How well does a daughter know her mother? Charlotte Gainsbourg attempts to answer that question in her directorial debut “Jane by Charlotte.” Unlike many who have found their lives outside of the spotlight, the filmmaker has always been in the public eye thanks to her famous mother Jane Birkin. A renowned singer and actress in her own right, Birkin is most known for work in films like the Antonioni classic “Blowup.”
Gainsbourg sits down with the legendary Birkin for a wide-ranging conversation covering everything from lack of sleep to the power as well as the pain that comes with being a celebrity. The director also discovers that both women share different perspectives on their shared time together. One of the film’s biggest points of contention comes from Gainsbourg’s viewpoint of her father, Serge Gainsbourg, and Birkin’s own experiences with the man.
The film’s official synopsis:
“In creating a documentary portrait of a parent, as actor Charlotte Gainsbourg does in her directorial debut, one could overly flatter the subject or iron out the tough creases. Gainsbourg avoids these traps in her film about her legendary mother, the singer and actress Jane Birkin. Consisting of several intimate conversations between parent and child, as well as footage of Birkin performing onstage, the result is a spare, loving window into the emotional lives of two women as they talk about subject matter that ranges from the delightful to the difficult: aging, dying, insomnia, celebrity, and their differing memories of their shared past, which includes Charlotte’s father and Jane’s husband, Serge Gainsbourg. “Jane by Charlotte” is an unexpected, imaginatively visualized work that affords intimate access to someone whom many of us only think we know.”
“Jane by Charlotte” opens March 18 at New York’s Quad Cinema and March 25 at Los Angeles’ Landmark Westwood theater. The film expands to more cities in April before arriving on Digital May 6. Watch the trailer below:
