Marianne Faithfull

Singer Marianne Faithfull delights in pointing out that she can trace her lineage back to
Baron Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, from whose name masochism is derived. Yet it's
unlikely that Faithfull purposely set out on the tortured path her life has taken. More than
twenty-five years after "As Tears Go By" made Faithfull the ingénue of the British Invasion,
her artistic ups and downs and her protracted battle with heroin and alcohol ha... More >

Already too damn significant for her own good, the diva-elect displays herself and her tattered repertoire to an adoring St. Anne's claque and gets little help from a band that should know better. I could go back to the disastrous video (shots of microphone bases for variety, pans of stained-glass windows for edification, slo-mo birds for filmpoetry) to make sure that's partner-in-cultdom Barry Reynolds on guitar overkill, not wizard-for-hire Marc Ribot. But since it's definitely Ribot's pal Dougie Bowne laying on the drumrolls, I'd rather not know. Either way the misbegotten strategy is to ratchet up the melodrama until only a cad would deny's she's suffering--and not just because she's worried sick about having to pull this act off forever amen. (Grade: B-)