Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Joann Sfar
Starring: Anna Mouglalis | Doug Jones | Eric Elmosnino | Laetitia Casta | Lucy Gordon | Mylène Jampanoï

Country: france

Year: 2011

Running time: 122

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1329457/

Bruce says: “Make no mistakes, GAINSGOURG: J’TAIME….MOI NON PLUS is no straightforward biopic.  Rather than attack his subject conventionally, Joann Sfar is capricious and daring in his portraiture of Serge Gainsbourg.  Sfar pages back and forth to Gainsbourg’s childhood to ensure the viewer is not bogged down in chronology.   Portions of the film verge on abstraction yet manage to score important points about the man, his idiosyncratic behavior and controversial lifestyle.  These directorial choices pay off well.  Such homage could not be possible without the right actor for the role.  Eric Elmosnio is the perfect choice.   He captures Gainsbourg’s multi-faceted personality, not an easy task for sure.

“Serge Gainsbourg, neé Lucien Ginsburg, was a one-of-a-kind artist.  He also was a real piece of work, a complicated, often conflicted human being.  The film opens with young Lucien going to the local police to get his yellow star, identifying him as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Paris.  It is simultaneously an act of daring defiance and an act of extreme humiliation.  Lucien grew up an awkward kid who fought constantly with his father over his piano lessons.  Lucien wanted to be a painter.   As a young adult he played piano to pay for his canvases and support his wife and young children.

“For Gainsbourg piano gigs were surer bets than painting sales.  His self-deprecating ways appeared charming and gained him entry to many a famous boudoir.  He was an unlikely lothario, a bit scrawny with oversized ears.  Beginning with Juliette Greco, he bedded some of the greatest sex symbols of his time.  After Greco came Brigitte Bardot, followed by Jane Birkin who became his second wife.

“Gainsbourg’s musical output defies genre touching on rock, pop, jazz, blues and reggae.  Initially he gained his musical reputation as a songwriter writing for Greco, Bardot and the yé-yé icon France Gall with whom he scored the first of his hits famous for their sexual innuendos or content.  Gall’s hit “Lollipops” was a tribute to oral sex.  His song “Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus” was originally recorded with Bardot but gained world-wide popularity as a duet with Birkin.  Getting the song released was difficult as record executives claimed, ‘If we release that we’ll end up in jail,’ referring to the simulated female orgasm in the song.

“Gainsbourg’s life fell apart as his fame increased.  His public behavior was tainted by his endless bouts with the bottle.  Birkin divorced him.  ‘Jane left because I screwed up too much,/’ he confesses.  Not exactly a profound observation.  However, he continued to be his irascible self.  When he is told that he could not sing any songs with sexual content in Jamaica, he scoffs, ‘Why, don’t they fuck?’   In light of his great influences in pop music and pop culture, Gainsbourg appears a fascinating albeit tragic character.   4 cats   

“(GAINSGOURG: J’TAIME….MOI NON PLUS screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.  According to IMDb the new title is GAINSBOURG (THE HEROIC LIFE) which may be how it will be released, if it ever gets a North American distribution.)”

Chris says: “Serge Gainsbourg was an unlikely pop star. He certainly didn’t look like a matinée idol. At the height of his career in late ’60s France, his cultivated persona was that of a dirty old man who had barely turned 40. And yet, he was a brilliant songwriter and performer, plus his willingness to continually experiment successfully proved his breadth of talent. How else to explain his professional (and sexual) dalliance with an icon no less stunning than Brigitte Bardot?

“Such an outrageous life deserves more than a middle-of-the-road biopic. Director and comic book artist Joann Sfar’s attempt to distill Gainsbourg’s into one emphasizes this from its opulently animated opening credits onward. Moving from glimpses of the man’s childhood as a Russian jew in Nazi-occupied France to his early attempt at a painting career and subsequent stumbled upon fame as a musician, Sfar nearly always retains an element of fantasy. His most audacious (and fully realized) conceit is ‘The Mug,’ a larger-than-life-sized caricature of Gainsbourg with exaggerated features (elongated nose and ears) that intermittently follows him around and acts as a guardian devil of sorts. That he’s not just a figment of Gainsbourg’s imagination but a figure other characters see and interact with gives an idea of how loopy and unconventional the film often is.

“As the adult Gainsbourg, Eric Elmosnino is absolutely uncanny, both in physical resemblance and musical performance; Laetitia Casta nearly does the same for her playful, vivacious Brigitte Bardot. Only the late Lucy Gordon seems a tad perfunctory as love of-Serge’s-life Jane Birkin, disappearing from the screen so quickly that her arc with Gainsbourg feels unfinished.

“In trying to encapsulate such a rich life with this idiosyncratic approach, Sfar occasionally deploys but does not fully delve into assumed facts and cues that may go over the heads of Gainsbourg neophytes (the words ‘Melody Nelson’ appear repeatedly, but if you don’t know that it’s part of the title of his most revered album, they have no significance). As with many biopics, Gainsbourg’s inevitable decline (he died in 1991) is also not given enough time, weight or explanation in order to fully resonate. Then again, Sfar concludes the film with an epigram explaining that he’s more interested in Gainsbourg’s lies than his truths. When the lies are most convincing, his film is a hoot.  4 cats”

Julie says:  “Chris’s synopsis is right on. I loved this film but agree about the missing pieces and incomplete development of  events. I think this was due to a way too complex and interesting life though.  4.425 cats”