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    A Playlist to Remember the Musicians We Lost in 2023

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    A playlist honoring David Crosby, Wayne Shorter, Sinead O’Connor, Jimmy Buffett and other musicians who died this year.David Crosby, a founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, died in January.Sulfiati Magnuson/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Doesn’t it seem like the “In Memoriam” segments on awards shows get longer with each passing year? It can sometimes feel like we’re in a perpetual state of mourning, saying goodbye to one brilliant musician after the next. Social media, the 24-hour news cycle and an aging population of era-defining artists all contribute to the perception that we’re constantly suffering huge losses.Even by that light, 2023 was a year of exceptional grief in the music world. We bid farewell to some absolute titans (Harry Belafonte, Tina Turner, Tony Bennett), countercultural icons (David Crosby, Robbie Robertson, Jeff Beck), and beloved rebels (Sinead O’Connor, Tom Verlaine, Shane MacGowan), among many others.For today’s newsletter — the final Amplifier of 2023 — I thought it would be fitting to compile my own “In Memoriam” segment, in the form of a playlist honoring those we lost throughout the year. It’s an eclectic collection in terms of genre, generation and geography; Japanese electro-pop legends sit alongside American jazz greats and Canadian folk revivalists. This may be cold comfort, but we’ll take any silver lining we can get: The magnitude of those we lost this year means this is a very, very good playlist.Like any “In Memoriam” tribute, this one inevitably omits a few names. But I hope it honors some of the musicians who meant something to you and that it introduces a few unfamiliar artists whose discographies are ripe for posthumous discovery.One programming note: As I mentioned, this is the last Amplifier of the year, as we’re taking a one-week break over the holidays. We’ll be back the first week of January with a roundup of the best older songs you discovered in 2023. I’m loving all the submissions we’ve received so far; keep them coming! We may use your response in an upcoming edition of The Amplifier.As ever, thanks to each and every one of you for reading and listening this year. Happy 2024.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Jeff Beck: “Over the Rainbow”Let’s start off with a classic, reimagined as a soaring, wordless aria by the guitar legend Jeff Beck, who died on Jan. 10 at 78. “For all his speed and dexterity,” my colleague Jon Pareles wrote in an appreciation of this performance, “Beck never underestimated the beauty of a sustained melody.” (Listen on YouTube)2. David Crosby: “Laughing”On Jan. 19, the world lost the irascible, angel-voiced David Crosby, who defined the sound of folk-rock in the 1960s and ’70s as a founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I’m a fan of his meanderingly beautiful 1971 solo album “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” and this track in particular. I also count myself absurdly lucky to have interviewed Crosby over the phone about a year and a half before he died; he called beforehand to ask if he could push back our conversation a few minutes because his hotel breakfast had just arrived. I said of course, and he called back maybe half an hour later, still grateful, easefully friendly and very forthcoming. Rest in peace to a man who appreciated a good breakfast. (Listen on YouTube)3. Television: “See No Evil”There’s a rare pantheon of records that, regardless of passing trends, will always sound effortlessly and undeniably cool to each new generation that discovers them. Television’s “Marquee Moon” is one of those albums, in large part because of the frontman Tom Verlaine, who died on Jan. 28 at 73. As a guitarist, Verlaine had chops to spare, but it took a certain attitude — heard on this leadoff track of “Marquee Moon” — to make virtuosity sound punk. (Listen on YouTube)4. Dusty Springfield: “(They Long to Be) Close to You”Burt Bacharach, who died on Feb. 8 at age 94, wrote a seemingly infinite number of perfect pop songs, like this one that the Carpenters made a No. 1 smash in 1970. Dusty Springfield’s earlier version, recorded in 1964, isn’t as well known, but it’s every bit as stirring, thanks in large part to the emotional acuity of Bacharach’s timeless composition. (Listen on YouTube)5. Wayne Shorter: “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”Until his death on March 2 at 89, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter was considered by many to be the greatest living jazz composer. His singular, expressive playing on this highlight from his 1966 album, “Speak No Evil,” is one of many recordings that suggest why. (Listen on YouTube)6. Yellow Magic Orchestra: “Technopolis”The pioneering Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra lost two of its three principal members this year: the drummer and vocalist Yukihiro Takahashi on Jan. 11 and, a little over two months later, the keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto. Both had long and varied solo careers as well, but their work in Y.M.O., like on this leadoff track from the 1979 album “Solid State Survivor,” is still enduringly influential and instantly recognizable. (Listen on YouTube)7. Harry Belafonte: “Jamaica Farewell”“Calypso,” the blockbuster 1956 release by the Jamaican American singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte, helped bring Caribbean sounds to the masses: It is said to be the first LP by a solo artist to sell over a million copies. This wistful West Indian folk tune was the album’s lead single, and it long remained a signature song for Belafonte, who died on April 25 at 96. (Listen on YouTube)8. Gordon Lightfoot: “Sundown”The Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who died on May 1 at 84, was a familiar presence on AM radio in the early 1970s, when he scored hit after unlikely hit. None charted higher than the infectious “Sundown,” the title track off his 1974 album and his only song to hit No. 1 in the United States. The track’s buoyant rhythm and lush harmonies contrast with its lyrical preoccupation with jealousy, inebriation and mistrust, creating an alluringly dark pop song. (Listen on YouTube)9. Tina Turner: “What’s Love Got to Do With It”Talk about a comeback. The mighty Tina Turner hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in the U.S. in more than a decade when in 1984 she returned with a vengeance, belting out this anthem and strutting down the streets of New York in its unforgettable music video. “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” released when Turner was 44, was her long-awaited liberation, and the force of her vocal delivery tells you how much life — and rock-star attitude — she had in her. She died May 24 at 83. (Listen on YouTube)10. Astrud Gilberto: “Berimbau”The 83-year-old Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto, who died on June 5, was best known as the serenely stylish vocalist who sang Stan Getz’s “The Girl From Ipanema.” But her discography is full of other treasures, like her lovely 1966 album of songs arranged by Gil Evans, “Look to the Rainbow,” on which this elegant, atmospheric track named for a one-stringed Brazilian instrument appears. (Listen on YouTube)11. The Band: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”Robbie Robertson’s music had an almost eerie way of fusing the past and the present, creating compositions that sound at once rooted and untethered to linear time. This song — a Canadian musician’s evocation of Civil War-era America, with a little help from his then-Bandmate, the Arkansas-born Levon Helm — is an ambiguous document, still sparking fresh debate more than 50 years after its release. But above all it is a testament to the slippery songwriting power of Robertson, who died on Aug. 9 at 80. (Listen on YouTube)12. Jane Birkin: “Jane B.”The iconic Jane Birkin — perhaps the most quintessentially French person ever to be born outside of France — was so much more than just the namesake of a coveted Hermès bag. As a musician, too, she was more than just a coquettish co-conspirator with her onetime husband Serge Gainsbourg; she forged a long solo career that continued after they split in 1980. This orchestral, Chopin-inspired ballad is from one of their greatest collaborations, the 1969 album “Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg,” but here it’s Birkin, who died on July 16 at 76, who takes the lead. (Listen on YouTube)13. Tony Bennett: “(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco”Tony Bennett was a New Yorker through and through, but for the three-minute span of this classic, you could have sworn he was a Frisco kid. Bennett, who died on July 21 at 96, showed off both the crystalline purity of his voice and his ample lung power on the song that became his most recognizable standard. (Listen on YouTube)14. Sinead O’Connor: “Black Boys on Mopeds”On July 26, music lost one of its great and most uncompromising truth tellers. The piercing voice, moral courage and fierce compassion of Sinead O’Connor are all front and center on this acoustic ballad from her second album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” a track as devastatingly relevant today as it was when she wrote it in 1990. (Listen on YouTube)15. Rodriguez: “Crucify Your Mind”The final decade of the folk singer Sixto Rodriguez’s life was a prolonged and deserved victory lap, thanks to the Oscar-winning 2012 documentary “Searching for Sugar Man,” which introduced his once-obscure music to a whole new audience. His performance of this song on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” 42 years after its release, still haunts me. (Listen on YouTube)16. Jimmy Buffett: “A Pirate Looks at Forty”The Mayor of Margaritaville left us on Sept. 1 at 76. Though best known for his party anthems, this meditation on mortality, “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” proves that Buffet was no stranger to the introspective ballad — albeit one seasoned with his own special salt. (Listen on YouTube)17. The Isley Brothers: “Livin’ in the Life”Though his brother Ronald usually sang lead, Rudolph Isley, who died on Oct. 11 at 84, provides a memorable assist on this sublimely funky single from their group’s 1977 album “Go for Your Guns.” (Listen on YouTube)18. The Pogues: “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”Music lost one of its most cantankerous poets on Nov. 30, when Shane MacGowan, the lead singer and songwriter of the Celtic punk band the Pogues, died at 65. This defiantly rousing title track from the band’s 1988 album should serve as an appropriately unsentimental requiem: “If I’m buried ’neath the sod, but the angels won’t receive me/Let me go, boys/Let me go, boys/Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry.” (Listen on YouTube)To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost in 2023” track listTrack 1: Jeff Beck, “Over the Rainbow”Track 2: David Crosby, “Laughing”Track 3: Television, “See No Evil”Track 4: Dusty Springfield, “(They Long to Be) Close to You”Track 5: Wayne Shorter, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”Track 6: Yellow Magic Orchestra, “Technopolis”Track 7: Harry Belafonte, “Jamaica Farewell”Track 8: Gordon Lightfoot, “Sundown”Track 9: Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”Track 10: Astrud Gilberto, “Berimbau”Track 11: The Band, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”Track 12: Jane Birkin, “Jane B.”Track 13: Tony Bennett, “(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco”Track 14: Sinead O’Connor, “Black Boys on Mopeds”Track 15: Rodriguez, “Crucify Your Mind”Track 16: Jimmy Buffett, “A Pirate Looks at Forty”Track 17: The Isley Brothers, “Livin’ in the Life”Track 18: The Pogues, “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” More

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      Jane Birkin: Made in England, Forged in France

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      Birkin had a thriving career as a singer and an actress, in both communicating a seemingly nonchalant demeanor that camouflaged a melancholy core.For most of her life, Jane Birkin, who died Sunday at 76, acted as a bridge — an elegant one, with an affectless grace that never betrayed the strains of load bearing. She connected her native Britain and her adopted France, two countries physically close but often at odds. She never lost her English accent when she spoke, somehow joining the two languages into her own Birkin-ese, “the improbable French that added to her charm,” as Le Monde put it. She floated among song, cinema and theater, and she could reach large, varied audiences while also connecting with France’s auteur culture.Her career did not go in a straight line. She made the most of her unassuming, breathy voice in her recordings, and while her unconventional glamour stood out onscreen, she was never afraid to veer off in unexpected directions when choosing roles. She let herself be guided by adventurousness.After a small role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s ode to Swinging London, “Blow-Up,” Birkin left England in 1968 to make a French movie, Pierre Grimblat’s “Slogan.” On the set, she met Serge Gainsbourg, the brilliant, tortured musician, who was in the cast and wrote the film’s score.They fell in love and soon became an It couple, impossibly stylish and cool. Crucially, she also became one of the leading interpreters of his songs, starting with their erotically charged duet “Je t’aime … moi non plus,” and continuing through six solo Birkin albums, released from 1973 to 1990. The poppiest and catchiest is “Ex fan des sixties” (1978); the poignant “Baby Alone in Babylone” (1983) largely deals with the couple’s separation.Birkin left Gainsbourg in 1980, fed up with his drinking and temper, but their personal and professional partnership outlasted the breakup. And despite a reductive media habit of describing Birkin merely as Gainsbourg’s muse, it enriched both of them.Birkin remained loyal to the Gainsbourg songbook throughout her life. Five years after his death, she released an album of Gainsbourg covers, “Versions Jane” (1996); followed by “Arabesque” (2002), an album of Gainsbourg songs arranged by the Algerian violinist Djamel Benyelles; and “Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique” (2017), backed by a symphony orchestra.But she also escaped Gainsbourg’s shadow, working with younger musicians and producers, and eventually writing or co-writing the lyrics on her albums “Enfants d’hiver” (2008) and “Oh! Pardon tu dormais …” (2020), both largely drawing from her life.That last record is a good illustration of the way Birkin hopscotched among artistic fields, one feeding into another: “Oh! Pardon tu dormais …” has the same title as, and was inspired by, a made-for-TV movie Birkin directed in 1992 and a 1999 play she wrote and appeared in.Birkin performing in 2001. As a singer, she made the most of her unassuming, breathy voice.Jean-Loup Gautreau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBeyond her success as a singer — not blockbuster by any means, but attracting a loyal fan base around the world — Birkin had a thriving career as an actress, communicating a similar vibe onscreen as she did in music: a natural, unadorned beauty; a seemingly nonchalant demeanor, camouflaging a melancholy core.In 1969, the year that “Slogan” came out, Birkin had a supporting role in Jacques Deray’s scorching, now cult thriller “La Piscine” alongside Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. With “La Piscine,” and popular comedies like “La Moutarde Me Monte au Nez!” (1974) and “La Course à l’Échalote” (1975), she could have continued to mine her gamine charm and cute accent for a comfortable if predictable acting career. But in typical Birkin fashion, she made an abrupt stylistic U-turn by starring in Gainsbourg’s provocative debut feature “Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus” (1976), in which she portrayed an androgynous waitress who has a rather complicated relationship with a gay man played by Joe Dallesandro, the Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey regular.For much of the 1970s and early ’80s, Birkin alternated between making Gainsbourg records and appearing in mainstream movies, including “Death on the Nile” (1978), which featured the kind of international star buffet that blockbuster movies of the time ate up: Her co-stars included Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, David Niven, Mia Farrow and Angela Lansbury.Throwing yet another twist into her career is that after Gainsbourg, Birkin was in a relationship with the uncompromising filmmaker Jacques Doillon. In 1984, she starred in his brutally intense, fever-pitch movie “La Pirate” as Alma, who is torn between her husband (played by Birkin’s own brother, Andrew) and a woman (Maruschka Detmers). It felt like a new Jane Birkin, inhabiting her physicality in a way that was almost dangerously unrestrained — and it earned her the first of three César Award nominations.The next year, she appeared in a Marivaux play directed by the influential Patrice Chéreau at his Nanterre theater. Despite her trepidation, her performance was a success, and Birkin continued to appear onstage, alternating, as was her wont, between boulevard fare and Euripides.Another consequential encounter in the 1980s was with the director Agnès Varda, who made the gloriously unconventional film “Jane B. par Agnès V.” (1988), in which, as Glenn Kenny noted in The New York Times, Birkin “retains a slightly breathy girlishness that complements her largely cheery, open personality and her intrepid intelligence” — words that neatly capture Birkin’s enduring appeal. Varda encouraged Birkin to write, and the two collaborated on the script of Varda’s “Kung-Fu Master!” (1988). Birkin went on to direct an autobiographical film, “Boxes” (2007).For Birkin boundaries were porous: between public and private, high and low, art and life. In his tribute to her, President Emmanuel Macron called Birkin “a French icon.” Of that there is no doubt. More

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      Jane Birkin, Singer, Actress and Fashion Inspiration, Dies at 76

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      She was a lithe beauty of 1960s European film, a famous musical collaborator and lover of Serge Gainsbourg, and the namesake of elegant Hermès handbags.Jane Birkin, who helped define chic female sexuality of the 1970s as an actress in arty and erotic European movies and in her relationship — equal parts romantic and artistic — with the singer Serge Gainsbourg, died on Sunday in Paris. Ms. Birkin, who later became known for inspiring one of the best known lines of luxury handbags, was 76.Her death was confirmed by President Emmanuel Macron of France, who called her “a French icon” in a message on Twitter. The French news media reported that Ms. Birkin had been found dead at her home but that the cause was not immediately known.The child of a famously beautiful actress and a socially connected British naval officer, Ms. Birkin led a life guided by many happy accidents.While she was on a flight in 1984, a plastic bag in which she was keeping her possessions broke, leading her to complain aloud that Hermès did not make a bag that could fit all her things. The man sitting next to her happened to be Jean-Louis Dumas, then the head designer of Hermès (and later its chief executive). The company released the Birkin bag line the same year — in just the large size she had requested.Standard Birkin bags now sell for $10,000, and the difficulties of obtaining one — given a complex manufacturing process and a deliberately rationed supply to boutiques — have given the bag the cachet of exclusivity.Her relationship with Mr. Gainsbourg began just as fortuitously, in 1968. She was in her early 20s, her first marriage having fallen apart, when, without particular renown as an actress and without speaking a word of French, she managed to be cast in a French movie, “Slogan,” starring Mr. Gainsbourg.The two fell in love, but Ms. Birkin did not see a way to remain long in France. Then, dining out one night, she had a chance encounter with the French director Jacques Deray, got hired to act in a movie of his, stayed in the country and solidified her relationship with Mr. Gainsbourg.She lived in France for the rest of her life, and her engagement with Mr. Gainsbourg and his music proved equally enduring.The most notable product of their collaboration and romance was their 1969 hit recording of Mr. Gainsbourg’s song “Je t’aime… moi non plus” (“I Love You… Me Neither”).In the song, a duet, Mr. Gainsbourg speaks of sex in a low, conversational voice as Ms. Birkin confesses her love in suggestive murmurs and moans and the high-pitched singing of an ingénue.The song was condemned by the Vatican and banned in several countries and by the B.B.C. television network. But it sold millions of copies.Nearly 50 years later, in 2018, Ms. Birkin was still singing music by Mr. Gainsbourg, by then on a world tour of orchestral versions of his songs.“If I am singing in Argentina in two weeks’ time,” she told The Guardian, “it is because of ‘Je t’aime.’”Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London on Dec. 14, 1946, to Judy Campbell, an actress who gained renown for performing for British troops with Noël Coward during World War II, and Cmdr. David Birkin of the Royal Navy.In 2021, her father’s exploits during World War II were recounted in “A Dangerous Enterprise,” a book by Tim Spicer, a former British military officer. Commander Birkin’s duties included navigating boats on moonless nights across the English Channel to bring to safety Allied spies, stranded airmen and escaped prisoners of war who had found themselves in France.Ms. Birkin, at 18, married the British composer John Barry, known for arranging the trademark theme to James Bond movies, and they had a daughter, Kate. At 20, Ms. Birkin appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni’s hit 1966 movie, “Blow Up,” an erotic tale of a London fashion photographer. She played a fashion model — the credits listed her as only The Blonde — and gained some attention for a risqué nude scene.Ms. Birkin with the English actor David Hemmings in a scene from Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Blow-Up,” released in 1966.Sunset Boulevard/Corbis, via Getty Images“Had it all worked out with John Barry, I would never have been curious to know what was going on anywhere else,” Ms. Birkin told The Guardian in 2017. “I would have just gone on being his wife. I would have been delighted. But because he went off with someone else, and I was left with Kate, I had to find a job quite fast.”That led to her audition for “Slogan.”The movie that kept her in France was “La Piscine” (“The Swimming Pool”), starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. (It found unexpected renewed popularity in the United States in 2021.) A sun-soaked film of sex and jealousy with many shots of scantily clad actors, the movie proved to be an effective showcase for Ms. Birkin’s long-limbed beauty.Her romance with Mr. Gainsbourg captivated the French public. She was the young doe-eyed expat, he the aging but still virile artistic genius. The relationship lasted for more than a decade, ending when she left him in the early 1980s for the French film director Jacques Doillon. Mr. Gainsbourg died in 1991 at 62.Though Ms. Birkin would later speak self-deprecatingly about her role as Mr. Gainsbourg’s muse, she embraced becoming “the keeper of the Gainsbourg flame,” as The New York Times labeled her in 2018.She described to The Times connections between the music he wrote for her and work by classical composers like Chopin and Brahms.“I would have thought that he was probably France’s most modern writer,” she said. “He invented a new language, he cut words in two like Cole Porter.”Ms. Birkin and Mr. Gainsbourg with her daughters Charlotte, left, and Kate Barry in 1972. Charlotte became a singer and actress. Kate became a photographer who died in 2013.James Andanson/Sygma, via Getty ImagesMs. Birkin released “Oh! Pardon tu dormais…,” her first album of her own songs written in English, in 2021. “The results are an emotional tour de force from an artist who has never gotten her musical due outside of France,” the music writer Ben Cardew wrote in a review for Pitchfork.Ms. Birkin also continued to act, including in films by Agnès Varda and plays by Patrice Chéreau. She was also popular in France as an activist for women’s and L.G.B.T.Q. rights as well as for her British accent when speaking French, which the French found endearing.“The most Parisian of the English has left us,” the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, wrote in a message on Twitter on Sunday. “We will never forget her songs, her laughs and her incomparable accent.”Ms. Birkin in 2021 at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Hermès put her name on a line of exclusive handbags.Stephane Cardinale/Corbis, via Getty ImagesMs. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 and had recently canceled a series of concerts because of health issues.She is survived by two daughters, one with Mr. Gainsbourg and the other with Mr. Doillon: the singer-actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, each of whom has, like their mother, inspired designers and followers of fashion. Her other daughter, Kate Barry, a photographer, died at 46 in 2013 in a fall from a window of her fourth-floor Paris apartment.Ms. Birkin discovered that her romantic separation from Mr. Gainsbourg did not dim their collaboration. He kept writing new songs intended for her until he died.After their breakup, “you could talk back to him for once,” she told The Guardian. “You were not just his creation any more.”Guy Trebay More

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      15 Fashion Triumphs From Cannes Over the Decades

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      Movies aren’t the only thing to watch. The film festival has made red carpet waves since “being seen” became mainstream.If the Met Gala is the all-star showcase of red carpet entrances, the Oscars the skills championship, and the MTV Video Music Awards the X Games, then the Cannes Film Festival is effectively the playoffs: an extended period in which celebrities show up multiple times in clothes high and low, demonstrating all their moves.And though outfits seem to be getting increasingly extreme with the proliferation of social media, a look back through the history of the festival’s runway (oops, red carpet) — which this year runs May 16-27 — reveals that it was, in fact, ever thus.The Croisette boulevard has always been a catwalk and we, the rapt audience looking on.The actress Elizabeth Taylor grasps the arm of her husband at the time, the film producer Mike Todd, at the Cannes Film Festival, wearing a Balmain gown and Cartier tiara.Malcolm McNeill/Mirrorpix, via Getty Images1957Elizabeth TaylorWhen she attended Cannes on the arm of her third husband, the producer Mike Todd (who was there to promote “Around the World in 80 Days”), Ms. Taylor was Hollywood royalty, and she dressed the part — from the tip of her diamond Cartier tiara to the hem of her white Balmain gown and the fingertips of her opera gloves. The princess dress would forever after be a festival staple (not least on Princesses Grace and Diana when they would take their own Cannes bows).Catherine Deneuve attended a screening of “Les Cendres” by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes in an Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress.Gamma-Keystone, via Getty Images1966Catherine DeneuveMs. Deneuve attended Cannes with her then-husband, the photographer David Bailey, in a long seaside-striped sequin Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress. She was a de facto YSL ambassador before that term had even entered the fashion playbook (back then, the usual appellation was “muse”). She would remain one for decades, loyally wearing YSL onscreen and off. When it comes to casual glamour, however, this dress set the tone, proving the concept was not an oxymoron, but a whole potential genre unto itself.Jane Birkin toted her signature picnic basket as a handbag to Cannes.Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images1974Jane BirkinMs. Birkin popped up at Cannes with her beau, Serge Gainsbourg, and a picnic basket as a handbag, toting it not just during the day, but on the red carpet with a glimmering frock. Reportedly discovered in a fishing village in Portugal, it was the Birkin bag before the Birkin bag. It became a symbol of the British star and of a certain je ne sais quoi in boho style and the freewheeling nature of Cannes.Madonna arrived for the premiere of her film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” (known internationally as “In Bed with Madonna”) in a pink Jean Paul Gaultier coat that she shed to reveal a satin undergarment set.Dave Hogan/Getty Images1991MadonnaShe came to Cannes to unveil “Madonna: Truth or Dare” — and herself. Decades before Lady Gaga stripped down to her undergarments on the Met Gala steps, Madonna walked the carpet for her premiere in a voluminous pink taffeta coat by Jean Paul Gaultier — only to drop it at the last moment to reveal a white satin cone bra, knickers and a garter belt set. She jolted the public out of their torpor and started a new era of peekaboo dressing.Sharon Stone came to the premiere of “Unzipped” unbuttoned — a satin skirt parted to uncover a bedazzled romper.Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty Images1995Sharon StoneIn 2002 Ms. Stone came to Cannes as a member of the film festival jury and revived her flagging profile by walking the red carpet in a different fashion statement every night. But years before that, she made dressing noise when she arrived at the premiere of “Unzipped” in a champagne-colored satin skirt that was, well, unbuttoned to reveal a bedazzled romper beneath. Ever since, shorts have been a festival staple.For the screening of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Johnny Depp was accompanied by his girlfriend at the time, Kate Moss.Patrick Hertzog/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1998Kate MossMinimalism came to the Croisette courtesy of Ms. Moss, attending the premiere of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp. Ms. Moss wore a black cocktail dress with ostrich feathers at the top and almost no makeup with merely a touch of diamonds and barely-there sandals. She made everyone else look overdone and overdressed, washing the Augean stables of Cannes clean.Tilda Swinton walked the Croisette in a metallic pantsuit.Daniele Venturelli/WireImage2007Tilda SwintonMs. Swinton strode the carpet in a metallic pantsuit, proving that a woman does not need a big dress to make a big statement.Linda Evangelista in a gold Lanvin dress.Kurt Krieger/Corbis, via Getty Images2008Linda EvangelistaMs. Evangelista posed like a gold Greek statuette in Lanvin at the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Models had become key parts of the festival’s opening evening mix, upping the fashion ante even further.Lupita Nyong’o in a chiffon Gucci dress.Venturelli/WireImage2015Lupita Nyong’oMs. Nyong’o seemed to embody springtime itself in a green pleated Gucci chiffon dress accented with crystal flowers. It was only a few months after Alessandro Michele had taken over as creative director of the Italian house, and the dress heralded the arrival of a new aesthetic and Hollywood love affair with Gucci.Amal Clooney in an Atelier Versace dress.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2016Amal ClooneyMs. Clooney made her Cannes debut in a classic butter yellow Atelier Versace dress with a high slit on one leg, entirely overshadowing her husband, George, at the premiere of his film, “Money Monster,” and, once again, proving style and substance are not antithetical concepts.Rihanna in a Dior couture gown.Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images2017RihannaShe made her first Cannes appearance at the “Okja” premiere in an ivory Dior couture gown with a long matching coat and New Wave-style sunglasses. Two years later, Dior owner LVMH would announce a deal with the artist for her own fashion line, and though it was shut down during the pandemic, her ability to channel cool has never wavered.Kristen Stewart, in a Chanel dress, removed her Louboutins to ascend the stairs barefoot.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2018Kristen StewartMs. Stewart’s short chain mail Chanel dress was a fighting mix of armor and crystals, but what really made news was her decision to doff her Christian Louboutin stilettos and walk up the stairs barefoot. Coming a year after the actor complained about the festival’s unspoken high heels dress code, it was an unmistakable fashion throw down and, well, a step forward for wardrobe equity.Isabelle Huppert in a Balenciaga gown.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2021Isabelle HuppertThe French actress made the ultimate elegant refusal of Cannes convention in a high-necked, long-sleeved all-black Balenciaga gown, matching boot leggings and matching shades. It cut through the carpet froth and excess like a knife.Spike Lee in a colorful suit made by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton.Eric Gaillard/Reuters2021Spike LeeThe sole man in this trendsetting list, Mr. Lee put ye olde penguin suits to shame as jury president, eschewing the usual tuxedo or white dinner jacket for a bouquet of sunset-toned suiting, by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton. He did the right thing.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a Gaurav Gupta gown.Stephane Mahe/Reuters2022Aishwarya Rai BachchanSometimes, it seems like the wide open skies of the Côte d’Azur encourage even wider skirts on the Cannes carpet, but Ms. Bachchan topped them all in a fantastical creation from Gaurav Gupta that made her look like some sort of alien smoke goddess materializing on Earth. Sometimes, it really does seem like the looks at Cannes are out of this world. More

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      ‘Jane by Charlotte’ Review: A Mother-Daughter Duet

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      Charlotte Gainsbourg makes her directorial debut with an elusive portrait of her mother, the French-English star Jane Birkin, at age 74.“Jane by Charlotte,” the directorial debut of the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg (“Antichrist”), is a meandering and elusive documentary portrait of Gainsbourg’s mother, Jane Birkin. An “It” girl of the 1960s and ’70s, Birkin is known for starring in risqué art-house films (like “Blow-Up”), and for her romance with Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she collaborated on a hit album before starting her solo singing career.Gainsbourg pays homage to Agnès Varda’s 1988 docudrama, “Jane B. par Agnès V.,” which captures Birkin, age 40, considering her status as a muse and icon. “Jane by Charlotte” sees Birkin at 74 and picks up on fixations of hers apparent in that earlier film — her love of bulldogs, photographs and motherhood — as well as her ideas about femininity.In contrast to Varda’s metanarrative approach, Gainsbourg’s is straightforward, switching between elegantly staged mother-daughter conversations and home video-esque footage of Birkin’s everyday activities — like performing her music in Japan, gardening with her granddaughter and visiting a bulldog breeder.Gainsbourg purports to look at her mother as she’s “never dared before,” hoping to close a rift between them. Birkin speaks, rather obliquely, about intimate subjects like her lifelong dependency on sleeping pills and her maternal insecurities — the premature death of her first daughter, Kate Barry, looms over the film.Clearly a pet project for Gainsbourg (whose own electronic pop songs feature prominently in the soundtrack, clashing against her mother’s classic tunes), the documentary is defiantly insular and lacking in context.When Gainsbourg and Birkin visit Serge’s famed black-walled Paris home, for instance, the dwelling’s peculiarities are taken for granted. (The house has remained mostly unchanged since Gainsbourg’s death in 1991 and is now going to be a museum.) Those devoted to the Gainsbourg-Birkin universe may delight in the miscellanea presented here, but Gainsbourg has no interest in rendering her mother’s life, or their relationship, accessible or particularly fascinating to the uninitiated. This makes for an occasionally trivial experience, but one senses Gainsbourg doesn’t care — she might have made the film for no one but herself.Jane by CharlotteNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters. More