A few weeks ago, we delved in deep on the upcoming Serge Gainsbourg biopic, “ “Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” (“Vie Héroïque”), being directed by French comic book artist, Joann Sfar, starring relatively newcomer Eric Elmosnino as everyone’s favorite debauched French singer/pervert and former French supermodel Laetitia Casta has as Brigitte Bardot among many others (casting for Jane Birkin – Gainsbourg’s second wife – and famous figures he worked with, Anna Karina, Catherine Deneuve, etc., have not been announced yet).
We figured that the highlights of Gainsbourg’s wanton life (especially the uber-degenerate decline before his death in 1991 at the age of 62) would be present, but according to the Guardian it may not be. The film is said to span 40 years of his life, but they’re saying according to the French press, it will only go as far as “the early ’80s.” We confirmed this with Julien at French movie site Allocine, who says he’s read the same thing. So does this mean the depraved and rather sad ending — including the infamous 1986 incident when the heavily-inebriated, then-washed-up singer told Whitney Houston he wanted to “fook ‘er” on live French television — won’t be shown?
The Guardian is calling this a “censored” view of Gainsbourg’s life, but honestly the writer seems to be even a bigger fan than us and seems insistent that it’s a travesty if his pathetic downfall isn’t documented. Well, it’s clearly juicier than the beginning and we’d probably include it, but maybe Sfar has something else in mind.
They do give some good justification to keep this period on screen though and write:
“[Excluding this period is] a huge shame. What about the bad – and they really are bad – times that punctuated the last 10 or so years of Gainsbourg’s life? Sfar is ignoring a number of key incidents: the infamous Whitney Houston incident; his setting fire, in 1984, to a 500-franc note on TV to protest against heavy taxation; and his proclamation to singer Catherine Ringer, again on TV in 1986, that she was “nothing but a filthy whore, a filthy, fucking whore”. Not to mention 1984’s duet with his 13-year-old daughter, Charlotte, “Lemon Incest.” In the words of Sylvie Simmons, author of the entertaining Gainsbourg biography A Fistful of Gitanes, ‘its video, featuring Serge and Charlotte side by side on a circular bed, hit another 10 on the scandalometer.’
Très vrai, it’s pretty racy, at least for the time. Singing a song called, “Lemon Incest” with his barely-pubescent teenage daughter writhing around on his legs? Here’s the video in question.
Here’s the trailer for “Slogan,” the 1969 movie where Gainsbourg and Birkin first met and fell in love (art imitates life, just like the movie, Gainsbourg leaves his older wife for a younger woman). The “Slogan,” theme song written by Gainsbourg and Birkin is fab too, so make sure you watch the whole thing. Who knows what Sfar will do in the end. We’d love to read this script though, that’s for sure.
