Word: divas
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...Accompanist" is not a typical World War II flick. Though what action there is takes place in occupied France and war-torn London, reference to international conflicts serve only to illuminate the nature of individual characters. Focusing on Irene Brice (Elena Safonova), a diva on the brink of universal success, her husband Charles (Richard Bohringer), and her impoverished accompanist, Sophie Vasseur (Romane Bohringer), the movie--through lighting, facial close-ups, music, and symbols--studies personalities, not history...
This initial scene established both the tone and symbolism of the movie. Sophie, whom Irene hires, and who becomes the diva's personal maid as well as accompanist, is shown always in shadow, often in transit, and frequently on staircases. Indeed, her nondescript character becomes almost obtrusive in the film. Irene, by contrast, is invariably in the spotlight, observed not her elusive lover, Jacques (Samuel Labarthe). While Sophie is famished and shabbily dressed, a perpetual onlooker, Irene, the consummate actress, is adorned with smiles and the white dress she will wear in performance throughout the movie. Though the characters appears...
...husband to secure their happiness together. The other principled characters is Benoit Weizman, a young Jewish communist and aspiring Resistance fighter whom Sophie meets when travelling from Portugal to London. These who characters and their relationships with Irene and Sophie respectively, illuminate both affinities and distinctions between the diva and accompanist...
Another important aspect of the opera queen's personal identity is, according to Koestenbaum, his choice of one diva, "to reign in the opera queen's heart." Koestenbaum's particular choice, Anna Moffo, is an interesting one, and reflects the sort of unquestioning love that characterizes the opera queen. The fact that Moffo is not uniformly respected as a great artist in all opera circles merely contributes to his sense on loyalty. It is the fallibility of the diva, the tension between her polished star exterior and the human being beneath, that ensures her appeal. Divas are subject as well...
...diva in particular, Maria Callas, is given an entire chapter. "The Callas Cult" discusses what Koestenbaum admits is a gay phenomenon much larger than that of the opera queen. Her life (more, specifically, her affair with Aristotle Onassis) assumed tabloid proportions; she was mainstream enough to be mentioned in Marilyn Monroe movies; and her personality, both bitchy and warm in practically the same instant, is well reputed. He life, in short, was an opera unto itself. In the interview, Koestenbaum agrees that the dead Callas seems even more of a cultural power than she did while she was alive...