Serge Gainsbourg was a French singer and composer who became a major icon of the twentiest century of western culture as much as Bob Marley in music, Bruce Lee in cinema or Che Guevara in politics. He had a voice, husky and nasal, a face (a 'mug' according to his own words) that was not advantageous but still he had allure and ultimately, he had fame. He was considered a genius of his time and his legacy goes beyond just music, leaving an imprint that art and life are intertwined as much as music goes beyond borders and times.
A poet of modern times he was also a dandy with all the romantic apparatus: he seduced the most beautiful women of his time, he had a style that became iconic, a mix of loose elegance and sartorial casualness, always dressed in essential non colors: black, white, navy blue or demin. He was cool but in a lazy way, provocative but with nonchalance. He religiously groomed himself to look rough, like a Keith Richard would do.
In other words the man was large and it was logical to photograph a biopic of his life, and that was the challenge that Joann Sfar, a cartoonist by training tried to do with his movie. However classic as Gainsbourg the figure was, Gainsbourg the movie is not really a classic of its genre.
Good biopics, especially depicting music geniuses do not abound in movies, compared to book adaptations for example, but both constitute a difficult exercise for both are a very personnal interpretation (the one of a director) of something that belongs to the collective mind. However, the study of the genre necessarily leads to remind ourselves about what we expect from a good movie in particular and a good artwork in general.
When we go to the movies we want to be entertained and moved. Cinema, as an artform is probably the only one that can emcompass all the other artforms: music, painting, litterature, fashion, sculpture… Etc. But that is not enough to move the audience, which needs to connect with the story and the characters. Otherwise the reel can turn into a documentary or worse, a succession of nice images (a long advertising, a long music video or an endless screen saver). Therefore we all want to be mesmirized by the screen from the first scene to the end. When Milos Forman directed Amadeus, the life of Mozart, his genius idea was to introduce the character of Salieri, the mediocre rival who envied Mozart's gift and blamed God with despair and disbelief for not having chosen him. Of course the fact that Mozart was depicted as normal human being, driven by his passions and earthly desires also facilitate the audience to connect with him. The narrative used in Amadeus (the story begins after Mozart died and is a recollection or a testimony of Salieri about Mozart) is almost similar to the one of sir Richard Attenborough's Chaplin in which a fictional biographer, played by Anthony Hopkins interviews an already old Chaplin in his swiss home, in retirement, in the opening scenes. This narrative style has the double effect of telling a story within a story but also to set a fictional dialogue between the audience and the story teller. This helps a lot in terms of staging as it gives an additional dimension to the picture and it saves some long developments where the audience is left with just a picture to look at.
In Gainsbourg, Johan Sfar introduces the fictional character of "La Gueule", a puppet alter-ego of Serge Gainsbourg only visible by himself, like a demon brother advising him. But the movie is still very linear as it starts from youth to death. The intensity of the movie suddenly drops after the Brigitte Bardot episode and the biopic slowly falls into a style close to documentary. The problem to my opinion lies in the fact that Johan Sfar did not dare editing the life as a movie should be edited. A classic movie introduction where the audience is thrown immediately into the story is the opening scene of Goodfellas, a book adaptation of the biography of a gangster, staging a scene which actually happens in the middle of the book i.e. at the peak of the excitement.
That being said, Gainsbourg had some beautiful and entertaining moments, with a great cast but I wish Sfar took more risks in the the way he cut the story in the screenplay. The cinematography was a bit too uneven, it didn't have the nocturnal, rainy ambiance of a Bird by Clint Eastwood, although as part singer part poet, Gainsbourg was walking on the line between night and day. Ultimately I won't compare it to Ray, because the means where not the same and because Ray was really grand in the sense that it was filmed to be projected on the big silver screen.
While writing this blog I realized that Bed's Cinema Dine movie night could do a series on (good) biopics of music geniuses. Comming soon.
