Marianne Faithfull died in January last year at the age of 78, but before she left us she made a final film, Broken English, a docu-drama in which she looks back at her incredible life and long career. It certainly sounds like it takes a different approach to the standard career overview documentary. In the film, Tilda Swinton plays the leader of an organisation called The Ministry Of Not Forgetting, which plays the real Faithfull clips and excerpts from her life – from playing Ophelia in Tony Richardson’s film version of Hamlet, to footage of her singing As Tears Go By in 1965, to more recent material from this century.
In a Guardian feature, the directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard admit that they weren’t aficionados of the singer and in fact, prior to the project, didn’t know much about her at all: “We grew up only knowing that godawful lie about Marianne,” says Pollard, referring to that urban myth about the Redlands bust of 1967. “We weren’t fans of Marianne until much later, when lots of musicians we love were working with her: PJ Harvey, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, Metallica, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.”
Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, in which an old man listens back to recordings of his younger self, the pair decided to swipe the idea for Broken English. They pitched the idea to Faithfull and she went for it, despite the fact her health was precarious – she was suffering complications from Covid at the time. “When we were pulling from the archive, we worked hard to find clips of her that were not just saying the usual stuff,” Pollard says. “Her memory had been really screwed up by Covid. I think it was incredibly fortifying for her to meet this army of younger Mariannes who all proved to her this consistency of character, this strength of mind.”“(During the shooting) she actually got stronger”, she says. “She found a purpose again. The film seemed, oddly, like a scaffold. She began to climb up this thing and wanted to write new songs, perform something.”Because she was not well enough to sing, other artists, including Beth Orton and Courtney Love, were enlisted to vocalise her words. But miraculously, a year after shooting, Faithfull was well enough to record the closing song in the studio with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. “It was such a special moment,” remembers Forsyth, “seeing her in her natural environment with musicians she loved, all working together. It felt very special to be able to give her that towards the end of her life.”Broken English is set to be released on March 20.
