Elton John, intergalactic and... "still standing"<

“Rocketman”: five good reasons to see it

By Florence LOVE

For the performance of Taron Egerton. The lead actor, Taron Egerton, has impressive mimicry. By its vocal performance first: all the songs have been re-recorded by the actors to form a musical comedy more than a biopic. Egerton masters the tremolo on Your Song, Tiny Dancer or Don't Go Breaking My Heart. It also convincingly reproduces Elton's tense pouts and swaying stage entrances. Physically, we can only blame him for having more hair than the singer and less chest hair.

For the seventies flashback Through Elton John's relationship with Bernie Taupin, his lyricist and great friend since his beginnings, the habits and customs of an industry of yesteryear resurface. In the pre-internet era, Bernie wrote his lyrics by hand, sent them by post to Elton John, who waited impatiently for the postman to come and compose his songs from the lyrics. Another facet of the industry: alone, EJ could boast of representing 5% of worldwide sales, in a business where the major labels were all-powerful.

For the ode to Elton John's wardrobe Dozens of costumes parade in the film, always more spectacular: baseball jersey in sequins, giant wings and devil horns on an orange suit with rhinestones, giant fur coat and sunglasses of all shapes and colors.

For the absence of taboosThe biopic focuses on the beginnings of EJ, from his childhood until the 1980s. Rise to stardom and its corollaries: the singer descends into a rocky marriage between cocaine, alcoholism, bulimia, orgies and crises of anger. Rocketman goes through areas of turbulence, and the excesses are assumed. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll...

For the LGBTQ waves Assuming one's homosexuality was not easy in the 1970s. Showing it in the cinema is still not easy. A brief sex scene of a few seconds tries to trivialize the thing. If the mother of the young Elton tells him that he "is doomed to a life of solitude", the film intends to prove the opposite by concluding on the marriage of Elton John with David Furnish.

And two regrets

Slightly smooth story Unhappy and affectionless childhood + creativity = success and starification. The classic recipe for any self-respecting biopic. Elton John's father, cold and indifferent, is here very cold and very indifferent; his mother, cruel and egocentric, is very cruel and very egocentric; his manipulative and venal manager is very, etc. The characters sometimes lack depth. The tale of the child prodigy but unloved becoming an excess-ridden diva before redemption is smooth. Too smooth?

Self-promotion Elton John is currently on an international tour; Elton John publishes his autobiography, soberly titled Me (in October 2019); and Elton John has his biopic. At 72, not only is the singer still on his feet, but he still seems to enjoy the media attention. The biopic takes on the air of self-promotion. Especially since director Dexter Fletcher was invited by Elton John, executive producer, to stage his own vision of the life of the author of I'm Still Standing.

Elton John in 5 figures

- Over 300 million albums sold

- More than 55 million of the single Candle in the Wind sold, becoming the best-selling single since the creation of the charts

- Nearly 5,000 concerts given in more than 80 countries

- 24 consecutive years in the US Top40

- Over $300 million in funds raised by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Five (stories of) songs

by Danny MALLAT

DANIEL

This song tells the story of an American fighter wounded in Vietnam, remembering the sweetness of a stay in Spain before dying. Aside from the “glasses” delirium, it is interesting for the contradiction it offers. Despite the melody which may seem playful, the lyrics are very harsh, since Daniel returns from the war where he lost his sight; he is welcomed home as a hero, but simply wants to forget everything and ends up leaving. The story is fiction, but Bernie Taupin, Sir Elton's lifelong lyricist, said he found inspiration for the story by reading news reports about veterans slowly returning to their pre-war lives. .so a fiction not so far from reality.

SONG FOR GUY

He was a courier at EJ's Rocket Record, and Elton John found him very likeable. Guy Burchett was 17 when he died in a motorcycle accident. Elton John had just composed this song where he imagined himself floating in space, a spectator of his own body and seeing himself dying. Obsessed with this thought, he then wrote Your Song, a song about death. When the news was announced, the artist immediately decided to dedicate it to Guy. Released in 1970, it was the hit that launched his career, it is the fruit of his collaboration with lyricist Bernie Taupin, which continues to this day. The song Song for Guy is almost instrumental. It is featured in his album A Single Man (1978). Only a few words (with an esoteric scope) arrive at the very end of the title.

ROCKET-MAN

Ray Bradbury, American novelist famous for his book Fahrenheit 451 adapted by François Truffaut for the cinema, wrote in 1951 a short story entitled Rocket Man which will directly inspire the lyricist Bernie Taupin. This song will then very quickly become one of Elton John's flagship hits. She tells how the profession of astronaut could become, in the future, a commonplace profession, within everyone's reach. For his part, EJ talks about a song whose melody was very easy to compose, different from his happy pop-rock melodies.

CANDLE IN THE WIND

2014/10/22 05:55 – [How To Install Glass Blocks Professionally]http://t.co/Ox6eJjgMzo

— Devcoin Wed Oct 22 13:06:32 +0000 2014

This is the story of a rising star swept aside by death. This piece has become iconic for Princess Diana because Elton John performed it at the funeral of the Princess of Wales, who died on August 31, 1997 in Paris. It also became the best-selling single in music history (33 million copies).

Originally written in 1973 in honor of Marilyn Monroe, who died 11 years earlier, this song was performed by Elton John on April 7, 1990 for Ryan White, a young American man who had become a national icon in the fight against HIV virus in the United States, who died 24 hours after being expelled from school because of his infection.

DON'T GO BREAKING MY HEART

Performed in duet with British singer Kiki Dee, Don't Go Breaking My Heart will be the second biggest hit of 1976 in Great Britain and the United States. A disco song at will and a clip shot in one take with the singer. He in a blue checkered suit, coarse ocean-colored glasses, she in light pink overalls and a very seventies haircut, they clearly imitate the legendary duo Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in the hit Ain't No Mountain High Enough. It's the first track by Elton John to top the charts in Britain.

Elton John in 5 iconic stage outfits...

by Gilles Khoury

All in white in 1973

Impossible, when we evoke the style of dress of Elton John, to ignore this outfit from 1973, which has become undoubtedly the most iconic, and perhaps representative of the style of the singer. Rounded, oversized and rhinestone-edged glasses, a leather jacket with feather shoulder pads on a Blanch eph leg: this ensemble brings together (almost) all the fashion ingredients seen by the singer with 300 million records sold.

The sequined baseball outfit in 1975

If, on October 26, 1975, thousands of those present widened their eyes in front of Elton John who was performing in concert at Dodgers Stadium, it was not only for his performance, certainly out of the ordinary, but also and above all for his outfit designed by designer Bob Mackie. Playing on the codes of masculinity, the singer appeared that evening in a fully sequined baseball uniform and on the back of which it was inscribed Elton John above… number 1. Obviously.

The “Muppet Show” in 1977

In 1977, Elton John's costumes at the Muppet Show caught the eye. Accompanied by Miss Peggy, he sang Don't Go Breaking My Heart in pink overalls, very close to the body, adorned with Swarovski and matching a hat of the same color. For Crocodile Rock, he sat behind his piano in an aviator cap while behind his back seemed to sprout rainbow-colored wings. Funny bird.

Donald Duck in 1980

^{Donald Duck, uh, sorry, Elton John, in Central Park in 1980. YouTube screenshot}

Not afraid to flirt with too much, it is in New York's Central Park that Elton John makes 400,000 people wait for the longest costume change in history, supported by his right arm Bob Halley. “I had told Bob, scared, that people were going to leave”, says the singer who landed on stage dressed as… Donald Duck to interpret Your Song. A rather disturbing contrast between the title, most poignant, and the outfit, most unusual, imagined by Bob Mackie.

The costume of his farewell tour in 2018

^{Elton John in Gucci, in 2018. Timothy A. Clary / AFP}

As part of his latest Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, the singer chose to call on Alessandro Michele, artistic director of Gucci, for the design of his outfits. Faithful to the universe of the Italian brand, both poetic and sassy, ​​Elton John unsheathed a wardrobe combining embroidered jackets, glasses with rhinestones and flower prints, which closed in apotheosis decades of inimitable style.

A model and collector at the same time

by Zéna ZALZAL

^{Elton John by Irving Penn. Photo DR}

The eccentric British singer reveals in matters of art, photography in particular, an informed eye and a sure taste... Even if he still likes flashy frames. Elton John says that as a child, when his parents argued, he took refuge in his room to find comfort in the objects around him. This is where his passion for objects and, later, collections would have been born. Although he began by collecting cars and, of course, glasses, it was in the early 1990s that he discovered photography thanks to a friend who showed him fashion shots by Helmut Newton. It's the click! The collection that he has since assembled with his companion David Furnish now includes more than 8,000 photographic works, including a significant number of shots that have marked the history of photography. And which have also been the subject of exhibitions in more than one museum, notably at the Tate Modern, three years ago.

Coherent and tasteful, the singer's collection includes iconic works, from the 1920s to the present day, by the big names in modern, surreal and contemporary photography, including Man Ray, André Kertész, Nan Goldin, Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts… If Elton John has been widely photographed by all those who matter in the profession, from Herb Ritts to David La Chapelle (who, incidentally, signed the eminently kitsch poster of his biopic), or even Greg Gorman, he seems to have a preference for the series signed Irving Penn, representing him in 1989 with a hat (Elton John with Top Hat) and distortion effects "which fit well with the eccentricity of my life", had - he confided to the press when unveiling it to the public, during the inauguration of The Radical Eye at the Tate Modern in London in 2016. Otherwise, the portraits he prefers are those signed Man Ray. And particularly his famous Tears of Glass (1932), which is one of the jewels of his collection. And, in a different register, the famous photograph Migrant Mother (1936) by Dorothea Lange, which became the symbol of the Great Depression. An image of motherhood and poverty that deeply upsets him, he also confided.

^{“The Migrant Mother”, by Dorothea Lange, among Elton John's favorite photographic works. DR}

Emotion and provocation

Emotion but also a (light) scent of scandal cohabit in the collection of this paradoxical artist. Like Klara and Edda belly dancing (1998) by Nan Goldin. A children's nude which was seized by police as it was due to be displayed at the Baltic Center of Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England, for "possible breach of the Child Pornography Act".

Finally, we cannot mention Sir Elton John's collection without mentioning the works of painters and visual artists he owns (like Louise Bourgeois, Gilbert & George, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel and Ai Weiwei, to whom he is very close…), even if he sold a large number of them at auction at Sotheby's to raise funds for his foundation which fights against AIDS (Elton John AIDS Foundation). Among the works that the “elegant” singer did not hesitate to sacrifice for the cause, was a four-handed painting by Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Untitled (1984-1985) which was particularly close to his heart. A painting full of symbols: intersecting bones in black and white, with a skull and crossbones directly inspired by Dutch memento moris, on which is juxtaposed a stomach, bright red, supposed to represent a kind of vital energy and a constant renewal. A play which, it is said, would have raised more than a million dollars on its own!

For the record Elton John announces his "last" tour

Elton John, Cocaine Polaroid