Gainsbourg talks about her father, today’s censorship
‘Today, we live in a world that is so censored — I wonder how Serge would have coped with that. Would he have been banned from television? He was such a rich personality,’ said Gainsbourg
Charlote Gainsbourg didn’t like discussing her father, the pioneering troubadour Serge Gainsbourg, as she struggled to share her personal grief with a public that still reveres him as the epitome of French libertine cool.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of his death, she is finally leting go, throwing open his home and able to enjoy the flood of tributes coming from artists and fans, young and old.
“I held back from giving interviews about him for a long time,” she told AFP from her Paris home. “I told myself the anniversaries were too painful.
“But people weren’t waiting for me, which is good. The statements are so beautiful. I told myself: ‘ Maybe I can speak about it, too.’”
A flood of album reissues, documentaries, books and podcasts have underlined the reverence with which Serge Gainsbourg is still held as France marks the anniversary of his death on Tuesday.
Charlote was just 19 when her father suffered a fatal heart atack, but if there is one consolation, it is perhaps that he would have been an awkward fit in today’s easily offended world.
“He had so many facets. He expressed his dark side. He kept no secrets,” she said.
“Today, we live in a world that is so censored — I wonder how he would have coped with that. Would he have been banned from television? He was such a rich personality, who married a great sensitivity with a great taste for provocation. We don’t see that at all anymore.”
Charlote, now 49 and a hugely successful actor and singer-songwriter in her own right, says she has been “incredibly moved” by the tributes, especially from young artists. “I find that incredible. It’s only today that I really realise it. Before I was in my grief, my pain. Now, I realise the impact that he has had on generations and generations, and that it hasn’t stopped,” she said.
“My father was not trapped in one era because he touched on so many styles, and with such class. He was a master of classical and modernist writing, and he did it with humour. It’s what one dreams of being able to do, this refinement, such agile gymnastics. It set the bar very, very high.”
Time and distance have also allowed her to complete a long-delayed project to open the family home on rue de Verneuil on the Parisian Let Bank to the public.
“It was all I had let of him, so I held on to it like a treasure,” she said.
“But when I let for New York six years ago, I had some distance and I understood that it had to be done — for the public, but also for my mental health, I need to let go. It needs to be a place of French heritage, that is accessible.”
The opening of the house, where Serge lived from 1969 until his death, was due to happen in March but has been pushed back towards the end of the year by the pandemic.