LFF 2025: Broken English: Marianne Faithfull
The late, very talented and mesmerising Marianne Faithfull would likely have hated to be remembered as a tragic figure. She proved herself to be an extremely strong and resilient woman who weathered the many and varied storms of her life with sanguine humour.
However, there is a tragedy about her which can’t be shied away from. Indeed, it’s one she commented on herself and is pronounced by Tilda Swinton in this genre defying film about her. It’s this: despite the many acclaimed albums (30 in total) she made, the films she acted in, the looks she set trends in, the ferocious way she fought and overcame addiction, illness (including cancer and covid), homelessness and career ups and downs, she has most often been and will invariably be described as ‘Mick Jagger’s girlfriend.’
Think of the ‘60s and Faithfull will turn up among the iconic images of that heady decade. Tousled blonde hair, short skirt, fringed coats and dripping in innate cool. Her husky, angelic voice singing the Jagger/ Richards’ song, As tears go by, is haunting in its plaintiveness. She was the convent school educated girl who ended up with The Rolling Stones and a cycle of hedonism and self destruction. From that the myth of the quintessential rock chick, the rockstar girlfriend grew and stuck to her like faded sequins she couldn’t shake off.
She rebuilt her life many times after her time with the Stones but the Jagger connection stayed alongside her, nipping at her ankles, even until her death in 2025 at the age of 78. The news reports called her a singer, song writer and actress but couldn’t resist rushing to ‘had a well publicised relationship with Mick Jagger,’ as their main angle.
Although it’s unfair to harp on about it, it would also be rewriting history to not comment on it because her initial fame rose, largely, from that relationship.
Arguably, her most memorable reinvention was with the 1979 album Broken English. She herself, declared it her masterpiece. Its best known track is the haunting opening number, The Ballad of Lucy Jordan but also includes a powerful version of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero and the controversial Broken English/Sister Morphine and Why d’ya do it?’
It seems apt that this hybrid documentary/feature film by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, about her life uses the title of that album. Faithfull was cosmopolitan but very English and though often battered against the hardest rocks never quite broken.
The filmmakers met Faithfull for three days when she was extremely ill and seeing this formidable woman being interviewed while hooked up to an oxygen tank is sad. But that astonishing personality still shines through.
Faithfull is joined in the film by a number of artists including Nick Cave with whom she offers her last, heartbreaking musical performance.
Courtney Love, Suki Waterhouse, Beth Orton and various commentators appear as themselves to discuss Marianne’s life but in a fictional setting called The Ministry of Not Forgetting. The Ministry been described as an Orwellian organisation headed by Tilda Swinton whose research team seeks the ‘truth’ about artists. George Mackay is her lead researcher. The artistic output of the subject and the controversies around them are dissected by the team and their contributors in a bid to arrive at some definitive conclusion.
Faithfull, herself, is alternately sad, broken, resigned about the stories which have stuck to her over the years. Others are furious on her behalf.
Through it all, Marianne Faithfull emerges as a rebel, a survivor, a provocateur, an original. Unfortunately there isn’t enough of her in the film. The Ministry, while an interesting idea, both overpowers and doesn’t delve enough into the artist. Overall, there are other, more compelling documentaries about Faithfull which give a better insight into the fascinating woman she was.