Serge
Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin in Paris in 1973. Photograph: Michel
Clement/AFP/Getty Images
He was a
great man. I was just pretty': photos tell story of Jane and Serge
Exhibition
in Calais captures intimate moments from Birkin and Gainsbourg’s relationship
Maev
Kennedy
Fri 6 Apr
2018 13.13 BST Last modified on Fri 6 Apr 2018 22.00 BST
Serge
Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin in Paris in 1973. Photograph: Michel
Clement/AFP/Getty Images
The English
singer and actor Jane Birkin met Serge Gainsbourg in 1968 when she was 22 and
left the French singer and songwriter more than half a lifetime ago in 1980 –
yet at 71 her name is still rarely mentioned without being bracketed with his.
As an exhibition
of photographs – called, inevitably, Jane & Serge – opens in Calais, she
seemed philosophical about the oversight. Among scores of glamorous images of
the couple, the largest photograph by far, blown up to the size of a barn door,
is of his handsome if haggard features cradling not Birkin but their dog Nana.
“That’s
what happens when you are with a great man,” she said. “He was a great man. I
was just pretty.”
She was
equally cheerfully accepting of the fact that much of her fame still rests on
one scandalous song, the ecstatic moans of Je t’aime ... moi non plus, recorded
in the year she met him, and an international hit despite being banned in many
countries.
Facebook
Twitter Pinterest Jane Birkin and Serge
Gainsbourg take a break as they drive through Oxfordshire in 1969. Photograph:
Krause & Johansen/Andrew Birkin
“It was
surprising to be banned by both the Vatican and the BBC,” she said. “And it was
funny to have the BBC orchestra playing it because they wouldn’t play it on Top
of the Pops.”
Birkin is
halfway through a world tour of orchestral versions of Gainsbourg songs, and
added: “If I am singing in Argentina in two weeks’ time, it is because of Je
t’aime.”
The
photographs were taken by Birkin’s brother, Andrew, a film scriptwriter and
director, who had been photographing his sister since he first bought a cheap
camera in his teens. Some in the exhibition are family snaps, while others –
including the couple mugging for the camera on a red doubledecker bus – come
from a magazine photo shoot. All had been carefully filed away for half a
century, and some he had never seen printed before.
He met
Gainsbourg almost as soon as his sister did, when he was working with Stanley
Kubrick on the eventually aborted project for an , and she wrote from the set
of the film Slogan, begging him to come and keep her company and cheer her up
from her daily encounters with “a horrible man”, who was mocking and teasing
her. Gainsbourg was, and remains a giant in French cultural circles, but Birkin
was already well known from film roles including a famous nude scene in
Michelangelo Antonioni’s .
Birkin
said: “I fell in love with Serge, Andrew fell in love with Serge, Serge fell in
love with Andrew, we were a trio.”
Her brother
had no partner or children at the time, and regularly joined the couple and
their children – her daughter Kate from her marriage to the composer John
Barry, and Charlotte, born in 1971 – and dogs for holidays. Andrew Birkin took
photographs continuously, documenting long lunches, smoky evenings, sleepy
mornings, and less familiar views of the moody Gainsbourg roaring with laughter
or playing rowdy games with the children. The gallery in Calais is a few miles
up the coast from many of the happy seaside settings.
“I had
never met anyone like him, I adored him,” Andrew Birkin said. “It was not
sexual – or maybe that is not what a psychiatrist would say. We did kiss on the
lips.” Their intense triangular friendship survived the breakup of his sister’s
relationship. He last saw Gainsbourg a few months before his death in 1991, at
his house in Paris with its black and chrome interior, where fans still lay
floral and painted tributes on the pavement.
“He took me back to his bedroom with the big
black bed in the big black room. He had a pile of film videos – not good films,
terrible American cowboy things – he put one on, and he was fast asleep in two
or three minutes. I left in the small hours and I never saw him again.”
“It’s a bit
weird,” Jane Birkin said, looking around at walls lined with her own shining
young face, and Gainsbourg’s crumpled features usually wreathed in cigarette
smoke, “it’s a bit like being dead.”
She left
because his melancholy and heavy drinking made him impossible to live with, she
said, but thinks in many ways they were better friends and he wrote her better
songs after she left.
“You could
talk back to him for once,” she said. “You were not just his creation any
more.”
• Jane
& Serge, Calais Museum of Fine Arts, until 4 November
Jane Birkin
and Serge Gainsbourg take a break as they drive through Oxfordshire in 1969.
Photograph: Krause & Johansen/Andrew Birkin
Jane and
Serge in 1969. Photograph: Krause & Johansen/Andrew Birkin
Jane Birkin
alongside her brother, Andrew, in 1964. Photograph: Krause &
Johansen/Andrew Birkin
|
Serge
Gainsbourg's 20 most scandalous moments
From
writing saucy songs for Brigitte Bardot to propositioning Whitney Houston on
TV, we recall the causes célèbres of France's premier pop poet
Francine
Gorman
Mon 28 Feb
2011 12.10 GMT First published on Mon 28 Feb 2011 12.10 GMT
Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg
French connection ... Jane Birkin and Serge
Gainsbourg. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
Twenty
years ago this week saw an event that brought the entire French population to a
standstill. It was the day that Serge Gainsbourg – France's answer to David
Bowie, Mick Jagger and John Lennon rolled into one smoke cloud of controversy –
died of a heart attack. So what better way to commemorate his life and legacy
than a look at the 20 most scandalous things he achieved during his career?
1. Writing
suggestive songs for Eurovision-winning 18-year-old girls
1965 saw
Frrench sweetheart France Gall take to the Eurovision stage to perform a
Gainsbourg-penned entry, Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son (later covered by Arcade
Fire). A resounding win at the competition, combined with the success of their
previous collaborations such as 1964's Laisse Tomber Les Filles led Gall to
trust Gainsbourg to a point that she would sing more or less whatever he
presented her with. A trust that would be well and truly scuppered with the
release of Les Sucettes (Lollipops) in 1966, the story of a girl who is
"in paradise" every time "that little stick is on her
tongue". Upon discovering the dual meaning of the risqué lyrics, Gall
refused to perform the song and never worked with, nor spoke to Gainsbourg
again.
2. Dating
the already married Brigitte Bardot
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In 1967
Gainsbourg became infatuated with the French siren who, while enduring a
difficult time in her marriage, agreed to go on a date with him. So intimidated
was he by her stunning looks that on the date, he lost all of the wit and
charisma that he was renowned for. Thinking he had ruined his chances with the
sultry blonde, he returned home to hear a ringing phone over which Bardot
insisted that as an apology for his poor performance on the date, he write her
the most beautiful love song ever heard. The next morning, there were two:
Bonnie et Clyde and Je T'aime … Moi Non Plus.
3.
Recording songs in steamy, sweaty vocal booths (also with Brigitte Bardot)
Understandably,
this upset Bardot's husband. Upon hearing Je T'aime … Moi Non Plus, Bardot
headed to a Parisian studio with her new beau to record it. Throughout the
two-hour session, sound engineer William Flageollet claimed to have witnessed
"heavy petting" in the vocal booth while the sighs and whispers were
committed to tape. The song had been mixed and readied for radio when Bardot,
remembering that she was married, revoked her consent for its release. News of
the recording had reached her husband, German businessman Gunter Sachs, and
after desperate pleas, Gainsbourg relented to Bardot's wishes and the version
was shelved. Bardot later went on to release the recording in 1986. And also to
divorce her husband.
4.
"Enticing" and entrapping a young English rose
This was
how the wooing of his next major love interest was widely reported, but it's
not necessarily the truth. Distraught after the collapse of his relationship
with Bardot, Gainsbourg occupied himself with a role in the 1969 film Slogan.
Playing opposite him was a charming, young English actor called Jane Birkin.
Under the impression that her co-star hated her, Birkin arranged a dinner with
him over which Gainsbourg, 18 years her senior, fell in love. Unfortunately,
due to the amount of alcohol consumed throughout the date, the first night the
pair spent together was in a hotel room ... with Gainsbourg passed out drunk on
the bed. The pair would remain a couple until 1980, and inseparable friends
until the end of Serge's life.
5. Moaning
and groaning on record
After
shelving the original Bardot recorded version, Marianne Faithfull and Valérie
Lagrange (among others) were approached to make feminine "noises", as
it were, but both declined. A willing companion was, however, found in new love
interest Jane Birkin. Rumours had circulated that the pair recorded some of the
more intimate parts of the song by placing a microphone underneath their bed.
In actual fact, the re-recording was undertaken in studios in Paris and London
where the heavy breathing was claimed to have been meticulously stage-managed
by Gainsbourg. Birkin has always denied the rumours of employing the under-bed
recording technique ... for this song, anyway.
6. Getting
rich by shocking the world
Je T'aime …
Moi Non Plus brought huge success, notoriety, substantial record sales and
worldwide outrage when it was finally released in 1969. It was No 1 throughout
Europe, and was the first UK No 1 to be sung in a language other than English.
By far Gainsbourg's most successful release, the song is recognised
internationally as "that one with the organs and the girl having an orgasm?".
The single sold millions and set the tone for what was to come next from the
scandalous pair.
7. Getting
banned by radio
Even though
millions of copies of Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus were sold around the world,
the song was still considered too explicit for radio play. In the UK, it was
the first No 1 to be banned by the BBC due to its explicit content. It was also
banned in Spain, Sweden, Italy and even on French radio before 11pm. It has
also been claimed that the Italian executive who permitted the release of the
song was excommunicated by the Vatican, and in the US, limited sales and radio
play led the single to peak at the oddly appropriate chart position of 69.
However, Americans and Italians used thriftiness to get hold of the records,
and in the end, all of this publicity didn't do the sales much harm at all.
8. Writing
a concept album about falling in love with a teenage girl, who subsequently
dies in a plane crash
This was
always going to raise a few eyebrows, particularly when you get your young
girlfriend to pose as the eponymous teenage seductress for the album cover.
1971's Histoire de Melody Nelson was Gainsbourg's first concept album, the
story of a man who knocks a young redhead from her bicycle and falls in love
with her. An ultimately tragic tale, the album is now recognised much more for
its musical prowess than any underlying Lolita-inspired tones. With strings and
arrangements orchestrated by the profoundly talented Jean-Claude Vannier,
musicians from Beck through to Placebo and Portishead have cited this album as
hugely influential on their work, demonstrating once again how Gainsbourg could
overcome a scandal to emerge the immensely gifted hero.
9.
Suffering his first heart attack at 45
In 1973, at
the relatively young age of 45, Gainsbourg's years of smoking and drinking
began to catch up with him and in May, he suffered his first heart attack.
After collapsing in his museum-like home on Rue de Verneuil in Paris's trendy
St Germain, an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. Before leaving the
house however, Gainsbourg insisted he be covered with his highly fashionable,
extremely valuable Hermès blanket as the hospital's "own brand" ones
were too ugly. Typical Gainsbourg, always one to go out in style.
10.
Performing publicity stunts in hospital beds
While
recovering from his heart attack, Gainsbourg began to miss the spotlight so
called a press conference from his hospital bed during which he claimed he
would reduce the risk of suffering a second heart attack by "increasing
his intake of alcohol and cigarettes". Found hidden around his hospital
room on his departure were pill bottles stuffed with cigarette butts, from the
sneaky smokes he'd been illicitly enjoying while "recovering".
11. Casting
his girlfriend in the role of the boyish-looking lover of a homosexual man
This is
what Serge riled people with in 1976. The Gainsbourg-directed film, which shared
the title of his hugely successful song Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus was a
complicated, explicit story following the difficult relationship of a gay man
who falls in love with a boyish female (Birkin), and the sexual problems and
emotional difficulties this inevitably leads to. The film was poorly received
in France, and even more so in England where it was shown on only one screen –
in an adult cinema in Soho.
12.
Embracing Nazi rock
Paris,
1975. Thirty years after the end of the second world war. This would be a good
moment, Gainsbourg thought to himself, to release Rock Around the Bunker, an
upbeat concept album about Nazi Germany. The songs were set to swinging
two-step beats, a return to a rockier feel after a few albums exploring more
orchestral sounds. Opening track Nazi Rock tells the story of SS soldiers
dressed as drag queens, dancing during the Night of the Long Knives. This song,
combined with other tracks from the album such as Eva and SS in Uruguay led
Gainsbourg, provocative as ever, to find himself in trouble for his comical
take on a controversial subject.
13.
Releasing a reggae version of the French national anthem
This has a
tendency to incite hatred among your fellow countrymen. A stint in Jamaica was
where Gainsbourg recorded his 1979 reggae-inspired effort, Aux Armes Et
Caetera, of which the title track was a cover of the French national anthem, La
Marseillaise. The album was a collaboration with reggae legends Sly &
Robbie, who accompanied Gainsbourg on a subsequent tour that was plagued with
bomb threats, cancellations and disgruntled protesting paratroopers. However,
in true Gainsbourg style, the controversy was manipulated to work to his
advantage, and the album eventually became one of his fastest sellers. Aux
Armes Et Caetera sold more than 600,000 copies in France and is considered to
be one of the earliest albums to have brought reggae to the mainstream.
14. Turning
his house into a black, fabric-lined museum
Gainsbourg
claimed to need the calming influence of black at his St Germain home to
counter the relentless activity in his brain. Each item of his extravagant
collection of objects was specifically placed around his house and according to
Birkin, Gainsbourg would know if anything had been touched or moved. Surrounded
by beautiful things, but also compelled by an impulse that would probably be
described today as OCD, Gainsbourg strived to keep his home exactly as he
wanted it. Being unable to treat the house as a home was reportedly one of the
contributing factors to Birkin leaving him in 1980.
15. Setting
a 500 franc note alight on French TV
For one
thing, this was illegal. Yes. even if you are Serge Gainsbourg. 1984 would
prove to be one of his more audacious years, seeing him cause all kinds of
stirs. It was in this year that Gainsbourg burned a 500 franc note live on
French TV in a protest against heavy taxation. Although an offence punishable
by law, Gainsbourg would feel the heat from a different direction. As a
reaction to the extravagant behaviour of her father, Charlotte's classmates
would retaliate by setting her homework on fire, punishing her for her father's
disregard for money.
16.
Releasing a duet with his teenage daughter entitled Lemon Incest
This caused
one of the biggest scandals of Gainsbourg's career. Recorded with 12-year-old
daughter Charlotte in 1984 (as previously mentioned, one of his more outlandish
years), the song caused uproar in France, and even made headlines in the UK.
The title, a play on similarities between the words "zest" and
"incest" was considered shocking enough, but it was the video that
would be the major source of complaint. Young Charlotte was filmed in a
nightshirt and knickers lying on a bed with her topless father, singing about
"the love that we will never make together". The world was outraged,
but the publicity led to increased album sales with Serge and Charlotte
subsequently made a huge amount of money, proving Gainsbourg's recipe for
success, once again, to be a winning one.
17.
Promoting sexually driven puns
Looking
again to 1984, as though inspired by George Orwell's authority-battling ideas,
Gainsbourg once again managed to outrage the nation. In this year Love On the
Beat was released, the title of the album being a play on the word
"bite", a colloquial French term meaning "dick". The album
was surrounded by controversy for Gainsbourg's application of sexually driven
puns. Also featuring his most highly contested release, Lemon Incest, Love On
the Beat would go on to become his most provocative album.
18.
Explicitly stating his sexual desires to Whitney Houston on French TV
After a
performance on the French prime time show of Michel Drucker in 1986, Houston
found herself seated next to France's most notorious lothario for a
post-performance chat. Little did she expect that the praise she would receive
would turn into something sordid as Gainsbourg, in his best English clearly and
confidently informed his host that he wanted "to fuck her". Houston's
already highly blushed cheeks deepened a shade, and the scenario has never
since been forgotten.
19.Taking
his twisted ideas and ... making a movie out of them
As if the
hysteria surrounding Lemon Incest hadn't provided quite enough drama for the
Gainsbourgs, in 1986 Serge took it a step further when he wrote and directed
Charlotte Forever, the story of a young girl (played by his daughter Charlotte)
living with her widowed, alcoholic father. The film intertwined stories of
incest and suicidal tendencies that French audiences found distasteful and
difficult to understand. This reaction was upsetting for all involved in the
film and to make things up to his daughter, Gainsbourg wrote her an album of
the same name with poignant, touching duets. His audience forgave him, and
Serge went on to record his final release, a rap album entitled You're Under
Arrest.
20. Dying
in style
Serge
Gainsbourg would be found dead after suffering another heart attack at his home
in Rue de Verneuil. It seems his decision to preserve his health by smoking and
drinking even more didn't quite work out. France stood still on hearing the
news, and fans flocked to his home to pay tribute to the country's most
illustrious rock star. François Mitterrand, the president at the time,
described Gainsbourg as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire ... he elevated
song to the level of art". Although leaving a legacy of scandal, drama and
controversy, Gainsbourg is now remembered much more for his artistic ability,
music and charisma. Serge Gainsbourg is still a highly debated, yet widely
adored character. He also achieved what he intended, to have us all talking
about him, even 20 years after his death.
FROM SATURDAY 07 APRIL UNTIL SUNDAY 04 NOVEMBER
03 21 46 48
40
www.calais.fr
Musée des
Beaux Arts
25 rue
Richelieu
62100
Calais
Description « Jane & Serge »
Family
album by Andrew Birkin
While it is
true that many photographics exist of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg as a
couple, Andrew Birkin's series
is
conspicuous for its intimacy and rarity. These images of a decade which is seen
by many as symbolic of a true cultural
renewal
offer an extraordinary diversity of stagings.
The
exhibition at the Calais Museum of Fine Arts follows the recent rediscovery of
private photographs by Andrew Birkin,
brought
into the public arena in the form of a prestigious art book published by
Taschen in 2013 under the direction of
Alison
Castle: Jane & Serge, a Family Album by Andrew Birkin (Taschen, Cologne,
2013). It is partly based on information
and a
selection of prints from that book. Featuring in turn family snapshots or
series of commissions for the press, the
exhibition
reveals the extent to which the private and public life of the artist couple
formed by Jane Birkin and Serge
Gainsbourg
were interwoven.
Yet the
exhibition Jane & Serge, a family album by Andrew Birkin develops an
original discourse, combining a selection
of Andew
Birkin's photographs with a brief presentation of the cultural context. It
draws visitors into a period of artistic
profusion
and new freedoms, to this day epitomised in France by Jane Birkin. The
exhibition also evokes the artistic
experimentations
conducted at that time by Serge Gainsbourg, although these attracted less
attention than the later
excesses of
his decadent dandy persona.
This
exhibition takes on its full significance being staged as it is in the city of
Calais, the crossing point between France
and
England. Serge Gainsbourg looked across the Channel for a more modern sound;
his music is inspired by an
Anglo-Saxon
legacy and his meeting with Jane Birkin, the young English actress who was to
become his muse. Dated for
the most
part between 1964 and 1979, Andrew Birkin's photographs bear testimony to this
pivotal period for the artist,
between
France and the United Kingdom.
The content
of the exhibition has been developed by the Calais Museum of Fine Arts with the
collaboration of Andrew
Birkin and
the cultural projects agency Art Storm.
Openings
until
Sunday 4 November 2018
