Carmen a go-go

>> Montreal jazz singer Stéphanie Biddle stars in Karmen, a new retelling of the classic story

by MATTHEW HAYS

Karmen, the latest film version of the classic French story, has one of the most striking opening sequences I’ve seen, ever. Set in a Goree prison, the film has Jeinaba Diop Gai as Karmen, dancing up a storm in the prison grounds. Her ploy is to seduce the prison governor in order to bust out of jail. And she does just that, rocking the governor with rhythms and a dance number that’s both contagious and hypnotic.

The catch is that filmmaker Joseph Gai Ramaka has cast Montreal jazz chanteuse extraordinaire Stéphanie Biddle as the prison governor. In other words, this Karmen is bisexual and the first victim of her charms is a lesbian prison matron.

“This is a 21st-century Carmen, for sure,” says Biddle, sitting down to discuss the film in the tony Hotel St. Paul in Old Montreal. “I guess some will find it a bit of a shocker. The filmmakers clearly decided to open with a show stopper.” Indeed, and the programmers of the 18th annual Vues d’Afrique film festival also decided to open with a show stopper, choosing Karmen to kick off this year’s festivities. For the festival, this is a coup. While Karmen has received some mixed reviews on the fest circuit, it is without a doubt a gutsy, edgy retelling of the Prosper Mérimée story. George Bizet’s opera is undoubtedly what gave the tale its biggest shot in the arm, but film versions have abounded ever since (even Charlie Chaplin got into the game once and there was also—believe it or not—a Carmen on Ice). In Ramaka’s story, the film is set amid African urban chaos, political unrest and Karmen’s decidedly bisexual persuasion. As well as a cocky reworking of the story by Ramaka, the film’s stunning cinematography (by Bertrand Chatry) and the film’s rousing musical numbers, make the film a pretty forceful cinematic experience.

Perfectly prisonly

“It was quite the experience,” says Biddle, of the making of the film. “I landed the role because I had all the assets. I’m very tall. Jeinaba is 6 foot 1, so they needed someone tall, for sure. And I’m 5 foot 11, and I’m muscular, so they felt I could be director of the prison.”
Karmen calls for a love scene between the two women, but Biddle said she didn’t find that so daunting. More difficult was learning the African dancing she had to for the film’s opening sequence. “They flew me in 10 days in advance of the shoot to teach me. During the rehearsal I was learning to one drum. But then when we were shooting there were 25 drummers. It’s like when you go to a rave party and the beat goes right through you. I was in a trance. At one point, I had to get them to stop shooting so I could get ahold of myself.”
And the nude, girl-on-girl love scene? “It seemed appropriate within the script. My dad [legendary Montreal jazz impresario Charlie Biddle] said, ‘All they want to do is see your ass!’ He was dead set against it. But I was a model for 15 years. Now that I’m in my thirties, well, I figure if someone wants to see my breasts, then whatever. As well, a lot of African women go topless because of the heat.”

Playing without clothes certainly didn’t leave Biddle without a sense of humour. “In the seduction scene, I sneak in when she’s sleeping. I snuck up behind her and then slapped her really hard on the ass and everyone burst out laughing. Everyone was so quiet and serious on the set that day, I decided to break things up a bit. It’s not like people had never seen any titties before.”

Discovering Africa

For Biddle, who has also appeared in films like The Bone Collector, The Moderns and The Whole Nine Yards, the Karmen experience also provided an opportunity to see Africa for the first time. “I fell in love with the place, and I’ve gone back there since to sing in a festival. I was struck by just how black people are there—I mean, everyone is jet black. I had never seen that kind of beauty before.”

Though Biddle now wears two hats—being both a jazz singer and actor—she notes that the two are feeding off of each other very nicely. After her turn in The Whole Nine Yards, the Bruce Willis vehicle that was shot in Montreal, a New York jazz producer caught her singing in the film. He contacted her right away and said he wanted to producer her next album. The result, Chance Encounters, features some of Biddle’s favourite jazz classics, including “Here’s to Life” and “Everything Must Change.” She’ll be launching the album during this summer’s Montreal Jazz Fest.

Biddle was pleased to see the breakthroughs for black actors that occurred at this year’s Oscar awards. But she says old habits die hard, and casting directors and filmmakers are still prone to stereotype and peg actors of minority colours. She still recalls a humiliating casting call, one in which she arrived on set for a commercial only to feel sorry she’d landed the part. “I arrived, and they handed me a bowl of fruit—to put on my head! I had to dance around the set wearing a bowl of fruit—can you believe it? But that’s what they often see when they see black. It was the same with the fashion modelling. You show up on set and they’ve got the fuchsias and yellows ready for you, because ‘no one else can wear those.’ After the fruit on head thing, my agent called and said, ‘Stéphanie, can you play the bongos?’ I said, ‘No, stop right there!’”

The kind of roles Biddle would like involve period films. “There aren’t a lot of great period roles for blacks in movies, in large part because it calls for us to simply be slaves. But the offspring of black Africans and the French were actually allowed to go back to France and allowed to live as dukes, or whatever their lineage was. It’s a little-known part of history. Alexandre Dumas was biracial. I think a story about one of these lives would make for a fascinating film.”

While acting is playing a bigger role in her schedule, Biddle returns to the topic of her first passion. “I think it’s harder to be a jazz singer. It’s great about Diana Krall, she’s really put jazz on the map again in such a big way. That’s encouraging for someone like me. I want to work to keep jazz alive. My father’s been doing that his whole life. I want to continue to do it.” :

Karmen screens as part of the 18th annual Vues D’Afrique Film Festival, which kicks off this Friday, April 19 and runs until April 27. For further festival information check their Web site (www.vuesdafrique.org) or phone 990-3201