable sequences using rock. The ye-ye moments in Masculin-Feminin immediately spring to mind, as does the “Mao-Mao” bit in La Chinoise, the Madison in Band A Part, some terrific bits in Grandeur et Décadence d’un petit commerce de cinéma. Perhaps the most interesting fusion of his seminal ’60s cinema and seminal ’60s music was his documenting of the recording of “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones in One Plus One. Almost two decades later, in his light (and very strange) comedy Soigne Ta Droite (Keep Your Right Up, 1987), he did the same for Les Rita Mitsouko, chronicling the creation of a few songs from their second album The No Comprendo. In honor of the recent death of Fred Chichin, I thought I would upload some scenes from Godard’s film that feature he and Catherine Ringer in the middle of the “process.” And those who know anything about Godard can guess that no completed songs by Les Rita appear in the film, as he is all about process….


Click here if the above doesn't work.

Deceased Artiste: Fred Chichin of Les Rita Mitsouko

I’m pretty sure the American music press is gonna fuck up and completely ignore the passing of the wonderfully talented Fred Chichin, half of the great French pop-rock duo Les Rita Mitsouko (the other half being the lovely and talented Catherine Ringer). Fred died at 53 of cancer, a sad death, since his duo was a kick-ass musical act whose first few albums were golden, and who continued to create memorable, hook-laden tunes until earlier this year.

As is always the case with musical acts, most of their best work is available on YouTube, but I’ll just note that they hit it big with the super-memorable and goddamn bouncy song “Marcia Baila” in 1985, and went on to become major French music stars, she for her great vocals and sexy style, he for his musicianship… and sleazy moustache. They attempted crossover performances, but wisely never did a complete sell-out LP: two albums were produced by “Main Man” Tony Visconti, they performed songs with Sparks on their third album, their newest album has Catherine dueting with the lead singer of System of a Down, and the pair continued to perform tunes sung in English as well as Français. I thought it interesting that they received the same treatment in Godard’s Soigne Ta Droite (Keep up your right) that the Stones had gotten in One Plus One/Sympathy for the Devil. They certainly deserved the dissection, as their music was wonderfully crafted by Fred and the albums are imminently relistenable.

Get hooked into “Marcia Baila”:

Pure pop for now people from Les Rita:

I get addicted with a few notes:

Dance music with a brain:

And I would be remarkably remiss if I didn’t close out with the best last line Les Rita ever came up with
“Les histoires d’amour finissent mal… en general”
(Love stories end badly… in general)