From visionary graphic artist and director Joann Sfar comes a completely original take on one of France’s greatest mavericks, the illustrious and infamous Serge Gainsbourg. GAINSBOURG is an enchanting glimpse at his early life, growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris, and through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s until his death in 1991. Taking the best from LA VIE EN ROSE and AMELIE, GAINSBOURG is one of 2010’s highly awaited films brought to us by one of the most beloved graphic artists of our time and the team behind the magical creatures of PAN’S LABYRINTH.

Director Joann Sfar talks about his film GAINSBOURG

Certain artists choose their masters in the same discipline they have chosen. Not me. My master has always been Gainsbourg. And since I didn’t want to offend him by helplessly attempting to become singer, I became a cartoonist.

I left Nice for Paris with one goal in mind: to meet Serge Gainsbourg. I figured that since I adored him, he would naturally adore me too. I originally wanted to do a comic book based on one of Gainsbourg’s novels, Evgueni Sokolov. A month after I moved to Paris, Gainsbourg died.

Great Jewish painters, folk musicians from Eastern Europe - all of my graphic novels have one way or another led me down Gainsbourg’s path. My film is very faithful to his life, but it won’t be a biopic. It’s a real narrative. Paris is like a character in the film. We discover all sorts of nooks and underground worlds as we follow Gainsbourg’s footsteps.

There will be no pornography, indecencies or obscenities in my film, but there will be a lot of vulnerable characters who seem to communicate - mainly horizontally - in bed. I don’t want my film to hurt anyone. I want Gainsbourg’s heirs to be proud of it. Its
guiding principle is that it’s ultimately the story of a great poet. Gainsbourg always tested the limits, but only a fool would believe cynicism was the motive behind his actions. This is the story of a timid and self-conscious man who protects himself as best he can.

This hero’s life is epic. We should feel the Russian blood coursing through the story’s veins. There will be no original recordings of Gainsbourg’s songs. No jazzy or kitschy film soundtrack. Everything will be re-done, re-worked, resung, and become larger than life. Original tracks won’t be artificially superimposed on new images. The voice, music, and image should all be in harmony. I want to make a film comparable to Ray or Walk the Line. The film begins in Paris with young Gainsbourg bolting through the rain with his Jewish star on the lapel of his jacket. Panicking at the sound of stomping boots, he hides in an alley to transform his Star of David into a sheriff’s badge.

From his early year as a painter to his later career in music, Gainsbourg exhibited an extreme and yet restrained romanticism. He did everything with delicacy. But every so often, he would jump up and pursue something aggressively. We see how much it took out of him to write songs and have to defend them and himself each time he recorded a new album. Gainsbourg had the courage to write what youth was looking for. He is the most classical and modern of songwriters. He reaches incredible heights in his songwriting immediately followed by lows during publicity stints on TV. Every artist experiences the sadness of trying to be funny or likable in front of an audience, when in fact all he wants is an intelligent ear, a friendly smile, and welcoming arms.

Gainsbourg deeply moves me with his courage and his extreme vulnerability. I love the sound his white Repetto shoes make on the floor when he walks. I love the way he doesn’t wear socks even when it’s cold outside. I love his obsession with cinema, drawing and painting. I love that he gets angry because he cannot achieve the same heights in these graphic languages that he does in his music.

Gainsbourg will not be a historiographic or an anecdotal film. No, this film aspires to recount a modern myth because the figure of Gainsbourg is radically modern. No book or 5 movie has ever delved into his heroic qualities. There is no one more Christ-like, nor Jewish nor Russian than Gainsbourg.

The film begins in a Parisian apartment with a little boy from a Russian family, where many languages other than French are spoken.

I obviously know Gainsbourg’s “real life” like the back of my hand, but I do not want to make a “realistic” or “journalistic” film. I want to create something more like a Russian fable, a modern legend. Those who have read my comic books, Rabbi’s Cat, Pascin or Klezmer, will find all of my usual obsessions in my Gainsbourg: love as a remedy to everything, the tragedy and absurdity of Slavic poets, omnipresent irony and supernatural creatures straight out of a Chagall painting.

Serge Gainsbourg created a character for himself. I don’t want to go around delving into his personal life to discover who he really was. I couldn’t care less about the truth. I love Gainsbourg too much to bring him back to the realms of reality. I want this film to have as much energy as a Sergio Leone Western and as much elegance as Fred Astaire. I want to make a cult film, not a journalistic account of his life. I tell stories through images so my film will be very visual.

This film will be full of lies because I love lies. This is how I go about creating a modest and self-conscious work: lying, always lying. I always do a great deal of documentary research beforehand and then purposefully forget half of what I learned. Then I take my subject and make him into a legendary hero. There have been trashy, poppy and sex obsessed representations of Gainsbourg. Mine will be Russian, a hero right out of Isaac Babel, Gogol or Dostoyevsky.

I would also like this film to address a foreign audience that may not be as familiar with Gainsbourg. Those who experience the film should not only see an extraordinary destiny unveiled, but also witness a modern archetype. I believe that Gainsbourg is more heroic than Superman, in the sense that the Greeks understood it, because a hero is someone who suffers and gets knocked down, but will still grab burning coals with his bare hands.

A real hero is one who offers his audience chunks of scalding, molten lava, like Prometheus did. I am entirely aware of the load I carry on my shoulders, but I love carrying loads that are too heavy to take on.

Joann Sfar

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