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Mylene FarmerPop star
Date of Birth: 12.09.1961
Country:  France |
Content:
Biography of Mylène Farmer
A Star is BornMylène Farmer is often referred to as the French Madonna. Unlike traditional French chanson singers, she evokes both adoration and hatred, reaching a level of hysteria. Some dedicate dissertations to Mylène Farmer, while others go as far as committing murder. This is according to the magazine "Karavan Istorii" in June 1999.
A Strange Encounter
One day, a strange and agitated man burst into the headquarters of the French branch of "Polydor" demanding a meeting with Mylène Farmer. The staff informed him that Mylène was not scheduled to be in the office that day and they couldn't provide any assistance. The man, persistent and desperate, claimed to be deeply in love with her. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, and the receptionist's brains were splattered across the room. As the police handcuffed the madman, he recited lyrics from Mylène's song: "Life is an extended tragedy, the sole hero of which is the funeral worm." Mylène learned about the incident from journalists, but she was not ready to answer their questions and shut the door in their faces. Journalists were perplexed by her lack of understanding that this horrifying story was excellent publicity for her. They wondered why she rarely communicated with the press. While nobody expected her to bare her soul, sharing some details about her personal life would not have hurt her stardom.
The Beginnings
Her life took an unexpected turn one evening. The party seemed to promise nothing but boredom. However, boredom had haunted Mylène for a long time. There is a certain melancholy that permeates the soul when you are twenty-three and everyone around you sighs in unison, saying, "Mademoiselle, you have your whole life ahead of you!" But nobody tells you what exactly lies ahead. Although, of course, everyone knows what they mean. In this country, everyone is obsessed with one thing: love. Mylène had seen enough of it during her time working as an assistant to a gynecologist, where one of her main duties was restocking tissues for the weeping clients. However, these same ladies quickly forgot their tears. Mylène discovered this when she worked as a saleswoman in a shoe store. As fervently as they had cried at the doctor's office the day before, they would spend their money on high heels - all for the sake of love. Then Mylène was invited to work as a model, and acquaintances smirked, saying, "It's all romance ahead for you!" Oh, how boring!
One day, the party host approached Mylène and introduced her to Laurent Boutonnat, a filmmaker. "He also wrote a song and is looking for a girl who could star in his music video. He needs someone like you. Well, not from this world..." Mylène looked gloomily at the tall guy standing next to her - compared to her, small and thin, Laurent seemed like a giant - and grumbled, "I can't sing." "You don't have to, I'll teach you," Boutonnat shrugged. And they left the party together.
She liked his music. Plus, Laurent offered her the only remedy he believed in for boredom - creativity. "Creativity" was a word that Laurent repeated every minute. He was always creating, so he was never bored. He made his first film, "Bambi," at the age of ten, and the second one at seventeen, which was bolder than the first. "The Ballad of Fertility" was shown in theaters where "children under eighteen were not allowed," so Laurent couldn't even attend his own premiere. How he shocked everyone back then! Now, of course, he couldn't make films, but he started composing music. So if Mylène agreed to create with him, they would make waves among all those conventional people!
At first, Mylène understood only one thing - she had met a man who found living so interesting that his enthusiasm would surely rub off on her. It didn't take long for her to start worrying about not disappointing Laurent - what if it turned out that she really couldn't sing? But she sang.
Her lily-like voice, tangled chestnut locks, sensual mouth, and shameless eyes on the verge of tears. Mylène sang a strange nursery rhyme called "Mama Doesn't Understand" - not about childhood disobedience, but about unrequited love. France of the 80s responded to the arrival of this new singer with unprecedented enthusiasm. Respectable family men, secretly obsessed with Lolitas, stared at the screens with wide-eyed amazement. But her own mother did not respond to her "calling" - it was not in their family's tradition to reveal their souls. In every interview, with a smile, Mylène repeated, "Alas, I have no idea what my parents think of my songs. But someday I will ask them."
She learned to hide her melancholy from childhood. Partly because she knew that people like those who are cheerful, joyful, and energetic. And if you are feeling sad, if you don't smile, then something must be wrong with you... Now she confesses to Laurent: "You know, I love to be sad, even when it becomes painful. I love my tears. Believe me, sadness is as rich an emotion as joy."
When she undressed in front of him for the first time, Laurent's gaze expressed not so much the admiration of a lover as the desire of an artist who had found his ideal model for his paintings. Laurent already imagined how the hot spotlight would caress her naked body on the film set. Being naked, she was perfect in the role of a doomed, disillusioned, and promiscuous woman: too fragile to arouse desire, too sinful to be holy. At Laurent's insistence, Mylène dyed her hair red, the same color as her mother's - a pale angelic face framed by devilish flames. A spitting image of Marguerite: give her some mistletoe, and she'll fly. If, of course, Laurent wants her to...
He insisted that Mylène should continue writing poetry. The lines she composed became his own - after fermenting like young wine, they turned into his songs. Mylène sang them as if she were counting rosary beads - with a ghostly, otherworldly voice. "I'm a whore, I'm a loose woman, I'm so fragile, hold my hand..." resounded the strange, melodic recitation.
She told him about her love for Canada, where she spent her childhood while her father was building a dam on the Michigan lakes. How, upon returning to Paris, she grew to despise French passion in contrast to the northern coldness. How, gazing at the warm blue sea, she longed for the frozen expanses. And Laurent composed "Tristana" for Mylène - a terrifying tale about snowy Russia: her warm eyes were filled with sharp snowflakes, her hair sparkled with frost. "I want my winter... I feel so lonely" - the words resonated and burned like ice.
She confided in him about her childhood fear of old age. Laurent weaved an image of an old woman, and her face, covered in deep wrinkles, twisted in horror at her own reflection. To make matters worse, spiderwebs covered her elderly face - Laurent knew she was disgusted by spiders.
With her first music video, Mylène immediately entered the charts. "There will always be people who feel uncomfortable in this world. That's who I sing for," she says with confusion. A couple of years passed, and Mylène sang, "Let Me Be Myself." The press responded with a gallant bow: "The first singer in France is allowed anything!" Laurent, on the other hand, remained in the shadows, unknown to the wide public. However, it was enough for him to know that Mylène, now known as the French Madonna, was his creation.
Every day, her every move was under Laurent's watchful eye. She couldn't hide a single thought from him. Sometimes it even seemed like he knew her new lyrics before she wrote them. The day belonged entirely to work, and they talked about songs constantly: over breakfast, in the car while rushing to a shoot, on the side of the road while getting fined for speeding. And at night... sex provokes thoughts and images that could also be useful - her body's curves and the feverish sparkle in her eyes, the moan that Laurent would surely insert into a new music video. Sex might not always be successful, but a new song - never!
Mylène devoted all her energy and sexuality to her audience, not her lover. But Laurent was perfectly fine with that - after all, she gave herself according to his will.
Their union lasted five years, and they loved each other. But Mylène was starting to tire. Not from work, but from the image imposed on her by Laurent. He kept her in dark, poetic moods, like in a black cocoon. When they first met, Mylène was going through adolescent depression, and melancholy suited her. But how could she explain to Laurent that his music appealed to her less and less?! Couldn't he see that the hopeless look of a trapped girl had disappeared, and that Laurent had created in her a woman who simply wanted to live and be happy? But any attempt by Mylène to change herself would be perceived by Laurent as betrayal. Journalists, as usual, asked her about her love for their common romantic idols - Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. And Laurent smiled - mockingly and maliciously. After all, he knew that unlike him, Mylène was reading these dark books less and less.
"Do you want something new? Then put on a show, darling!" he suggested one beautiful day. Mylène panicked. Until now, she had only appeared in front of audiences on screen. She was scared of the stage, even though she had studied at a theater school and even played a few roles. Mylène shivered at the thought of the inevitable booing she would receive from the audience. And who would protect her? Laurent couldn't remove an unsuccessful gesture or rewrite her voice cracking... Mylène felt like a little girl abandoned to the cruel and mocking world. Clinging to Laurent and holding her breath, she stood in the half-darkness behind the stage, listening to the audience. France was eagerly waiting for Mylène Farmer's first show, a sold-out... Terrifying! Laurent, unperturbed, knew what to do. He grabbed Mylène by the arm and pushed her onto the stage...
Within a week, 75,000 people watched the show - an unprecedented success for a debut concert. But every time she left the stage, Mylène felt a complete emptiness. Silver, gold, diamond disks - awards for her black despair, into which she was sinking again. And Laurent still believed that emotional pain guaranteed inspiration. It would come in handy for Mylène very soon. It was time to make a big movie...
How he dreamed of making movies! In fact, he got into making music videos just for the sake of making movies, and he became interested in Mylène solely because of the videos. The preparation for filming "Giorgino" took four years. For four years, they talked about the film only with each other and occasionally with a select few - Laurent was very superstitious and believed that outsiders could interfere with the realization of his dream. At the ceremony in Monte Carlo, where Mylène was awarded the "World Music Award," Laurent kept scanning the room - he needed an actor for the lead male role.
The actor was found in America. Jeff Dahlgren was also a musician. According to the script, his character fell in love with Mylène's character. As the shooting progressed, Mylène fell in love with Jeff. Their secret affair developed rapidly, but Laurent only saw his own reflection in Mylène's eyes and refused to notice her pale face, swollen from extended kisses. "Madam," he said to the make-up artist, "do something about Mademoiselle Farmer's face, her makeup is too vulgar..."
A big film requires big publicity, and Mylène had to give endless interviews.
- Did you enjoy shooting the film?
- Oh yes... Especially when Laurent made me run in a tight dress through deep snow in twenty-degree frost.
- How important is this film to you?
- I got what I wanted - I acted in a movie...
With Laurent's unfaithful wife, he lacked both time and passion to resolve their relationship. Passion... By the time "Giorgino" premiered, they had been together for ten years. Laurent, in his own way, saw it as a victory, but Mylène couldn't see past their shared failure. Her fingers got stuck together when she picked up a piece of camembert, and she disgustedly waved her hand, knocking over her glass. Her own clumsiness triggered her rage, but Laurent didn't even raise an eyebrow. As usual, he chose not to notice her moods. Mylène found herself in a fit of rage, to be treated like a whimsical wife and not a capricious lover in Laurent's fantasies. The wine was still spreading across the tablecloth, but Mylène was already speeding down the highway as far as her eyes could see.
A few days later, she fled from Laurent and from their shared failure (he, for some reason, regarded it as a victory) to Los Angeles... To be with Jeff, there's no point in hiding it! Mylène, who despised the sun, was ready to cover herself in freckles from head to toe. Far away from gloomy, damp Paris and the music that clung to Laurent's heart! To disappear in a crowd of smiling Americans, to experience their standard happiness, secured by a personal bank account and a therapist.
However, money didn't concern her, and she simply hated psychoanalysts, whom she had been advised to see. She knew perfectly well that all her complexes and fears stemmed from her childhood. Laurent exclaimed, "When I saw you, I immediately decided that your father must have raped you as a child..."
Laurent, Laurent, Laurent! To hell with Laurent! Why does she keep thinking about him when Jeff is right there with her? Mylène sat at a table in a Japanese restaurant, ordered her favorite sushi, and, twirling the chopsticks in her hands, tried to convince herself, "I have a new life, I have a new lover, I will have new songs... and my ensemble is missing a bass guitar! That will be a surprise for refined Boutonnat!" Mylène laughed. It was particularly easy to laugh in the States. Maybe because nobody recognized her here, or maybe because Jeff was with her, not Laurent.
She threw herself into working on a new album and shooting new music videos. In Europe, nobody even noticed that Laurent was no longer by her side. Being free, Mylène happily began to experiment: hip-hop rhythms and Jeff's guitar riffs transformed Boutonnat's music beyond recognition. And director Marcus Nispel, who made several of her videos in a row, thoroughly transformed her as well, turning Mylène into a standard sex symbol, provocatively posing in front of the camera. There was nothing to act in his videos, but she not only wasn't upset about it, she was even happy. For the first time in her life, work didn't require any effort from her - it was just a cute, fun pastime. Traveling across half of America with Jeff, Mylène marveled at how her perception of the world had changed - she still painted her beloved watercolors, but less often reaching for burgundy, purple, and black tones, and more often for yellow, blue, and emerald. The day came when Mylène Farmer announced, "I have become someone else. All because a person entered my life who pulled me by the ears from a dark dungeon to a bright meadow. And now I want to give the audience something new."
