After we talked about chansons (in articles French music for the days of Corona And when Boris and Yann, Charles Aznavour and other friends meet during the Corona period), about food (inArticle about whipped cream) and even on French electronic musicThe time has come to talk about French cinema. For this purpose, Miriam Adri, the owner of Experience Paris like a Parisian And Sabin Yakubovich Lecturer in French culture And invited to the program David Burstein (David Bursztein).
For those who don't know David, he is a Jewish theater and film actor and singer, who was born in Belgium and has starred in quite a few hits of French cinema. In the article you will see, you will hear from him quite a few interesting things about the French cinema and theater of the past and how he thinks they will deal with the Corona. As always, expansions and additional information on the topics raised in the article can be found below immediately after it.
David Burstein's career
What characterizes David Burstein's career is the combination of classical repertoire (Molière, Racine and even Shakespeare) and starring in some of the most modern films of his time.
David Borstein's theater career began in Grenoble in 1984. From there he moved on to act at the Comédie Française, the Odeon Theater (the elite of theaters in Paris) and at the Avignon Festival. One of his most important collaborations was with the great director Georges Lavaudant, who offered him the lead role in Shakespeare's Richard III at the Avignon Festival. Over the next 15 years, the two collaborated on quite a few plays all over the world. France.
In parallel with a very respectable career in the theater, David began acting in films and achieved many achievements there as well. Jacques Rivette, one of the greatest directors of the “New Wave”, offered him a role in his famous film La Belle noiseuse, which also starred the actress/singer Jane Birkin (Serge Gainsbourg's ex-wife) and Michel Piccoli.
Those interested in watching the film can find its remastered and complete version here:
https://youtu.be/2L6K-at9V7k
David's career continued in both theater and film until about five years ago. However, the constant pressure and ego wars of a film career caused him to think twice about five years ago and retire (even temporarily) to the village and devote himself to his family and children. However, a man whose entire professional life was lived on the stage could not leave it completely and he decided to return to it, but this time as a singer.
One of David's favorite roles is that of Mackie the Knifeman from Bertolt Brecht's musical "The Penny Opera." Here's a short video of him singing the most famous song from that musical (in French, of course):
One of the most interesting projects that David Burstein has worked on is the show Welt, based on the world of Eastern European Jews that he absorbed from his grandmother's house (as can be understood from his family name, he is of Ashkenazi origin). His goal here was to expose the French to the richness of Jewish culture, and you are invited to see a small part of the show here:
After the Jewish/Yiddish project, David decided to make another change and created the band Life is not a picnic. This is a band that mixes completely different languages and musical traditions, with each song telling us a different story. You will find jazz music, gypsy music, French And so on and so forth. A real kind of world trip without leaving home.
Another very interesting project that David Burstein is currently working on is creating songs based on the testimonies of victims of the long-standing conflict in Colombia. To this end, he traveled there several times and reached the villages, spoke with the residents, and then collaboratively created songs based on this testimonies.
And we will end the article with the classical French theater, where David Burstein's career began, by asking Sabine what is the quality that David appreciates most in Cyrano de Bergerac. According to David, the two qualities he admires most are the distance that the character takes in combination with his playful humor. These two qualities allow him to look far and reach new places, and if we can summarize David's career so far, we can definitely say that it is characterized by constant innovation.
Really great, thank you ♥️