In the early 1960's, France was taken by storm by the movement of yéyé. Starting with the 1962 single "Tous les garçons et les filles" by Françoise Hardy, yéyé songs conquered both the charts and the teenagers' hearts. The first French teen magazine, "Salut les copains", described the stars' personal lives, while filmmaker Noël Howard offered a film all but of low-quality starring possibly the most important singer of the time, Johnny Hallyday, with "D'où viens-tu Johnny?".
Johnny Hallyday played there another Johnny, with last name Rivière. He's a rock'n'roll singer, who does errands for some men in order to earn money. When he discovers that they deal with drugs, he throws them in the Seine, and flees to the Camargue, a region in southern France. Now, he's pursued by two mafia killers. But he doesn't know it. In the wonderful landscape of the Camargue, he finds his childhood love and his uncle, but also an enemy, Django. More troubles await the poor hero.
With this film, the director tried to imitate the features in which Elvis Presley starred at the same time, and it shows. The whole film's premise is to hear Johnny sing, and see him ride through the Camargue. The plot serves nothing, only there to serve as an excuse for Johnny to become a cowboy. For all his youthful enthusiasm, Johnny is utterly unconvincing as the hero of the story, and his acting seems a bit artificial. Still, he's way better than his future wife and fellow singer, Sylvie Vartan, who interpreted the character of his Parisian girlfriend. So loyal is she to him, that she comes to the Camargue from Paris just to be with him. Much like her companion, though, her only reason for being in the film is her popularity and she offers substantially nothing to the movie.
Since both Johnny and Sylvie Vartan were singers, they got to intepret some songs, too. I can honestly say that they, along with the cinematography, were the best parts of the film. Composed by fellow yéyé singer Jean-Jacques Debout, they are typical songs of the genre, but of average quality compared to the hits of the time. Especially "Pour moi la vie va commencer" is used extensively in the film, and thus becomes unbearable. That such a low-quality soundtrack was the highest point of the film just goes to show its merit, which is almost none.
Concerning the cinematography, it was satisfactory, with the cinematographer trying to create a western atmosphere by emphasizing the beauty of the landscape in the Camargue. Still, the general feeling that comes off is one of a poor man's "Love me tender" than of a legitimate western.
When this film was released, it served as a restoration for Johnny, who had been condemned by the military and the press for his rebellious character. In a huge concert organised by "Salut les copains", the famous "Nuit de la nation", Johnny and other singers were charged with the chaos created when some tramps, the "blousons noirs" joined the audience and started terrorising the teenage spectators.
It was for this reason that, in "D'où viens-tu Johnny ?", the hero only uses violence for good causes, to protect himself or his friends. He never provokes anyone, loves his family, and stays loyal to his lover. It's a film with the idol of the rebellious youth respecting the values of traditional France. A journalist even called Johnny's role "a gentle blouson noir".
In his essay, "D'où viens-tu Johnny ?, Le survivant mythique", essayist Olivier Mongin characterised Johnny as a person full of contradictions, one of those being that he loved appearing in scene and on film despite his shy nature. According to him, Johnny employed the persona of the "good bad boy" in order to hide his real, sensitive character, marked by many pains. And this persona was never shown better than his music and films. His relationship with the cinema started with "D'où viens-tu Johnny ?" - that was, by the way, rejected as "deplorable" by Mongin.
In it, he really shows this façade. As mentioned before, Johnny Hallyday impersonated a character that was at the same time the role model of the disenchanted young and one respecting the morals of the older generation. This contradiction is, in other words, the nature of the "good bad boy" . He was good when facing the authorities, but bad before his fans, who searched in him a counterpoint to their more conservative parents.
"D'où viens-tu Johnny ?" is a contradiction by itself. A film wanting to resemble an Elvis feature that ends up as a pale imitation of one, a movie having as protagonists actors that are mostly incapable of playing, one being marketed to an audience that didn't respond all too enthusiastically to it, with music so representative of the era that it's dated. That Johnny Hallyday later developed a real acting career in spite of his embarrassing performance in this film really makes him a contradictory personality. In other words, a survivant mythique.
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