Celebrities, it sometimes seems, are public property. Particularly when the celebrity is an artist. Their work enters the public consciousness, and moves or brings joy to many. We feel that the art that has moved us, in some way belongs to us. And because the art is conflated with the artist, the artist belongs to us too. This feeling of ownership intensifies if the artist dies tragically.
We saw this with Amy Winehouse. During the hours after the announcement of her death at the age of 27, it seemed the British singer-songwriter and tabloid obsession was fair game for sympathisers and critics alike. For every note of heartfelt condolence that appeared on Facebook and Twitter feeds there was also a wisecrack, or expression of indifference.
Her name, Winehouse; the fact that her most famous song was a haughty tribute to her own substance abuse; and the premature assumption by many that she'd died of an overdose (an initial post-mortem failed to determine cause of death), provided fodder for jokes that were too obvious to be either funny or offensive ('Guess Amy should have gone to rehab, but she said, no, no, no').
The fact she died so soon after the massacre in Norway led some to lament the fact that the death of one celebrity could distract the public's attention from the deaths of many 'ordinary' people in that much larger tragedy. Such cynicism was better placed than too-soon bleak humour (although to the public's credit, it appears to have been unwarranted).
But the Winehouse we feel we own, and therefore feel justified in either grieving or disparaging, is not Winehouse. Celebrity sees humanity fragmented by fickle relevancy and diffused by media. The public persona is a product of our own perceptions, and is both illusory and transitory.
This is an obvious truth that ought to be regularly revisited. It is poignantly illustrated by the melancholy new French animated film The Illusionist (directed by Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet and based on an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati). The Illusionist follows the gradual acceptance of obsolescence by a once renowned stage magician.
It is the 1950s, and he is being superseded by new technologies and forms of popular entertainment. He takes jobs in smaller and smaller venues and even private parties. Eventually, in a remote village, he befriends a young girl, who believes his magical abilities to be real.
The film focuses on the illusionist's fatherly