My Way

A childhood in Egypt, emigration to France, a career that begins behind a drum kit, and a man who wants to control everything on stage. The film follows Claude François from childhood to his death in 1978. It is not interested in the songs. It is interested in obsessive control: François runs the rehearsal, the dancers, the lighting, his own body and the people around him with the same rigidity. The film does not make him likeable; the price of his success is always paid by somebody else. The form is large-scale musical biography: period design, stage numbers and tour montages. The real detail at its centre is the journey of one song: Comme d'habitude, which François wrote with Jacques Revaux, was later given English lyrics as My Way and became Frank Sinatra's signature tune. That is where the film's international title comes from. François died at thirty-nine, electrocuted at home. Jérémie Renier takes the lead and trained intensively in singing and dancing for five months, having done neither before. Florent-Emilio Siri directed, with Benoît Magimel in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like music biography and are curious about French pop culture of the sixties. Who it is not for: anyone who wants to sympathise with the subject. The film does not hide how controlling and at times cruel François was, and it runs close to two and a half hours.