Only a few more days to vote in the ABC Classic FM Classic 100: Music in the Movies.  And I’ve another suggestion to make… Gabriel Yared’s soundtrack to the film Betty Blue. I love this soundtrack so much, I recorded this track from it C’est le Vent, Betty.  And I wrote about why I made this choice in the digital booklet for the album….

“It’s all about the choices we make, isn’t it?  Someone who made consistently pretty bad choices would be Betty (Béatrice Dalle) of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1986 film Betty Blue.  I’m sure that many of us imagine ourselves reacting to bad news in the extreme.  Just think how good it would feel to punch that boss you hate square in the face, abuse that unfaithful ex-boyfriend/girlfriend in front of their current flame, rip out the vocal folds of those hideous screaming kids next door.  Of course you would never ever act upon these crazy fantasies, but this is where you differ from Betty.  Suffering from an unspecified mental illness, she has no filtering mechanism between appropriate reactions and dangerously inappropriate reactions.  However, she also has moments of genuine fond connection with her long suffering boyfriend Zorg; the piano duet they play, C’est le Vent, is such a moment.  Pity they had to have this moment in the piano shop in the middle of the night, disturbing the neighbours.”

So excited to be performing this program for Perth International Arts Festival in Albany WA next week. I often enjoy performing in smaller towns more than in the big cities - there’s a friendliness in close communities that you so rarely find in the big smoke.

The piano shop scene from Betty Blue, music my Gabriel Yared.

I love this scene!! But the commercially available arrangement of this piece of music is pretty woeful.  Only a couple of weeks out from recording the damn thing, and I’ve decided I need to rearrange it completely.  Typical me, always the hard way :s

C’est le Vent, Betty by Gabriel Yared from the film Betty Blue.

In the meeting yesterday, Martin (my producer) and I discussed this film. I had a sudden memory of a girl I knew when I was studying at the Sydney Conservatorium.  Her name was Betty and she was similarly chaotic… I remember once seeing her hop onto the back of a motorbike with a questionable looking fellow.  She wasn’t wearing a helmet. I often wonder if she’s actually still alive.