by James Mottram
To some, Charlotte Gainsbourg is the screen siren famed for working with the likes of Todd Haynes, Michel Gondry and Lars von Trier, including the highly provocative Antichrist which won her Best Actress in Cannes. To others, she is a musician and singer, whose collaborators include Beck, Air and Jarvis Cocker.
Perhaps this artistic reach is no surprise given her upbringing. Born in London, she’s the daughter the late Serge Gainsbourg, the famous French singer-songwriter, and Jane Birkin, the British actress and singer who appeared in such classics as Blow Up and Death on the Nile.
While she has recently overseen the creation of Maison Gainsbourg, a museum dedicated to her father, it’s her mother who is the subject of her first film as director, Jane by Charlotte.
An intimate documentary portrait, it’s one of two Gainsbourg projects appearing at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. The second is The Passengers of the Night, a 1980s-set drama in which she plays Elisabeth, a mother-of-two who separates from her husband and finds work – and more – at a late-night radio station.
Here, as she sits down with FilmInk, the 51-year-old delves back into her family and what it was like growing up with such iconic parents.
How did Jane by Charlotte evolve? Was it a long-gestating project?
“No, it was quite sudden, my desire to do it. And to put a crew together and film her – that was quite quick. Of course, I tried to prepare as much as I could. And I did that first interview with her in Japan. It’s not long in the film, but it’s a very Japanese setting. And after that… I was living in New York, and I came back to France, and I told her ‘The next step is when you will go to Carnegie Hall in New York.’ And she said, ‘No, there’s no next step. You just stop.’”
Why?
“She wasn’t happy. She really didn’t like the impression she had had of Japan. She was very nervous and really hated it, which I understand because during the footage that I have, I can see that she’s really stressed. So, I was even embarrassed myself to look back at the footage. But two years went by. She came to New York, and I showed her the film. Well, I mean, the footage of Japan. And we were both very surprised that there was nothing bad about it, there was nothing violent or aggressive. And she didn’t say she made a mistake. She said, ‘In fact if you want, we can go on.’ So of course, I wanted to. And we continued with New York. And then there was Paris, Brittany, and all the other spots.”
Were there subjects, like the death of your sister, that were off the table?
“No, I think she does talk a lot about that moment. The grief, but also the guilt. She talks a lot about guilt. But I was very scared of putting her into pain… pushing the pain. That was very delicate. So, I sort of felt bad… when you see my sister, as a baby… I know these are very, very hard things for her to see. So even the tiny time that I take when I say, ‘We can stop’, and then I stopped… I find it’s too long. I don’t feel comfortable.”
Do you think making this film changed your relationship with your mother?
“At one point it did. Now, I think we’re back to our old selves. I think she got the message of what I wanted to tell her. I think she was moved also to see that it is a film and what people have said to her after watching it. So, I think she keeps saying that she’s very proud… but I say, ‘You shouldn’t be proud of me. It’s a film about you.’ But all she can say is that she’s proud!”
As you’re now a mother of three, did it help you understand the mother-child bond more?
“There’s a part of us, I think, that for a long time wants to get answers. You feel that it’s because of them that you’ve done certain things or that you are a certain way and I think I’m past that. So, I hope my children will have a point where they can get past that!”
Maybe one day they’ll come and make a film about you?
“I’d be very touched, I think, very moved. And it’s funny because for us in our family, it’s not easy to say, ‘I love you.’ I keep saying it to my children because I wanted it to be very obvious and very tactile. Because I didn’t get that from my parents, it’s not the way they were brought up. I really wanted to make that different. But in the end, it’s the same thing.”
Turning to your other film in the festival, The Passengers of the Night, what attracted you to working with director Mikhaël Hers?
“I was very much attracted to his films and then the way he was as a human being. Because he’s very special. He’s discreet, he doesn’t talk much. And he’s so respectful of all the actors. He used to thank us all after each shot in a way that I haven’t seen. But it was really genuine, which was so surprising for me. I was really surprised, but it was very sweet. He’s a very sweet man. And very honest.”
In 1984, when the film is set, you were 13. What do you remember about that time?
“It was wonderful diving back into that time that feels so close for me, because it’s my adolescence. But for my co-stars Quito [Rayon Richter], Noée [Abita] and Megan [Northam], all these kids, it was so different. They saw what we were listening to… and of course, the electronic objects were so unreal for them. The telephone! Every single thing amused them, as if these were from another planet. And for me, it was just so sentimental. I saw a packet of Gitanes that my father used to smoke, and we didn’t make much of it, it was just put on-set. But little details like that were so moving, so touching. My parents split in the eighties. So that was obviously not fun. But I had the most magical years with my father at that time, because I was alone with him… it was just wonderful. Father, daughter, being spoiled, super spoiled. And then with my mum, of course, it was much more of a family with all the girls and then it’s all my first experiences in films. And so, it’s magical years.”
Did you ever sneak into a movie theatre like the kids do in this film?
“We used to do something. It wasn’t sneaky. But very often when you miss the beginning, you would stay to watch [it on the next showing], which is something that I never do now. But I wasn’t really… that sort of avant-garde cinema that he [Mikhaël] relates to. That wasn’t really part of what I was watching. I was much more mainstream. I wasn’t much into French films… apart from my favourite director was [Maurice] Pialat. He was just the greatest.”
Looking back, do you have acting experiences that are important for you?
“Yeah, I have experiences that have really made me learn a lot of things. Specifically, Lars von Trier’s films, which is so different from other experiences because they’re so extreme and I have to admit that it was the most fulfilling work during the process of filming. L’effrontée was a very magical experience. Les Petites Voleuse was the first experience of the pleasure of acting, of impersonating a character. So, I have a lot of films that are like stones that mean a lot to me.”
Are you going to direct again? And how did it change you?
“It made me want to do it again. But hopefully not a documentary, but then not a fiction either. I’m not very comfortable with the idea of making a real film. I have to find an excuse. A documentary was the perfect excuse. Because when I started, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know if it was going to last 20 minutes or an hour or an hour-and-a-half and be screened in movie theatres. So that was all a huge surprise. Now, if I say I want to direct again, I don’t feel that I’ve learned how to be a director in the sense of how to tell a story. So, it would have to be a journey again.”
The Passengers of the Night screens on October 29 and November 5, 2022 at the Brisbane International Film Festival
