Having seen this as well as the weaker "Florence Foster Jenkins," I'm still not clear on what made Marguerite/FFJ so clueless about the quality of her voice. Was she really that naive, and was the audience that polite and subtle in their response?
It actually remains a bit of a mystery if FFJ was really so delusional or if she was (to some degree) aware of her limits and went along with the whole thing since it made her quite a character. To my knowledge, it was never officially stated that she suffered from any sort of mental disorder. "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing" were not dying words as they are in Frears' movie, but were said in a past occasion: that would discard the theory that she was completely clueless about people's perception of her singing. She really died of a heart attack a few days after the Carnagie Hall performance, so some mental stress caused by the critical reaction may have weighed on it: it remains to be seen if she truly lived it as a bolt from the blue or not.
Both "Florence Foster Jenkins" and "Marguerite" choose however to portray Florence/Marguerite as utterly convinced of her talent: in one case, syphilis may have altered her hearing, so the perception of her singing; in the other, she appears to be deluding herself to the point that she appears to suffer of a case of isolation from reality (after she's hospitalized, the doctor clearly states that she's raving).
I do not need to hear a recording of my voice to realize I cannot sing at all, but in this film that's what it took for Marguerite to get the message.
Well, we never actually have a clear perception of our voice until we hear it recorded, if you think about it. Nor about our physical appearance, since mirrors deform it. I know most people are a bit shocked (usually in a negative way) when they see or hear any kind of recording of themselves. Of course, a person in a right state of mind can hear if he/she's singing out of tune, or not. But in Marguerite's delusional state, furtherly weakened once she's been hospitalized, I can see how the shock might be more devastating than it would be a lucid person. Or at least I guess.
At least the tone of this film feels much more appropriate than the American comedy with the inevitable downbeat ending.
Agreed. Even if they respected history, they seemed to go for a bittersweet ending that felt too convenient and obliging. Marguerite's chilling ending better reflects the sadness of the story.
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