Gainsbourg died in 1991 after three decades of making hits in a variety of styles. Stateside, he’s best known for the cryptically sexy duet with Jane Birkin “Je T’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus.” The picture was a hit, winning two Cesars, France’s version of the Oscar.
Isn’t it tough to herd cameras, lights and actors after working so long with just a pen and paper? “It’s much easier,” Sfar says. “When something is wrong, you can blame the crew! You meet wonderful actresses, and you have plenty of people to bring you sandwiches.”
Sfar says that his talents helped him, “a total newbie,” connect with a skeptical crew: “Because I made drawings, they considered me a technician.” The project presented nontechnical challenges, though. Its subject, a cult hero in the United States — worshiped by hipsters such as Beck for his witty, inventive songs — is a cultural icon in France. “In every pub, you will find a drunk who is singing a Gainsbourg song,” Sfar says.
Because the French know Gainsbourg so well, the film spends little time explaining details of his career, preferring to revel in his outrageous behavior (like recording the National Anthem to an irreverent reggae beat) and romances with the women who recorded his songs (Brigitte Bardot, most famously). Although Gainsbourg cut dozens of LPs on his own, becoming ubiquitous in the 1960s and ’70s — and often testing censors with, for instance, sexual moans on pop records — the film lingers behind the scenes, watching as the famously unattractive man woos singers such as Juliette Greco under the guise of pitching songs for them to record.
Sfar had published a comic-book biography of the singer, but making a film about him required delicacy. Birkin (Gainsbourg’s longtime lover) and actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (their daughter) were willing for Sfar to make the film but didn’t want to participate, presumably because it would require revisiting his intoxicated final years, when Birkin left him. Gainsbourg spiraled out of control in the public eye and was given to TV talk-show antics such as burning a 500-franc bill and making lewd comments to fellow guests. The director says Birkin told him, “ ‘You have to do your movie, because Serge would be so happy, but don’t ask us to see [it]. We don’t want to see him on-screen.’ ”
Although she eventually backed out, Charlotte (who as a 12-year-old infamously recorded a song called “Lemon Incest” with her dad) had initially agreed to play Serge on-screen. That idea died, but “A Heroic Life” still has quirky innovation: Throughout, Gainsbourg is tailed by a puppetlike alter ego who goads him into trouble.
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