“Chip Chip” is Frédéric Chopin’s nickname, given to him by his nine-year-old companion, the writer George Sand. It is also the title of the documentary film that Richard Desjardins dedicates to the composer who has accompanied him since his early childhood.
What if Chopin had sown the seeds of jazz? The question arises about Beethoven and the boogie-woogie rhythm of the 3rd Arietta Variation of his 32nd Sonata. When Richard Desjardins sits down next to Charles Richard-Hamelin, 2nd prize at the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and subtly emphasizes certain harmonies in the chords of a Nocturne and then moves on to Herbie Hancock, we hardly doubt it.
intermediary
“I met musicians from all walks of life, including country music. People know the name Chopin, but that’s all. That’s what I wanted to represent: the existence of this music and this man; the richness of this music. In my opinion, such complex music is no longer being composed today. Hence the hypothesis raised in the film that one of the origins of jazz was Chopin. It’s a wealth in itself and it’s a shame it’s not more widely available. »
Richard Desjardins is aware of his role as a mediator while the forums for so-called classical music are gradually closing. “Music is accessible and appeals to everyone. I came into contact with classical music after studying it for several years. But the audience that attends the concert is not crowded because people do not make the connection between the existence of this music, which dates back one, two or three centuries, and its influence on the music that followed in the West. »
Richard Desjardins reveled in the first signs of wonder in the country in which he was born: “I presented the film in two places in Abitibi and more than once the comment was: “Cudonc, what do we see in the film when it takes place ? it is at real speed?’ Uh yes! »
Richard Desjardins’ documentary film about Chopin was announced in 2018. “I always made documentaries with my friend Robert Monderie about the management of natural resources, the forest, in my region in Abitibi.” [L’erreur boréale, 1999]The mines [Trou story, 2011]. We also discussed the indigenous issue [Le peuple invisible, 2007]. Robert decided he had had enough. I couldn’t imagine making a film without him. The producer Sylvie Van Brabant asked me: “Don’t you have anything to offer?” And then, I don’t know what came over me, I put it on the table as an idea, wrote a text and, to my great surprise, it was accepted. Chopin, I could do it on my own, think it, realize it with my own means. »
admiration
In the film, Richard Desjardins goes back to his younger years when his mother would play him Chopin works at the piano, while the workers would sometimes stop when they returned from work to hear a few notes. “Maybe some were of Polish origin,” the songwriter and documentary filmmaker wonders in the film.
This composer, whom he “always observed, but without any particular expectations of working on him,” followed Desjardins in his footsteps to Warsaw, Paris and Nohant, where he met several musicologists and several historians. When he wants to express an idea musically, he has a sober and perfect guide at his side in Charles Richard-Hamelin.
Richard Desjardins, an admirer in particular of Martha Argerich and the two piano concertos, accepts this approach, which has no other aim than to illuminate the journey and the work with warmth, closeness and charisma, as an expression of a strong familiarity with the musician. “In the long run, I also realized that what exists on the Internet for the public was not what I imagined this man to be. There are films that are a bit cheesy, even if I consider him a man of great modesty, for reasons that I have tried to explore without finding anything. »
The creation of Chip Chip was interrupted by the pandemic: “The reason it took five years and 52 minutes is because there were problems!” summarizes Richard Desjardins. The film was finally completed this summer.
But at the end of 2020, a comprehensive study by Swiss Radio-Television, signed by Moritz Weber, broke the taboo and revealed Chopin’s homosexuality and the various reasons why it was kept secret for so long. The great love of his life was the pianist Tytus Woyciechowski and he lived in Paris for two consecutive years with Jan Matuszyński, flautist, and then with Julian Fontana, pianist and copyist. In his film, Desjardins unreservedly immortalizes the idea of the supposed but undocumented idyll of the young Chopin with Konstancja Gładkowska and then Maria Wodzińska.
Talking about his sexuality was out of the question because he never talked about it
“There was no question of talking about his sexuality because he never talked about it. He lived for several years with George Sand, who had a truly extraordinary open sexuality for the time and said: “God created good so that we could taste it.” George Sand sometimes complained about his carnal love affairs with Chopin. But we could only derive approximations from this and I therefore did not want to go into this dimension, which does not belong to me. »
It doesn’t matter whether the second movement of Chopin’s second concerto was composed with Konstancja or Tytus in mind. On the other hand, many of the pains and tensions felt in the work or in the harmonies, which are attributed to Chopin’s fragile health, are perhaps (Nocturne op. 48 No. 1, Nocturne in sharp minor, posthumous opus) an expression of an inner suffering and an even greater misfortune , which, like Tchaikovsky, had no other means of expression than music.
chip chip. Chopin by Desjardins
Documentary, 2023, 52 minutes. Screenplay, direction and narration: Richard Desjardins. Producers: Amélie Lambert Bouchard and Sylvie Van Brabant. Production: Rapide Blanc. At the New Cinema Festival, Friday October 13th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Cinema Impérial, in the presence of the director and Charles Richard-Hamelin. At Doc Humanity, Saturday, October 14, 2023, at 10:30 p.m. on ICI Télé.