Two first names are enough for us to know what this film is regarding: it shows how much these two women are part of our lives. In front of the camera, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin confide in each other. It is overwhelming.
It is a rare film where modesty competes with unveiling. A mother and a daughter open their hearts to, at last, sweep the dust hidden under the carpet: there is nothing really exceptional, except that in this case the discussion, which digs very far into the intimate, faces camera. .
It must be said that the family in question has always been the subject of media coverage that it has already managed to feed. Moreover, it only takes two first names to know who is talking regarding Jane par Charlotte.
This film is a bit the culmination of this often public life. If the girl wanted to film her mother and immortalize their sweet pas de deux towards greater understanding, it is because, curiously, these two intimidate each other.
Charlotte films her mother in these moments when they are offered to the public on stage in Japan or New York, but also in the privacy and the joyful bazaar of her house overlooking the Breton coast where, with Charlotte’s youngest daughter, they cook, watch C you, but above all open their hearts.
It’s always delicate, even if you sometimes feel a little embarrassed to attend their changes as when Charlotte confronts her mother with the photos of Kate Barry, her tragically missing daughter, or takes her away, for the first time since. the disappearance of Serge Gainsbourg, in the house in the rue de Verneuil where she lived with him – a house called to become a muse. smells the same? Yes, it hasn’t changed, it feels like Pompi.
Of course, some moments must have been staged, but the heart of this Jane par Charlotte, it’s love. And this is universal. Charlotte Gainsbourg gave us an open heart moment (another one!) To tell us more.
In the film, your mother says for a moment: You intimidated me as a child, I found you mysterious, I didn’t dare yell at you. Do you know how this mutual feeling came regarding?
No, because I remembered not feeling a at all, as a child. moved in as a teenager and possibly my parents’ separation. I do not have a very clear awareness of it. from the moment I started making films, that I had a life that concerned them less.
Without the camera, would you have ever achieved this intimacy?
In fact, even if the film made us share a long moment as precious and unique and if, at the end of the shoot, we had an incredible collusion and degree of familiarity, we have our natures reserved and we came back to it.
Did you discover something regarding your mother that you didn’t know regarding?
No. I wanted to show everything I ever saw from her. While doing interviews, I heard her say that she was very surprised that I showed an interest in her, that I wanted to film her, that she was important. It surprised me a lot because I thought it was obvious. But I understand because, as she says in the film, there is the place of the dead and my father has taken a very important place. What is curious is that, on the film, there were natural limits and it is since, by doing interviews, that one enters even more in the intimacy.
Didn’t your father make you his daughter, preventing the mother-daughter relationship from being fully developed?
It’s true that from my 9-10 years old, when they separated, I had such privileged weekends with Bambou and him, I was like an only girl, very spoiled. On my mother’s side, there were a lot of people! Jacques (Doillon), his daughter, Lou: it was to spend a family of four, rue de Verneuil, large dinners where I discovered my mother “very mother of a family”. Afterwards, I wanted to go to boarding school, to build myself and then there was L’Effronte and from there, I saw Claude Miller and his family a lot, as if they had adopted me.
How do we build this project? Did you write some sort of plan or did you use a loose film to build the film during the edit?
It was quite panicking: it was my first time and we started without knowing what I wanted, it was just a vague idea, there was this Tokyo concert that I wanted to immortalize and we quickly decided . And then I started to think to myself that I was going to have to ask him questions and it was very intimidating. I started this interview with very intimate questions and it shocked my mother a lot, first to be a little freelance in front of a camera, to answer in front of a chief operator, a sound engineer: to completely destabilized her. When I saw her at Carnegie Hall in New York a little later, I asked her to resume, she replied: “I hated, you stop”. Two years later, I showed her the pictures of Japan and, there, she understood and liked the tone and understood that it was interesting. She understood that my ambition was to show her the most beautiful and to have a relationship as tender as possible. And she was kind enough to resume. And then, when I saw that we didn’t have enough material, I took my daughter on board. has allowed me to film my mother in her role of grandmother, in the kitchen, in her daily life. We see a woman with very English humor and fantasy. She actually pisses herself off when she’s alone! And it is very assumed.
The scene where you come back together to rue de Verneuil is very striking. It actually feels like Pompi. Was touching anything really beyond your strength, until you left it in the fridge or the cupboard?
I found myself 19 years old, completely lost. I had only one idea in mind and that was to buy back his house so that what already seemed to me a museum would be frozen. At times, I had the impression that I took advantage of this place as a place of pilgrimage. As soon as I needed this contact, I locked myself in, it’s a strange mourning that has lasted for thirty years. Instead of doing like my brothers and sisters, of being more curious regarding his life, of watching the extracts, reading the texts, I refused everything altogether, I no longer even listened to his voice. I kept keeping the rue de Verneuil. When Textuel wanted to make a book on his manuscripts, it clicked. I looked for all his writings, I even kept the very small pieces of paper. There is a slightly sickly side. But it was useful to me.
Are you going to do this muse?
Yes, it will be thanks to Sbastien Merlet who was the curator of the exhibitionThe Poinonneur was 50 years old, who knows everything regarding my father, is passionate regarding all the anecdotes, the recordings: it’s a bible. He helps me a lot. There will be a visit to the house and another muse part.
Did you dread the scene where you confront your mother with the portraits of Kate, your tragically deceased sister?
I wanted to show her these images to make her react, but it was a little easy and I realize it today. I didn’t want to draw tears to her, but at the same time, the time that I put in saying that we stop when I see that she is in pain, lasted a few seconds too long. But I don’t regret it because you have to prove your limits to know them. I think all of these tragedies are part of my mother. She didn’t want to talk regarding it and neither did I. I even fled to the United States and she was angry with me, she still resents me a little today, moreover.
The film ends with your mother walking on the beach and listening through headphones to a declaration of love you make for her. Was it the awareness of the passing of time and the fear of loss that made you want to film your mother?
Yes. But you know, I’ve been afraid of losing her for twenty years, she’s been dragging some crap that she’s always recovering from. Besides, she will be back on stage in a few days. But we live with constant fear. No doubt there was this desire because I was in the United States. I had to realize when I saw her on stage of something I didn’t want to miss. Since I was not doing well at the time, I think I completely let my guard down on modesty, that I was a little unfiltered to tell her that I needed her. This love that I still can’t tell her in the face, it was easier with the camera.
Jane par Charlotte,
release Wednesday January 12.
