CANNES -- Belting out a period version of Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love) on screen in the musical De-Lovely gave Canadian singer Alanis Morissette a crash course in Cole Porter.

"I was very ignorant of Cole Porter before I started," Morissette admitted yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival, where De-Lovely -- a biopic of the Broadway and Hollywood composer -- is set to close the 57th festival tonight.

"I knew four or five of his songs, so I was educated as I went," an upbeat Morissette said in a media scrum before going off to rehearse a live Cole Porter concert that will follow the movie. Morissette will warble one or two songs and, after other performances, join an ensemble for the title song that will include Sheryl Crow and Natalie Cole.

Hiring that high-powered threesome, plus others such as Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Robbie Williams and Lemar was a clever way to bridge the generation gap for the movie, Morissette said. "That's part of the charm. It's a great sneaky way to bring young people into a theatre, to have contemporary artists in it. It's brilliant."

Morissette said she now realizes what a genius Porter was. "In taking part, I was honouring him. It wasn't about me."

And she was fascinated by his rebellious streak, including his homosexual escapades, hints of which popped up in double entendres in the songs. "He's very transparent. He's laying it all there in his songs. He's laying it all bare.

"I just think he's so whimsical and subversive and charming and tortured -- and yet very cocky about it all, too. He's got this great combination of intangible qualities that don't typically sit together."

"People say that about you, too," she is told. "Yeah, I related to it," she answered with a laugh.

And Morissette is subversive enough to choose something other than a Cole Porter musical as her own favourite: "I think the best musical on the planet is the South Park movie. It really is the greatest musical I've ever seen!"