Charlotte Gainsbourg: Transnational and transmedia stardom 9781526142986

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg Transnational and transmedia stardom

Felicity Chaplin

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Felicity Chaplin 2020 The right of Felicity Chaplin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN  978 1 5261 4297 9  hardback

First published 2020 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. All URLs cited in this book were last accessed on 12 June 2020. Cover: Charlotte Gainsbourg poses at a portrait session in Paris on 1 January 2005 (photo by Richard Schroeder/Contour by Getty Images) Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

In loving memory of Lucy

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements 

viii x

Introduction1 1 The initial(s) C.G. 

15

2 Turning point: my wife is an actress (and a star) 

60

3 ‘Je t’aime, moi non plus’: the (dys)functional relationship of Gainsbourg and von Trier 

91

4 Generic and geographic border crossings: the (un)homeliness of Gainsbourg’s persona 

110

5 Transmedia stardom and celebrity 

133

Conclusion 

168

Filmography172 Works cited

175

Index203

Figures

  1 L’Effrontée (dir. Claude Miller, 1986, Oliane Productions)20   2 La Petite voleuse (dir. Claude Miller, 1988, Orly Films) 27   3 With Serge Gainsbourg in Charlotte for Ever (dir. Serge Gainsbourg, 1986, G.P.F.I.) 37   4 With Andrew Robertson in The Cement Garden (dir. Andrew Birkin, 1993, BBC) 50   5 Jane Eyre (dir. Franco Zeffirelli, 1996, Cineritino S.r.L.)54   6 Ma femme est une actrice (dir. Yvan Attal, 2001, Canal+)76   7 With Beck in ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg Feat. Beck: Heaven Can Wait’ (music video) (dir. Keith Schofield, 2009, Caviar) 88   8 With Jamie Bell in Nymphomaniac (dir. Lars von Trier, 2013, Zentropa) 97   9 With Serge Gainsbourg in Charlotte for Ever (dir. Serge Gainsbourg, 1986, G.P.F.I.) 97 10 The Tree (dir. Julie Bertuccelli, 2010, Les Films du Poisson)111 11 With Omar Sy in Samba (dir. Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2014, Quad) 117

Figures

ix

12 With Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day: Resurgence (dir. Roland Emmerich, 2016, Twentieth Century Fox)130 13 3 Cœurs (dir. Benoît Jacquot, 2014, Rectangle Productions)150 14 ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: Les Oxalis’ (music video) (dir. Charlotte Gainsbourg, 2017, Concord Music Publishing)165

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous readers for Manchester University Press whose comments have been valuable for the revision of the book, Matthew Frost and Alun Richards at Manchester University Press for supporting the project, the editors of Peephole Journal, Gigi and Oscar Valentino for their moral support, and David Jack for his patience, dedication and wisdom. Portions of Chapter 2 on Gainsbourg as Parisienne were published in La Parisienne in cinema: between art and life (Manchester University Press 2017). Portions of Chapter 4 on Samba and The Tree were published in Colloquy 37 (2019) and in Peephole Journal No. 10 (2018) respectively. A portion of Chapter 5 on ‘Les Oxalis’ was published in Peephole Journal No. 11 (2018). These have been revised for inclusion here. A revised and abbreviated version of the section on Gainsbourg at Cannes in Chapter 5 is reproduced courtesy of the editors at Celebrity Studies (Chaplin, Felicity. “Stars and the Off-screen Spectacle of Film Festivals: Charlotte Gainsbourg at Cannes”. Celebrity Studies, vol. 10, no. 4, 2019: 533–42).

Note

Translations of quotes and other French material are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un b ­ ourgeois, afin d’être violent et original dans vos œuvres. Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work. – Gustave Flaubert You got the surface and substance confused; don’t believe what you read in those interviews. – Charlotte Gainsbourg, ‘Jamais’

Introduction

On 22 February 1986 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, Charlotte Gainsbourg received the César du meilleur espoir féminin (César Award for Most Promising Actress) for her starring role as Charlotte Castang in Claude Miller’s L’Effrontée (1986). When her name is announced, the camera cuts from the presenters Laure Marsac and Jean-Claude Brialy (who costarred with Gainsbourg in the film) to the young Gainsbourg, seated in the audience, flanked by her parents Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Birkin embraces Gainsbourg affectionately and kisses her on the cheek. When she stands to make her way to the stage, Serge also stands and somewhat forcefully kisses her on the mouth, not once but twice. Gainsbourg then embraces her older half-sister, Kate Barry, before ambling towards the stage, head down with her shoulders slightly slumped forward. Her fringe hangs down over her eyes and she nervously touches her face, clearly overwhelmed by the occasion. She is dressed in a rumpled black suit and an oversized white silk shirt and, like her father, she is sporting a pocket square. Once onstage, Gainsbourg approaches the microphone and whispers a barely audible ‘merci beaucoup’. When the audience erupts into applause, she gives them a faint smile as the hosts tenderly sweep the hair out of her eyes. In one of a series of cuts between Gainsbourg and the audience, we see Serge, still on his feet, cigarette nonchalantly in hand, the epitome of louche in a tailored suit and open shirt that closely mirrors Charlotte’s outfit. We then cut back to a close-up of Charlotte, tears streaming

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

down her cheeks, thanking Claude Miller in a voice so soft that Brialy has to repeat the words into the microphone for the sake of the audience. There is then a cut to Miller who is standing and fervently applauding his lead actress. This is a significant moment in the formation of Gainsbourg’s star persona for several reasons. First, the César du meilleur espoir féminin is the first of several awards for Gainsbourg, which would culminate in her Prix d’interprétation féminine (Best Actress Award) at Cannes for Antichrist (dir. Lars von Trier, 2009). Second, it demonstrates the prominence of her family in the construction of her star persona. Third, what will become enduring aspects of her star persona are already evident: the timidity, the quiet, distinctive voice, the androgynous laid-back style, the makeup-free face and the unkempt hair. Fourth, the affectionate gestures of Brialy and Marsac and the generous applause demonstrate the enthusiasm and warmth the French film industry has for Gainsbourg, something which is reflected in public sentiment and continues to be so as the actress matures. Fabrice Bellengier writes that following her first starring role, ‘[l]a France entière tombe sous le charme de la timide Charlotte’ (37) (The whole of France falls under the spell of the timid Charlotte). Finally, her somewhat uncomfortable reception of her father’s provocative gesture both exemplifies the controversy surrounding her relationship with him, particularly as it plays out in their music and film collaborations, and foreshadows her working relationship with Danish auteur Lars von Trier. From these auspicious beginnings, Gainsbourg would go on to become one of the most important and interesting actresses working in French and world cinema today. Her film career, spanning five decades, has seen her work with many significant French and international directors, including Bertrand Blier, Michel Gondry, Todd Haynes, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Benoît Jacquot, Claude Miller, Agnès Varda, Wim Wenders, Franco Zeffirelli and, most notably, her remarkable ­collaboration with von Trier. In addition to her acting career

Introduction

3

and famous family, Gainsbourg’s music and status as style icon cemented her celebrity both in her native France and abroad.

Star and actor

The only daughter of iconic Anglo-French couple Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, Gainsbourg was born in London in 1971 and raised in Paris. Indeed, her bicultural background facilitates her ability to transcend borders and notions of nationality. Since her screen debut at age twelve in Paroles et musique (dir. Élie Chouraqui, 1984), Gainsbourg has to date made over fifty films. Her film work has seen her move across geographic and linguistic borders, making films predominantly in French and English but also in Italian, and in her native France as well as the Americas, Australia, Europe, India and the United Kingdom. Moreover, Gainsbourg’s film output encapsulates a range of genres and codes including arthouse, popular and Hollywood cinemas. Much of Gainsbourg’s star persona is connected to her family, not only in terms of her status as a fille de or ‘daughter of ’, but also because she collaborated with her family on many of her early films, continues to make films with her long-time partner, Israeli-born French actor and director Yvan Attal, and has worked with her own children in film, music video and advertising campaigns. Gainsbourg also appears in several films in which she plays a character named Charlotte, demonstrating the predilection for blurring the line between character and actor. These include Paroles et musique, L’Effrontée, Charlotte for Ever (dir. Serge Gainsbourg, 1986) and Ma femme est une actrice (dir. Yvan Attal, 2001). In addition to this, Gainsbourg’s characters tend to have names which have personal significance for her: Lucy (her middle name) in Kung-Fu Master (dir. Agnès Varda, 1988) and Nuovomondo (dir. Emanuele Crialese, 2006); Joe (her youngest daughter’s name) in Nymphomaniac Volumes I & II (2013); and Alice (her eldest daughter’s name) in Samba (dir. Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2014).

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Both Edgar Morin and Ginette Vincendeau draw the distinction between star and actor: while a star is always an actor, an actor is not necessarily always a star. In his seminal book for star studies, The Stars, Morin argues that the star is ‘more than an actor incarnating characters; he incarnates himself in them, and they become incarnate in him’ (38). Gainsbourg’s career displays very early on what Morin calls the ‘reciprocal interpenetration’ of actor and character necessary for the formation of a star (The Stars 38). A further distinction Morin draws that is relevant to Gainsbourg is between star and actor: to be a star, an actor must in some way play him or herself. No matter how famous, a character actor whose roles differ often significantly with each appearance is not necessarily a star: ‘Character actors are not stars: they lend themselves to the most heterogeneous interpretations, but without imposing upon them all a unifying personality’ (The Stars 38). Vincendeau is less interested in the ‘“true” person behind the star’ than she is in ‘how the perceived authentic individual informs the star’s image’ (Stars and Stardom xi). Similarly, the private lives of the stars are ‘examined only in so far as they form part of their “persona”’ (Vincendeau, Stars and Stardom xi). Vincendeau defines stars as ‘celebrated’ actors who cultivate a ‘persona’ or ‘myth’ comprised of ‘an amalgam of their screen image and private identities, which the audience recognizes and expects from film to film, and which in turn determines the parts they play’ (Stars and Stardom viii). For Richard Dyer, a ‘star image is made out of media texts that can be grouped together as promotion, publicity, films and criticism and commentaries’ (Stars 60).1 In a similar way, when defining a star’s persona, Vincendeau refers to three distinct materials: performance; trade promotion and publicity; and commentaries and criticisms. The films, however, are always central. While the notion of the star may be universal, how a star is constructed can vary depending on the national context.

1 

Original emphasis.

Introduction

5

Vincendeau argues that in France stardom is determined by diverse criteria, ‘which follow a rough division between the box-office […] and cinephilia’ (Stars and Stardom 24–5). For example, Vincendeau claims that two of France’s biggest stars, Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau, did not rate highly in terms of cumulative box-office records, which are mainly dominated by male film stars; however, if we turn to ‘cinephile-­ dominated historiography, one indeed finds that women have a much greater presence’ (Stars and Stardom 28). In a similar way, Gainsbourg’s popularity is due much less to her box-office credentials than to extra-filmic considerations, such as her status as fille de and style icon and coverage in the popular and fashion press. Like other star systems, the French star system reflects, for Vincendeau, the prevailing values of the society from which it emerged: men are more prominent than women (in lead roles, boxoffice rankings, and salaries), heterosexuality is the norm, stars are able-bodied and generally correspond to classic canons of beauty, and the well-connected are favored – as in the phenomenon of the ‘fils de’ and ‘filles de,’ that is sons, daughters, and close relatives of those in positions of power within the film industry … whiteness dominates. (‘From the Margins’ 547)

Gainsbourg’s persona fulfils many of the criteria outlined above: she is heterosexual, able-bodied, white and probably the most famous fille de in France. While she may not conform to the ‘classic canons of beauty’, Gainsbourg does possess a distinctly French form of beauty, often characterised as jolie laide, or ‘ugly-pretty’, which according to commentaries and criticisms accounts in part for her attractiveness and allure. This strange allure, along with her famous heritage, has been utilised not only in cinema but also in advertising, particularly for fashion labels (both high-end and prêt-à-porter) and associated products. As Vincendeau points out, the star’s persona is also a commodity: ‘positioning the performer and his/her work in

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

the market-place and attracting finance’ (Stars and Stardom viii). In this way, the star’s persona also facilitates the promotion and exchange of commodities: French stars function as ‘ambassadors’ of France in an exchange of commodities officially enshrined after World War II with the Blum–Byrnes agreements, which accepted a large number of American films on the French market in exchange for the export of French goods in which tourism, fashion, food and drink, cosmetics and perfumes figured largely – all commodities easily associated with films and film stars. (Vincendeau, Stars and Stardom 31)

For Guy Austin, too, stars ‘are not “just” people, they are also commodities, brand names whose capital is their face, their body, their clothing, their acting or their life style’ (2). Campaigns featuring Gainsbourg also tend to draw on the Parisienne-ness of her persona, emphasising her personal style and cosmopolitanism. Before the 1960s, there was no star system in France comparable to that of Hollywood. Colin Crisp argues that ‘[t]his relative absence of a star system in France is due primarily to the distinctive nature of its production system and the less developed form of capitalism of which that in turn was a symptom’ (224–5). However, Guy Austin contends that since its modernisation into a capitalist consumer society following the 1960s, France subsequently developed a star system of its own in which the power of stars began to influence the production and financing of films (6). French stars also began to be commodities and their images were used in extra-filmic discourses such as advertising and fashion. The absence of a rigid studio system in France, however, meant that French stars had more control over the creation of their star personas, and they brought more of their own personalities to the characters they played (Austin 6). In a similar vein, Gwénaëlle Le Gras argues that while the French star system is ‘markedly less structured in economic and

Introduction

7

aesthetic terms’ compared with the Hollywood star system, the ‘volume of films produced, in combination with the prestige of French cinema, nevertheless justifies the use of such a term’ (314). For Le Gras, the construction of French stars follows ‘the same rules as those relating to Hollywood stars’, in that the star persona of French actors is also created through a combination of their public image, screen performances and previous film roles (314). However, Le Gras argues that a film star in France is only truly considered as such if they achieve recognition beyond France, particularly in Hollywood, which is regarded as ‘the standard measure of stardom’ (315). Le Gras argues that this ‘international dimension’ accounts for why we tend to associate more experienced and older French actors with the appellation ‘star’ because it takes time to establish an international career (315). Le Gras acknowledges that the acquisition of international recognition is not dependant on such stars developing their acting careers in the United States: For most, regular appearances in the handful of French films that get a wide international distribution, a few forays into English-language films, and sometimes an inspiring role for the sake of branding oneself as a quality actor are sufficient to get their career underway and fuel a process leading to international recognition. (315)

This is certainly the case with Gainsbourg who from the beginning of her career was able to slowly build an international reputation thanks primarily to the internationally distributed French films L’Effrontée and La Petite voleuse (dir. Claude Miller, 1988), in which she had early starring roles, and her forays into Englishlanguage cinema, particularly in Jane Eyre (Franco Zeffirelli, 1996), which marked her as a serious actor and received wide international distribution. It should be noted that by the time of Gainsbourg’s emergence as a star, stardom had already begun to cross the threshold into celebrity, a process that was already evident in the ­personas of French actresses like Bardot and, to a lesser extent, Anna

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

Karina; that is, towards a star whose fame is far more than her film roles. As Vincendeau writes: ‘Bardot’s initial construction as a star through the press and in particular photography anticipated the celebrity phenomenon by several decades. She therefore straddles both classic film stardom, whose heyday in France precisely coincided with the time of her full emergence in the mid-1950s, and the celebrity culture of today’ (Bardot 12). Indeed, Gainsbourg and Bardot are comparable cases: both mix lightweight romantic comedies with more ‘serious’ art films, and their film projects do not appear to directly affect their celebrity status. A bad film review did nothing to lessen Bardot’s celebrity; likewise, Gainsbourg’s celebrity remains influential regardless of how her films are received or whether they are seen at all. This is in spite of the fact that Gainsbourg, unlike Bardot, is a critically recognised international acting talent. In the context of French cinema, Gainsbourg, like Bardot, Moreau and Karina, is not a box-office star: her stardom emerged more from extra-filmic discourse such as promotion and publicity and the popular and fashion press, with her films playing a secondary role in spite of their critical recognition. For this reason, in this book Gainsbourg’s films are not always paramount in the assessment of her stardom/celebrity. Rather, the approach taken here at times gives more weight to publicity and promotion and commentaries and criticisms than the method initially outlined by Vincendeau for star studies. This does not mean the films are less important – indeed, when it comes particularly to her collaborations with directors like Miller, Attal and von Trier, Gainsbourg’s performance style contributes significantly to the overall construction of her persona. Rather, this book acknowledges that celebrity is a more complex and overdetermined phenomenon than film stardom. This shift from stardom towards celebrity means that the films are often decentred, and more even focus is given to extra-filmic discourse. Gainsbourg’s status as a transmedia star furthers this decentring, forming part of a larger constellation which can be designated ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’.

Introduction

9

An icon of French femininity

Le Gras writes that what unites many French international stars is their capacity to ‘develop their stardom from a strong ­identification with a French national identity’ (315). This identity is either created from qualities that render them ‘culturally distinctive’ or from involvement in the heritage film genre (Le Gras 315). Neither is strictly the case with Gainsbourg, which sets her apart from other French stars. While her visibility in French culture often informs the way she is written about in the Anglophone popular press – she is described in the media as a ‘French national treasure’ (Bullock), a ‘French star’ (Murphy), a member of the ‘Boulevard Saint-Germain style aristocracy’ (Cartner-Morley 7) and one of the ‘latest crop of stylish Frenchies’ (Fraser-Cavassoni, ‘Secrets of French Style’) – Gainsbourg is in fact rather easily displaced from an exclusively French context. Indeed, she is also sometimes described as Franco-British, British-French and Anglo-French. These varied appellations, along with the cosmopolitanism of her star persona, complicate notions of nationality. In his discussion of French actresses in English-language films, Mick LaSalle argues that Gainsbourg is a ‘special case’, remarking that the daughter of Gainsbourg and Birkin is ‘as English as she is French’ (91). Moreover, a cursory glance at Gainsbourg’s filmography suggests that her stardom developed outside strictly French contexts. The settings and locations of her films, their country of production and the nationalities of casts and crews, firmly locate Gainsbourg within both an international and transnational film context. This problematises straightforward ideas of Gainsbourg’s ‘Frenchness’, while at the same time facilitating her transnational circulation. In fact, Gainsbourg’s Frenchness is seldom drawn upon on the international film stage: in 21 Grams (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2003), The Cement Garden (dir. Andrew Birkin, 1993), Jane Eyre and Nuovomondo her characters are British; in The Tree (dir. Julie Bertuccelli, 2010) and Independence Day: Resurgence (dir. Roland Emmerich, 2016) she is Anglo-French; and in her von

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Trier films she possesses no discernible national identity at all. Furthermore, Gainsbourg’s early foray into the heritage film genre with Jane Eyre, contributed not to her Frenchness but to the Englishness of her persona. What Gainsbourg possesses is a cosmopolitan identity that is at once French and not French and it is this which facilitates her transnational circulation.

A transnational and transmedia star

Gainsbourg’s stardom is best described as both transnational and transmedia. According to Sabrina Qiong Yu, a transnational star ‘needs to physically transfer from one film industry to another to make films, often in a different language from his or her own’ (2). Further, Gainsbourg’s stardom can be properly described as transnational because she makes films in both French and English as well as in several different countries; because of the cosmopolitanism of her persona, a cosmopolitanism linked both to her bilingualism2 and bicultural heritage; and because of her status as the quintessential Parisienne. Gainsbourg is also a transmedia star. While, as Dyer points out, all stars are ostensibly alwaysalready transmedia (Heavenly Bodies 3), what gives Gainsbourg’s star image a particularly transmedia dimension is that in addition to her acting career, her prominence as a style icon and recording artist facilitates her movement across diverse media forms. Both Gainsbourg’s transnational and transmedia stardom make her a fascinating case study in contemporary stardom and celebrity in a global context. This present study considers the reception of Gainsbourg’s star persona as it moves beyond the cultural and linguistic context of France and highlights her reception in the I am using the term bilingual here in a general sense in that Gainsbourg can communicate in both French and English; however, it should be noted that Gainsbourg considers French her native tongue and that she spoke only French in the family home and did not study English seriously until her preparation for the film The Cement Garden. 2 

Introduction

11

Anglophone world, specifically her reputation as a cult star as opposed to a crossover mainstream/cult star in her native France. In essence, this book is a study of this dual aspect of Gainsbourg’s star persona: the transnational and the transmedia. It combines textual analysis of her films with analysis of extra-filmic materials to interrogate the construction of her star persona. The use of diverse extra-filmic material, such as commentaries and criticisms, is justified primarily because, as Dyer points out, these products are ‘part of the cinematic ­machinery’ and are on the side of industry rather than on the side of the audience (Stars 63). For Dyer, the ‘gap between on the one hand promotional and filmic construction of the star image … and on the other the role of criticism and commentaries in that construction is a real one, and accounts for both the complexity, contradictoriness and “polysemy” of the star image’ (Stars 63). In a similar way, Jamie Sexton argues: Discussions of stars can differ according to publication, yet even considering this lack of consistency it is generally the case that a number of recurrent features appear in star profiles across separate publications. Part of this stems from the fact that stars themselves, and their publicists, attempt to manage the star image through activities such as disseminating press releases, attempting to control what kinds of questions are asked in interviews, and through stars themselves frequently regurgitating information across busy publicity schedules. (74)

The way in which Gainsbourg constructs her persona in her own words through press and publicity contributes to her persona. Thus, this book also often draws on direct quotations from Gainsbourg herself, not because her remarks can be treated uncritically but rather because they form another important text in the creation of her persona. This book has two main aims. The first is to provide an account of Gainsbourg’s career, to chart its trajectory and pathways, and to describe her star persona and introduce readers to a

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range of her films, as well as extra-filmic material on the actress, singer and style icon. The second is to give Gainsbourg her rightful place in contemporary film history. While there have been significant contributions on French stardom in general (Austin, Stars in Modern French Film; Driskell, French Screen Goddess; Vincendeau, Stars and Stardom), specific French female stars (Downing and Harris, Perversion to Purity; Hayward, Simone Signoret; Vincendeau, Bardot) and on transnational stardom (Bandhauer and Royer, Stars in World Cinema; Meeuf and Raphael, Transnational Stardom), there is little scholarship on this important and significant contemporary French star. This absence of scholarship can be explained in part because her body of work is spread unevenly across different genres, codes, film styles and national cinemas, making it difficult to grasp as a corpus in any cohesive sense. Gainsbourg’s choice of projects sees her move quite unpredictably from starring roles in minor French romantic comedies to minor roles in American arthouse cinema to more demanding work on international co-productions. What scholarship there is on Gainsbourg’s ­ films has been sporadic. Her films with von Trier have received the most critical and academic attention; however, this scholarship does not strictly address the films from the perspective of Gainsbourg’s star persona. This book has a chronological arc which follows the development of Gainsbourg’s star persona from her earliest film and music ventures in the mid-1980s to her migration to the United States and appearance in the Hollywood action blockbuster Independence Day: Resurgence in 2016. While Gainsbourg continues to make films after Resurgence, her appearance in this film marks a watershed and functions as a kind of ‘last frontier’ for her acting career. Indeed, it is the contention here that Gainsbourg’s star persona developed and crystallised during the period covered in this book. While each of the first four chapters focuses on an important period in the development of Gainsbourg’s star persona, considering key films that best highlight significant aspects of it, the final chapter considers

Introduction

13

extra-filmic aspects of her persona (music, fashion, style) to trace her transmedia stardom. Due to Gainsbourg’s eclectic film choices, the book covers a range of film genres (action, comedy, drama, horror, period drama, psychological thriller, social dramedy, romantic comedy, thriller) and modes (American independent cinema, arthouse, Hollywood blockbuster, international co-productions). Star images, for Dyer, have a ‘temporal dimension’ which can be classified as either changing or continuous (Stars 64). Dyer gives the example of Jane Fonda as a star image which moves in the direction of change and Marlene Dietrich as a star image which demonstrates continuity (64). From her earliest roles up until about the time she makes Les fantômes d’Ismaël (dir. Arnaud Desplechin, 2017), Gainsbourg’s star image moves in the direction of continuity, particularly in terms of her association with the figures of the eternal ­adolescent and the chic Parisienne. Chapter 1 covers the first phase of Gainsbourg’s stardom and considers important early film roles and introduces key elements of her performance style. Chapter 2 explores Gainsbourg’s film roles in the twenty-first century and her transnational and cult film stardom, taking as its starting point her starring role in Yvan Attal’s Ma femme est une actrice (2001), a film which marked her transition from an actress to a star with a ­recognisable persona. Chapter 3 looks at the next phase of Gainsbourg’s career, her collaboration with von Trier on three films: Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011) and Nymphomaniac Volumes I & II (2013). This chapter focuses less on the films themselves, of which much has already been written, than on the media construction of Gainsbourg’s and von Trier’s respective personae and working relationship. Chapter 4 juxtaposes three very different films to highlight Gainsbourg’s fluid transition between arthouse and blockbuster, French and transnational identities: Julie Bertuccelli’s The Tree (2010), Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s Samba (2014) and Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). Chapter 5 positions Gainsbourg as a transmedia star across three main discursive sites (film culture,

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fashion, music) and examines what Pam Cook calls ‘commodity stardom’ (4); that is, the commercial and profit-driven aspects of any star persona, while at the same time ‘avoiding the temptation to view them as entirely circumscribed by commercial interests’ (2). Gainsbourg’s is a complex star persona, possessing both artistic and commercial aspects. *** The nature of writing on a contemporary star means they are still making films at the time of writing and publication, hence the impossibility of including all films. Even with this in mind, I make no claims to exhaustiveness with regard to Gainsbourg’s filmography nor to her creative output generally. As Martin Shingler points out, due to the breadth of a star’s work and the complexities of their star persona it ‘seems inappropriate for anyone to set out with the intention of achieving a ­comprehensive or definitive assessment’ (185).

1 The initial(s) C.G.

The formation and initial fashioning of Gainsbourg’s star persona can be traced back to her childhood and early adolescence. From a young age, what would become recurring motifs of her star persona were established primarily through association with her parents and early film roles. Indeed, the narrative of Gainsbourg’s star persona is often framed by her status as the only child of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin: Even before Charlotte Gainsbourg could walk, she was looking at the world through a haze of dry ice, disco lights and popping flash bulbs. The product of all that heavy breathing between ‘Je t’aime’ partners Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte grew up with nightclubs like Crazy Horse as her creche and Paris Match as her family photo album. (Chaudhuri T6)

Similarly, Simon Banner observes: ‘Being the daughter of two of France’s favourite stars … she is, as she says, used to being famous, her childhood relentlessly catalogued by Paris Match.’ Both the 2011 release of Jane Birkin’s documentary Souvenirs de Serge, a collection of her own Super 8 films, and the 2013 release of Andrew Birkin’s Jane & Serge: A Family Album, a collection of photographs which takes the iconic couple and their family as its main subject, meant that several never-before-seen images depicting scenes of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s intimate family life surfaced, bringing her childhood back into the ­public’s imagination.

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

Most press articles and television appearances featuring Gainsbourg are prefaced with an allusion to her famous parents. A 2011 feature for Interview begins: ‘Raised in Paris by uberhip popstar dad Serge Gainsbourg and his muse, the English actress and singer Jane Birkin’ (Ehrlich). In a 2017 piece for Le Temps, Antoine Duplan writes: Charlotte Gainsbourg, on l’a connue bébé, fille de Jane B., ambassadrice longiligne de la pop anglaise en France, et de Serge, orfèvre splénétique de la chanson et de la provocation. Au début des années 70, les parents de Charlotte sont des icônes. Elle grandit entre les volutes de L’Anamour et les vertiges de La Javanaise dansée reggae. (We have known Charlotte Gainsbourg since she was a baby, daughter of Jane B., a svelte ambassador of English pop in France, and Serge, a splenetic goldsmith of song and provocation. In the early 70s, Charlotte’s parents were icons. She grew up between the smoke rings of L’Anamour and the dizziness of the reggae version of La Javanaise.)

Even Gainsbourg’s appearance is often described in relation to her parents: her ‘odd, haunting beauty’ is, according to Joe Zee and Maggie Bullock, a ‘blend of her mother’s eternal girlishness and her father’s somewhat morose sleepiness’ (205). The same can be said for her sartorial choices: Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni refers to Gainsbourg’s ‘casual chic that could easily be associated with either of her parents’ (‘Portrait of a Lady’ 230 ); and Carine Roitfeld, who featured Gainsbourg on the cover of the 2007 holiday edition of Vogue Paris, remarks that there ‘is a way she walks, with her leather jacket and her hair in her face, that is half her mother and half her father’ (qtd. in Murphy). Many commentaries on Gainsbourg’s resemblance to her parents describe physical similarities between them. According to Richard Dyer, however, ‘[w]ithout recourse to some very precise semiotic categorisation …, it would be hard to prove that any or all of these physical similarities are based on accurate perception. What is important is the repeated assertion of that similarity’ (Stars 67).

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In a sense, then, it is difficult to disentangle the perception of these similarities from the continuous assertion of them. In any case, the image constructed by these commentaries is one of Gainsbourg as in part at least an amalgam of the physical (and sometimes metaphysical) traits of her parents. After having spent time on film sets as a spectator to her parents’ various film projects, Gainsbourg made her acting debut at age twelve in Élie Chouraqui’s Paroles et musique (1984). Gainsbourg plays Charlotte, the daughter of an unhappily married record company executive played by Catherine Deneuve. The film was shot in Paris and Montreal. During the Paris shoot Gainsbourg attended college on the days she was not filming, with the Montreal scenes shot during the summer school holidays. Gainsbourg looks back on the experience as her first taste of adulthood and independence: ‘Ce qui m’a marquée, c’est que c’était ma première expérience en dehors de l’école et du cocon familial. … J’avais l’impression d’être traitée comme une adulte. Je me sentais indépendante’ (qtd. in Bellengier 40) (What struck me was that it was my first experience outside of school and the family cocoon. … I felt like I was treated like an adult. I felt independent). The Montreal shoot was formative for the actress and may account, in part, for the ease of geographical mobility Gainsbourg would display throughout her career. In what can be called the ‘initial’ phase of Gainsbourg’s career – from her first film role to Ma femme est une actrice (2001), a critical turning point in which she moves from aspiring actress and fille de to a star in her own right – Gainsbourg appeared in twenty films, two made-for-television films, and released her debut album Charlotte for Ever. There are, however, four key moments in this output which played a more significant role in the development of Gainsbourg as a star: her two films with Claude Miller, L’Effrontée (1986) and La Petite voleuse (1988); her collaboration with her father on his film Charlotte for Ever (1986); Andrew Birkin’s The Cement Garden (1993); and Franco Zeffirelli’s Jane Eyre (1996).

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

‘A sister in spirit to Antoine Doinel’: L’Effrontée and La Petite voleuse

Gainsbourg likes to put herself in uncomfortable situations. This is most obvious in her work with Lars von Trier but was already evident in her earliest film roles. In L’Effrontée, Gainsbourg’s third film and first in a starring role, her character Charlotte Castang is introduced as an awkward and fearful adolescent. Following an upbeat credit sequence, the film opens with a scene depicting a physical education diving class at the local swimming pool. A medium close-up shot shows an anxious Charlotte, her arms clutched tightly to her chest, as she edges closer to the steps of the diving platform. While the other students follow one after another into the water in step with the instructor’s cry of ‘hop! hop!’, Charlotte stands frozen on the edge of the diving board, breaking the sonic continuity and rhythm of the sequence created by the sound of the whistle, the staccato cries of the instructor and the splash of the diving students. The instructor soon resorts to threats like ‘plongez ou je viendrai là-bas après vous’ (dive, or I’ll come up there after you) as Charlotte stands motionless, head down, biting her nails. Following the instructor’s orders, she bends her knees but her legs only wobble as the other students laugh and jeer. The tension is heightened when the instructor tells her to dive on the count of three. A point-of-view shot showing the swimming pool below is followed by a close-up of Charlotte, bracing herself for the plunge. On the count of three, we cut to a long shot in which she jumps in feet first. The ordeal over, she leaves the pool to the taunts and whistles of the other students. We cut to the next scene, inside the changing rooms, where Charlotte is curled up on a bench, a small figure in the large frame. The emotional sequence of the film’s opening is as follows: fear, ­defiance, humiliation – three terms which will become an important part of Gainsbourg’s star persona. L’Effrontée, which can be translated into English as ‘an impudent girl’, is a coming-of-age story which centres on ­ ­thirteen-year-old tomboy Charlotte Castang who lives with

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her widowed father and older brother in Savoie. The precocious Charlotte listlessly passes her days with the family housekeeper Léone (Bernadette Lafont) and the amiably odd and sickly child Lulu (Julie Glenn). Charlotte is hopelessly bored with life until she meets Clara (Clothilde Baudon), a gifted pianist who is passing through Savoie on a concert tour. Emboldened by her budding friendship with the teenage prodigy, Charlotte makes plans to escape her dull existence and join Clara on tour. The film, which provides a tender, fleeting illumination of adolescence prior to the disenchantment of adulthood, owes a debt to Carson McCullers’s 1946 novel The Member of the Wedding, although no reference is made to it in the credits. L’Effrontée was well received in France upon its release with many critics noting the exceptional and charismatic performance of its young star (Bellengier 56), a performance which won for Gainsbourg the prestigious César du meilleur espoir féminin. In a promotional interview for the film included on the 2003 DVD edition, one journalist remarks that Gainsbourg ‘carries the film on her young shoulders with convincing sincerity and emotion’ and that what is even more impressive about her performance is that the actress herself is ‘a shy and secretive young girl’. After having seen Gainsbourg in Paroles et musique somewhat by chance, Miller, who was at the time writing the script for L’Effrontée, realised that the character he had been describing exactly resembled Gainsbourg physically and morally. The director decided that if Gainsbourg could not play the role he could no longer make the film. Reading the script with Gainsbourg for the first time he immediately knew she was right for the role (Bellengier 45). L’Effrontée is significant for the development of Gainsbourg as a star for three reasons. First, from her first starring role, the lines between character and actor are blurred by the name ‘Charlotte’, a motif already employed in the earlier Paroles et musique and again later in Charlotte for Ever and Ma femme est une actrice. Second, Gainsbourg brings a boldness and emotional depth to the role which will come to define many of her later roles. This is particularly the case with her portrayal of humiliation, a state

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in which she seems at home. Third, the César award the role garnered for Gainsbourg and the award ceremony in which her father congratulated her with an open-mouthed kiss, further contributed to the construction of her star persona as scandalous and provocative. The win also foreshadowed Gainsbourg’s Prix d’interprétation féminine at Cannes for Antichrist for an emotionally bold performance of a different kind. L’Effrontée established a deep association between Gainsbourg and the figure of the insolent yet melancholic adolescent, an association she would carry well into her adult life (see figure 1). As FrançoisGuillaume Lorrain writes: ‘le personnage de Charlotte lui a longtemps collé à la peau. Car tout le monde se dit que c’était elle, évidemment cette jeune fille écorchée au petit filet de voix et à la timidité maladive’ (310) (the character of Charlotte has for a long time been part of her identity. Because everyone says that she was evidently this young hypersensitive and painfully shy girl with a thin reedy voice). At the age of fourteen, Gainsbourg became a darling of the French cinema world, a child star who was to grow up through the medium of the screen, hand in hand with the characters she incarnated.

1  L’Effrontée (dir. Claude Miller, 1986, Oliane Productions)

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Following L’Effrontée, Miller wanted to work with Gainsbourg again. He wrote La Petite voleuse, based on a scenario by the then deceased François Truffaut, with her in mind. The character of Janine Castang, a sixteen-year-old shoplifter who lives with her aunt and uncle after being abandoned by her mother, had first been envisaged by Truffaut as a female counterpart to Antoine Doinel. There is something in Gainsbourg’s interpretation of both Janine and Charlotte Castang that recalls the defiant and mischievous adolescent played with gravitas by Jean-Pierre Léaud. Set in rural France in the 1950s, La Petite voleuse had its genesis in Truffaut’s Les 400 coups (1959) and in some ways can be considered the rural counterpart to the urban tale of the young Doinel. According to Annette Insdorf, Les 400 coups ‘was originally conceived with a dual focus, namely Antoine and a female counterpart named Janine’ but recognising he had an excess of material, Truffaut ‘deleted Janine, a little thief, intending to devote an entire film to her someday’ (25). A quarter of a century later Truffaut’s screenwriting collaborator, Claude de Givray, scripted a thirty-page treatment for the film; however, Truffaut’s premature death in 1984 saw Miller, Truffaut’s former assistant, inherit the project, grounding it ‘in a cinematic universe that is partly his mentor’s and, to a great extent, his own’ (Insdorf 25). Miller gave Janine the surname Castang as ‘an allusion to his own filmic universe’ (Insdorf 25). Moreover, Janine is a distant relative of Charlotte Castang both in the literal and spiritual senses of the term. While one may be tempted to see similarities between L’Effrontée and La Petite voleuse, Miller pointed out that the two films are very different: the former is ‘plus rose’ (rosier), the latter ‘plus dur, plus âpre’ (harder, harsher), which is understandable, Miller explains, because ‘plus on vieillit, plus les problèmes deviennent “compacts”’ (qtd. in Bachet and Loiseau 50) (the older you get, the more complex problems become). With L’Effrontée, Gainsbourg became something of an icon for French adolescence. In 2011, Tim Murphy wrote that ‘French women under 40 emulate her style in part because they

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feel they came of age with her’. In an article in The Guardian in 1987, Stuart Wavell describes Gainsbourg as ‘an object of veneration among France’s youth’ (36). Writing on the pains of adolescence as it is depicted in French cinema, Carrie Tarr and Brigitte Rollet remark: The adolescent girl, a frequent trope of mainstream French cinema, is most frequently represented as a Lolita-like child-woman, an object of sexual desire designed to titillate the male voyeur and circumvent the challenge and threat of adult female sexuality. Typical child-women of French cinema of the 1980s and 1990s have been incarnated by stars such as Charlotte Gainsbourg (L’Effrontée, Charlotte for Ever, La Petite voleuse) and Vanessa Paradis (Noce blanche, Elisa). (37)

This reading underestimates the subtlety of Gainsbourg’s performances in L’Effrontée and La Petite voleuse. In a review of L’Effrontée, Molly Haskell more perceptively argues that Gainsbourg’s face, ‘forlorn one minute, ecstatic with hope the next, is like a weather map of adolescence’. Jay Scott, commenting on Gainsbourg’s complex portrayal of adolescent girlhood, writes: Not since Sandrine Bonnaire debuted at the same age in Maurice Pialat’s A nos amours has a French teenager seemed so assured and complex on screen. Wily and womanly on the one hand, silly and childish on the other, Gainsbourg inflates her little thief into a tragic figure without patronizing or sentimentalizing her; she keeps her realistic. Alternately irritating and enchanting, Janine is an exemplar of adolescence; like the movie that so splendidly tells her story.

What Scott identifies in Gainsbourg’s performance is the ability to embody contradiction, something that would become a key feature of her star persona. In a 2017 article in Elle, Lotte Jeffs describes Gainsbourg as ‘[s]hocking yet shy, provocative

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yet fragile, brutally honest yet fiercely protective’ and argues that the actress is ‘crushingly aware of all her contradictions’ (110). Critics at the time of the release of La Petite voleuse also noted Gainsbourg’s contradictory quality. According to Mike McGrady, the ‘[y]oung Gainsbourg lights up the screen with a heartbreakingly plaintive quality, a seductive blend of shyness and courage, that wins us over no matter what casual crime she’s ­contemplating’. Jim Emerson points out that Janine Castang ‘is described by one of her paramours as a bundle of c­ ontradictions – bold but shy, quiet but passionate’. Critics also discerned contradiction in Gainsbourg’s performance in L’Effrontée: Edmund White writes that Charlotte Castang is ‘a walking paradox of timidity and cheek’ (78); Mariah Phillips remarks that Gainsbourg ‘plays expertly with rebellion and ­vulnerability … showing the troubles of being young in a world of adults’; and Jon Frosch claims that ‘[e]ven good child performances are often one-trick affairs, but Gainsbourg made her character a tumultuous jumble of c­ onflicting emotions, alternately sullen, charming, brash and tender’. Philosopher Alain de Botton also noted Gainsbourg’s contradictory qualities in L’Effrontée, claiming that the actress ‘seemed … to negotiate the tension between ­vulnerability and strength with particular grace’ (74). De Botton made these comments in an article in which he was invited to recall the teenage celebrity crush that left a lasting impression on him: ‘I was beguiled by her [Gainsbourg’s] intelligence, tomboy beauty, and by what I perceived to be her sensitivity, modesty and mixture of practicality and idealism’ (74). Gainsbourg’s embodiment of the tomboy in L’Effrontée was already part of her emerging star persona, although ‘tomboy’ would be replaced by ‘androgynous’ as her career progressed. The image of Gainsbourg as tomboy was first established in Paroles et musique, in which her character sported short, closecropped hair. Commenting on the film, Jimmy So remarks that Gainsbourg ‘looked a little like a boy, but more importantly, like a wise old boy, who seemed to know more about life than the adults waltzing around her’. Gainsbourg’s tomboyishness

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

was also established in the many publicity photographs of her family: when compared with her ‘girly’ older half-sister Kate Barry, Gainsbourg, with her short hair and gracelessness, could indeed be a young boy. Joan Buck writes that up until Gainsbourg was nine ‘her mother dressed her as a boy – hair cropped, gray flannel shorts, blue blazer, white shirts, and penny loafers’ (287). Referring to Gainsbourg’s appearance in both L’Effrontée and at the 1986 César award ceremony, former editor of Vogue Paris Carine Roitfeld said the actress ‘was very, very tomboy then. … Never a Lolita’ (qtd. in Murphy). The tomboyishness of Charlotte Castang is also in part due to the similarity she bears to Carson McCullers’s Frankie Addams, the young heroine of The Member of the Wedding. Michelle Abate argues that the tomboy ‘had long existed on the border between masculinity and femininity, heterosexuality and homosexuality’ (159) and that McCullers’s heroine is ‘arguably the most popular literary tomboy after Jo March’ (154). Abate also notes that prior discussions of Frankie Addams ‘have cast her as a freak in terms of her unusual gender identity (as a boyish girl) and sexual interest (longing to merge with a married couple)’ (159). For Abate, Frankie’s ‘gender freakishness’ is closely tied to her ‘anomalous sexual identity’ arguing that she ‘exists outside the realm of heteronormativity to become part of the emerging taxonomy of the queer’ (159). In a similar way, Charlotte Castang is a ‘boyish girl’ who develops a complex and overdetermined interest in the pretty young pianist, Clara. As Haskell claims of Charlotte’s attraction to Clara: ‘she develops a violent crush on her, a crush that is part envy, part idol-worship, and part pure love’. Bruce Bailey writes that Miller is ‘ambiguous’ about whether Charlotte’s crush ‘has a sexual component to it’ but argues that the inclusion of ‘a subplot about Charlotte’s disastrous semi-romantic relationship with a much older mechanic (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) … makes it abundantly clear that the girl is very unsure herself about how to handle her budding sexuality’. In a near-rape scene in a hotel room, Charlotte struggles violently against the advances of the mechanic before hitting

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him over the head with a lamp and fleeing. The significance of the lamp – a globe of the earth which turns slowly on its base – can be found in its shattering: it symbolises a loss of innocence, the end of the young Charlotte’s world. The episode closely mirrors an episode in McCullers’s novel in which Frankie’s sexual encounter with a soldier leaves her ‘feeling a little queer’ (McCullers 87). In contrast, what Charlotte’s relationship with Clara offers is a space outside the purely sexual realm of relationships with men, and the promise of a meaningful female friendship. This friendship does not materialise, however, because for Charlotte Clara remains the unattainable object of worship. Gainsbourg’s embodiment of adolescence can be compared with other French actresses of the same period. Indeed, comparisons with other female adolescent stars helps to establish some sense of Gainsbourg’s particular kind of stardom. She certainly does not represent all adolescent heroines of her era, yet her star image does bear some similarities to other emerging stars born out of 1980s French cinema. Vincendeau identifies three major young actresses who ‘exploded on to the French film scene’ in the mid-1980s: Béatrice Dalle, Sandrine Bonnaire and Juliette Binoche (‘Juliette Binoche’ 22). According to Vincendeau, ‘their youth bracketed them together as part of a new generation in tune with the renewed fashion for female adolescents … this was also the period when Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emmanuelle Béart and Sophie Marceau emerged’ (‘Juliette Binoche’ 22). For Vincendeau, Dalle possesses a ‘pop sexual persona’ in the manner of Brigitte Bardot, Bonnaire an ‘earthy naturalism’, and Binoche ‘a cooler, more cerebral, more anguished’ star image (‘Juliette Binoche’ 22). While Vincendeau does not describe the persona of the other three actresses, Austin claims that during the mid-eighties, Béart, thanks to her role in Manon des sources (dir. Claude Berri 1986), embodied ‘an idealised nature and an idealised femininity’ and created a ‘blonde, innocent and reassuring’ star image (124–5). Marceau was known in the 1980s for her ‘boum’ teenage party films, prompting Mick LaSalle to label her ‘the Molly Ringwald of France’ (92). Despite sharing the

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quality of French girlhood with these actresses, Gainsbourg’s star persona is markedly different: she incarnates an awkward, vulnerable and rebellious tomboy with a seriousness beyond her years. Even in extra-filmic discourse, Gainsbourg’s seriousness is contrasted with the likes of the more fun-loving characters played by Marceau. Stuart Wavell writes that ‘[u]nlike such actresses as Sophie Marceau, who left school to star in “boum” films … Charlotte is pursuing architectural ambitions at the Lycée Racine in Paris and restricts film work to her holidays’ (36). Perhaps the cinematic representative of French youth that Gainsbourg most resembles, however, is Jean-Pierre Léaud in his role as the young Doinel in Les 400 coups. Indeed, several critics have rightly drawn parallels between the young Gainsbourg and Léaud’s Doinel, with Charles Champlin describing Janine Castang as ‘a sister in spirit to Antoine Doinel’ (1), a descriptor which equally applies to Charlotte Castang in L’Effrontée. Jay Nash and Stanley Ross write that ‘[g]angling Gainsbourg, with her hushed, sibilant voice, is as natural on screen as the young Jean-Pierre Léaud’ (139). Similarly, Emerson writes that, like Doinel, ‘Janine is a troubled child, a small-time rebel who tries to run away from her problems and can’t escape them’. In her incarnation of both Charlotte and Janine, Gainsbourg displays the mix of rebellion and vulnerability discernible in Léaud’s Doinel. Like Léaud’s Doinel, Gainsbourg’s Janine invites neither sympathy nor condemnation. In a review of La Petite voleuse, Emerson remarks that Miller’s film does not ‘ask us to excuse her, pity her or condemn her’ but rather simply to ‘watch her’, and that Gainsbourg ‘rivets our attention with seeming ease and artlessness’. For Emerson, the pride and stubbornness of Gainsbourg’s ‘beguiling Janine never pleads for our sympathy or affection. We give them willingly because of the tender, confused emotions we detect beneath her tough but delicate face’ (7). Chris Darke argues that the ‘continuing appeal’ of Les 400 coups stems ‘in large part from Léaud’s ability to make you believe completely in Antoine’s trials and tribulations, his

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mix of vulnerability and defiance’ (37). Wendy Dudley notes that in Gainsbourg’s ‘outstanding’ performance as Janine there is ‘a maturity born from her harsh lifestyle, but never far away is her youthful naivety, her child-like sense of wonder’ (D1). Of filming with Gainsbourg, Miller remarked that ‘Malgré son sérieux professionnel … Charlotte aime beaucoup rire’ (qtd. in Deffontaines 15) (Despite her professional seriousness … Charlotte likes to laugh a lot). Sheila Benson locates this conjunction of contradictory elements in Gainsbourg’s portrayal of Janine in the actress’s face: ‘Flat-nosed and thick-maned, with a look that is sullen or lost by turns, she also possesses a shy smile whose unfolding can twist the heart’. Benson also praises Gainsbourg’s subtle performance, admitting that she had to see the film twice ‘to appreciate completely the delicacy and bruised sensibilities with which Gainsbourg invests Janine’ (see figure 2). In her examination of Léaud’s star persona, Sonali Joshi remarks that his characters tend to be ‘somewhat marginal antihero[es]’; misfits who ‘experience unstable and unsatisfactory relationships’ and are also frequently ‘marginalised through

2  La Petite voleuse (dir. Claude Miller, 1988, Orly Films)

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socio-economic factors’ (31). In Miller’s films, Gainsbourg plays outcasts who are both socio-economically marginalised and who seek but fail to find satisfaction in relationships with others, both within and outside of the family unit. In L’Effrontée, Charlotte Castang finds no satisfaction in her working-class family life, feels misunderstood and marginalised, and suffers from the indifference of her widowed father, the obtuseness of the housekeeper Léone and the playful taunts of her older brother. She eventually retreats into a fantasy world centred around the pretty young Clara. In La Petite voleuse, Janine rebels against the urbanity of her family’s poverty by engaging in petty theft and embarking on relationships, first with a married man and then with a criminal. The awkward moments these narrative turns produce are due to the fact that, like Léaud, Gainsbourg’s persona is marked by the absence of a conventional gender standard. For Joshi, a significant ‘contradiction’ in Léaud’s star persona is the absence of ‘an idealised masculine presence’ (41): Léaud is a ‘fragile, somewhat androgynous figure’ who ‘calls into question traditional notions of masculinity that are conventionally expected of male stars’ (Joshi 41). In a similar way, Gainsbourg’s androgyny and jolie laide appearance challenge conventional notions of femininity and set her apart from her female contemporaries such as Marceau and Béart. Both Gainsbourg in her two films with Miller and Léaud in Les 400 coups embody characters which can best be described as the orphan-urchin: unwanted, unappreciated, vulnerable, yet nonetheless emotionally strong and charismatic figures who manage to find their own way on the fringes of respectable society; descendants more of Dickens’s artful dodger than Oliver Twist. It is these early roles, as well as an inherent gaucherie or awkwardness which persists in their latter performances, which give to the personas of Léaud and Gainsbourg the aura of what Joshi calls the ‘eternal adolescent’ (39). René Prédal notes that Léaud gives the character of Doinel ‘la gaucherie et la maladresse’ (247); Cécile Deffontaines describes Gainsbourg’s performance in L’Effrontée as possessing ‘une gaucherie charmante’ (14); and

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Samuel Douhaire refers to Gainsbourg’s ‘adorable gaucherie physique’. Writing on Gainsbourg in 2007, Véronique Mortaigne claims that she ‘fascine aussi par une sorte de grâce adolescente’ (also fascinates with a kind of adolescent grace); Richard Gianorio remarks that Gainsbourg ‘a deux enfants, l’âge qu’on l’appelle madame, mais l’adolescence s’attarde et va bien à cette fille longue et pâle’ (has two children, the age one is called ‘Madame’, but adolescence lingers and still follows this tall and pale girl); and Leanne Delap writes that Gainsbourg ‘is the ultimate girl crush, though she is now actually 40 years old’. What brings the respective personas of Gainsbourg and Léaud into alignment is, however, the way in which they bring their own personalities to the roles while nonetheless fully embodying the characters they play. Many commentators have observed that Doinel is a conflation or melding of the character with the actor Léaud, and in a similar way, the characters of Charlotte and Janine merge almost seamlessly with that of Gainsbourg. As a journalist from Le Monde remarked: ‘Etonnante Charlotte qui possède, à peine adolescente, le don du comédien paradoxal, celui d’ubiquité: être tout à fait soi-même et tout entier dans le personnage’ (‘Le tombeau de Truffaut’) (Astonishing Charlotte who possesses, while just a teenager, the gift of the paradoxical actor, that of ubiquity: to be completely oneself and entirely in the character).

Performance style

In her two films with Miller, Gainsbourg established a performance style that would become her trademark. This style or ‘idiolect’, to use John O. Thompson’s term (42), includes posture, gestures, facial expressions and a particular way of speaking. Dyer defines performance as what the performer does over and above their dialogue and their actions or function in the plot: Performance is how the action/function is done, how the lines are said. The signs of performance are: facial

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expression; voice; gestures (principally of hands and arms, but also of any limb, e.g. neck, leg); body posture (how someone is sitting or standing); body movement (movement of the whole body, including how someone stands up or sits down, how they walk, run, etc.). (Stars 134)

In a love letter of sorts addressed to Gainsbourg in a 1995 edition of the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles, Serge Kaganski summarises some of the key qualities of her performance style: ‘Avec ces armes ténues – votre visage, votre corps, votre voix, votre présence –, vous faites passer tout un nuancier de sentiments sans laisser transparaître le moindre effort. C’est ce qu’on doit appeler la grâce – cette plus-value immense et indicible qui s’ajoute au travail’ (With these meagre weapons – your face, your body, your voice, your presence – you convey a whole range of feelings without allowing the least effort to show through. This is what must be called grace, that immense and unspeakable surplus value which adds to the work). The performance style developed in Gainsbourg’s work with Miller, which emphasised the movement of her gangly, somewhat angular body, expressionless face, soft voice, swanlike neck and strong jaw, can be observed with only minor variations in all her subsequent films. Sharon Carnicke argues that actors typically recognise that ‘narrative and aesthetic demands differ from film to film’ and ‘adjust their techniques as they move from film to film within the limits of their skills and anatomies’ (63). In this sense, with few exceptions, Gainsbourg’s performance style can be described as atypical, with minimal adjustment from role to role. As Julie Bertuccelli, who directed Gainsbourg in The Tree (2010), observed: ‘J’adore son jeu. Elle travaille beaucoup, elle se prépare beaucoup mais tous les rôles qu’elle interprète lui ressemblent’ (qtd. in Roy) (I love her acting. She works a lot, she prepares a lot, but all the roles she plays are like her). Similarly, commenting on his decision to cast her in Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015), Wim Wenders remarked that Gainsbourg has ‘cette capacité

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troublante d’incarner un rôle tout en restant elle-même, avec les particularités qui lui sont propres’ (qtd. in ‘Entretien avec Wim Wenders’) (this uncanny ability to embody a role all the while remaining herself, with her own distinctive characteristics). These remarks point towards two essential and interrelated features of Gainsbourg’s performance style: the tendency to choose roles in which she can play herself and the fact that she is not a studied actor. It is worth noting that Gainsbourg never formally trained as an actor: ‘It’s very difficult for me to even admit that I am an actress. … Because I began doing this during the school holidays and I never went to drama school, I always feel that somehow I am not really a part of it. And I don’t have a method. Every time, it is like doing my first film all over again’ (qtd. in O’Hagan 10). In assessing Gainsbourg’s idiolect, then, it is important to remember that what follows are aspects of her performance style which can be considered dominant or typical; they are aspects which recur frequently enough to be said to constitute, when taken together, a performance style. What can be called the typical Gainsbourg posture – upright, shoulders rolled slightly forward in a gesture of self-effacement and arms hanging loosely by her side – makes its first appearance in L’Effrontée. The only variation to this is, as noted in Le Nouvel Observateur, an occasional tendency to shift her weight on to one hip, creating ‘une gaucherie exquise’, an exquisite awkwardness (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’ 61). With a rangy, somewhat angular frame, without the curve of breast or hip, her movements tend towards gaucherie. However, her coltishness can from time to time settle into more supple, almost graceful gestures. While Gainsbourg shares something of the tall and slender frames of the young Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn, she lacks the training in classical ballet these actresses had which contributed to their grace and fluidity of movement. In most of her performances, Gainsbourg’s face is expressionless, almost mask-like. Her eyes are usually lowered or else they look away to avoid another’s gaze or the gaze of the camera. When she does engage the camera, her gaze is direct, impenetrable

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and searching, as though every character she encounters has an ulterior motive which she must discern, without giving anything of herself away. Her mouth is thin-lipped and usually at rest, breaking only occasionally into a wide smile before returning quickly to its usual position. Changes in Gainsbourg’s facial expression can best be described as rare and fleeting. Indeed, she relies almost entirely on her neck and jaw to convey strong emotion. More specifically, the fulcrum where her neck meets her jaw provides the actress with her emotional range. In this sense, it is possible to speak of a geometry of Gainsbourg’s performance: the angle created by the plane of her face in relation to the plane of her body creates a scale of emotion which runs from acute (sharp, present emotion, vulnerability) when her chin is drawn into her chest, to obtuse (obstinate, impudent, bold, defiant) when her jaw juts our prominently. One of the best and most recent examples of this geometry is not a film role but Gainsbourg’s 2019 appearance on a French variety show with Yann Barthès. In this brief appearance, Gainsbourg demonstrates both a range and depth of emotion with great physical economy, particularly when considering the sensitive nature of some of the content, which shifts from the accusations against Michael Jackson, to her father’s music, something which she still clearly has difficulty listening to. Prominent is the use of her jaw and the fulcrum of her neck, which produce such contradictory signals as the defiant smile. While it may not strictly be the case that, as Pam Cook says of Nicole Kidman, Gainsbourg is always performing (40), there is the strong sense one is watching not someone who acts but who reacts in such a way that might almost qualify as studied. The way Gainsbourg composes herself during an extract from her father’s song ‘Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais’ in particular indicates less a performance and more the second nature of someone who grew up in the public eye. Each question, each subject raised in the show, is like a stone cast into a deep lake and Gainsbourg’s reaction can be compared to the ripples the stone makes on the surface. Yet in these later public appearances there is a discernible shift away

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from the adolescent of few words towards an openness which is nonetheless guarded. Perhaps the most striking element of Gainsbourg’s performance style, however, is her voice. Olivier Pélisson remarks that Gainsbourg’s voice has ‘un timbre identifiable’ (a recognisable timbre). Jean-Paul Enthoven claims that Gainsbourg speaks ‘dans une voix si subtilement murmurée’ (238) (in such a subtly murmuring voice) that he fears his tape recorder is useless. Laurent Rigoulet remarks that it is Gainsbourg’s voice that leaves the greatest impression; a voice that is ‘[d]ouce et légère, délicatement voilée’ (soft and light, delicately veiled) and so close to a whisper that he doubts it will be detected by the recorder (‘J’ai fait le contraire’). Rigoulet also acknowledges that whether Gainsbourg is speaking French or English, more and more filmmakers are fascinated by ‘les doubles-fonds qui habitent ce souffle évanescent’ (‘J’ai fait le contraire’) (the hidden depths that inhabit this evanescent whisper). Emmanuèle Frois refers to Gainsbourg’s touching ‘filet de voix qui semble se briser à chaque mot’ (reedy voice that seems to break with every word). Christophe Ayad describes Gainsbourg’s voice as ‘douce et étouffée’ (29) (soft and muffled). Anne Laure Gannac remarks that one is used to the ‘chuchotement brisé’ (26) (broken whispering) that Gainsbourg has used since L’Effrontée. Kaganski describes the uniqueness and adolescent quality of Gainsbourg’s voice as follows: ‘Quant à votre voix, qui recèle encore la douceur de l’enfance et la gaucherie de l’adolescence, elle n’appartient qu’à vous’ (As for your voice, which still contains the sweetness of childhood and the awkwardness of adolescence, it belongs only to you). Gainsbourg herself accounts for the particularity of her voice by explaining that she simply accepted ‘si on a une petite voix, on fait avec’ (qtd. in Pélisson) (if you have a soft voice you make do with it) and that due to her timidity, especially her extreme timidity at the beginning of her career, she struggles to speak louder. Gainsbourg acknowledges that the sound engineers suffered terribly because of her quiet voice but that her father always told her: ‘Laisse les ingénieurs

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du son se démerder, c’est pas à toi de parler plus fort’ (qtd. in Pélisson) (Let the sound engineers deal with it, it’s not up to you to speak louder). It is an assessment she agrees with: ‘quand on force, on est faux !’ (qtd. in Pélisson) (when you force it, it rings false). Thus, Gainsbourg locates her authenticity as an actress in part in her voice. So recognisable is Gainsbourg’s voice that even disembodied it acts as a signifier of her presence. In 3 Cœurs (dir. Benoît Jacquot, 2014), Gainsbourg’s character is first introduced not visually but aurally. In one of the early scenes in the film Marc (Benoît Poelvoorde) is having a drink alone at a bar after missing the last train to Paris. Off-camera we hear the bar door open and a soft, breathy voice say: ‘Bonsoir, vous-vendez des cigarettes?’. In this way it is possible to speak of the particular ‘grain’ of Gainsbourg’s voice, which Roland Barthes defines as ‘everything in the voice which overflows meaning’ (83–4); that is, everything which transcends what is said to focus on how it is said. Gainsbourg seldom raises her voice in a film role, although, as is the case with her facial expressions, there are exceptions. The most notable example is von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), a film in which Gainsbourg’s performance style undergoes the most drastic changes. In several scenes her face contorts and the pitch and timbre of her voice change from soft and w ­ hisper-like to shrill and at times guttural shrieking. Rather than demonstrate a range in her performance – or at least a range which remains largely underutilised in her other films – these scenes tend toward the grotesque, an excess in voice and gesture that departs dramatically from her usual emotional and physical minimalism. More common, however, are the scenes in which Gainsbourg conveys emotion without speaking or by speaking very little, something which can also be traced back to her earliest film roles. In the opening scene of L’Effrontée, Gainsbourg has no lines, relying instead on visual forms of communication to demonstrate a range of emotions from fear and defiance to humiliation and shame: her arms are kept close to her body, her hands are pulled up tightly under her chin, her shoulders

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are rolled forward, her head is down and her eyes downcast. In the following scene, when she does eventually speak, her quiet, slightly cracking voice reinforces the fragility and vulnerability of the preceding scene. Gainsbourg’s performance style or idiolect to a large extent determines the roles she plays. As an actor who is, according to Angelique Chrisafis, not ‘physically a chameleon’ (10), Gainsbourg is constrained to roles which adhere closely to her physiognomy, way of speaking and personal style. As Steven Rawle points out, ‘[t]here are physical limits to the body of the actor, as well as more obvious defined criteria, such as race, ethnicity, age and gender’ (134). Gainsbourg has largely become associated with awkward social misfits in her early roles and white, middle class, often fragile characters in her later roles.

‘Delicious child, my flesh and blood’: Charlotte for Ever

Between the two films she made with Miller, Gainsbourg embarked on the most daring role of her early career: ‘Charlotte’, the fourteen-year-old daughter of an alcoholic screenwriter in Serge Gainsbourg’s so-called ‘incest film’, Charlotte for Ever (1986). It was both the continuation and the apogee of her work with her father, which included an album, several singles and accompanying music videos. In the infamous music video accompanying Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s debut single, the duet ‘Lemon Incest’ (1984), twelve-year-old Charlotte, wearing only her underwear and an oversized denim shirt, stretches out on a large bed beside her shirtless father. In an imploring tone, her voice breaking as she reaches for the high notes, she sings: ‘L’amour que nous n’ferons jamais ensemble / Est le plus beau le plus violent / Le plus pur le plus enivrant’ (The love that we will never make together / Is the most beautiful the most violent / The most pure the most intoxicating). The provocative nature of her proclamation of unconsummated father/daughter love is heightened

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by the mise en scène: the half-naked father and the scantily clad daughter in bed together. Gainsbourg maintains that she was aware of the provocative nature of the song and was a willing participant in the project. She remembers the collaboration fondly: ‘J’ai adoré le faire. … Je comprenais le texte, je n’ai pas été prise en traître. C’était un souvenir magique de lui faire plaisir’ (qtd. in Guichoux) (I loved doing it. … I understood the text, I was not betrayed. It is a magical memory that I made him happy). Gainsbourg also recalls that ‘there was pureness behind it. It’s really the love of a father and daughter’ and admits that even then she imagines she was accustomed to ‘his excitement about provocation’ (qtd. in O’Hagan 10). Both the song, based on Frédéric Chopin’s Étude, op. 10, no. 3, in E major, and its accompanying music video were controversial upon their release, something which, according to Gainsbourg, was lost on her at the time. In a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, she remarked that while ‘Lemon Incest’ ‘made a lot of noise’, she was in boarding school and oblivious to the scandal: ‘[o]f course, my father knew what he was doing, and he wanted to shock people’ (qtd. in Binelli 26). Two years after recording ‘Lemon Incest’, Serge Gainsbourg again courted controversy when he cast his now fourteen-yearold daughter in Charlotte for Ever. As well as a film, Charlotte for Ever was a song and an album, each created by Gainsbourg for his daughter. The song was based on Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s ‘Andantino’ (Ivan Sings) from The Adventures of Ivan (also known as Pictures of Childhood), a suite of eight piano pieces, the titles of which suggest episodes in the life of a young boy. Like ‘Lemon Incest’, ‘Charlotte for Ever’ also deals with the theme of father/daughter love, with Charlotte singing ‘Amour de ma vie’ (Love of my life), ‘De goûter ta saveur’ (To taste your taste) and ‘Papa papa j’ai peur’ (Daddy, Daddy, I’m scared), and Serge singing lines like ‘Détournement d’mineure’ (Corruption of a minor). The song was the title track for Gainsbourg’s first album, released in 1986, which featured eight tracks, some in duet with her father (see figure 3)

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3  With Serge Gainsbourg in Charlotte for Ever (dir. Serge Gainsbourg, 1986, G.P.F.I.)

It included equally provocative numbers such as ‘Oh Daddy oh’, ‘Plus doux avec moi’, which speaks of sin, prohibitions and taboos, and ‘Zéro pointé vers l’infini’ which features the line ‘J’ai soif de Nelson Melody’ (I thirst for Nelson Melody), a reference to Gainsbourg’s concept album Melody Nelson, which tells the story of the fourteen-year-old Lolita-like figure, Melody, sung by Jane Birkin, who is seduced by an older man, sung by Gainsbourg. This deliberate intertextuality situates the young Charlotte quite specifically as both daughter and reincarnation of Melody/Birkin, a narrative move which conflates the fiction of the story with the ‘real’ lives of the actors. The Porsche Targa in which the young Charlotte’s mother is killed in Charlotte for Ever was the same make that Gainsbourg offered Birkin when she left him, and which Birkin claimed at the time was a gift to kill herself in (Aknin et al. 181). As Aknin et al. argue, the breakup with Birkin haunts the film (181). The absent mother is also a common narrative trope of films employing the incest motif. As Kathleen Rowe Karlyn points out: ‘Whenever a film or cultural narrative centers on a midlife male, a young girl who arouses his sexual or intense proprietary interest, and a mother

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who is missing or otherwise characterized as inadequate, the incest theme is likely to be lurking in the background’ (52). Vincendeau argues that incest narratives are part of a more general ‘master narrative’ in French culture in which older men seduce and dominate younger women and which has as one of its main tropes the absence or exclusion of ‘mature women’ (‘Family Plots’ 17). Vincendeau further argues that ‘in French cinema it is generally men who hold power, while notions of feminine beauty are associated with youth’ (‘Family Plots’ 16). The question of domination in these narratives is, however, a contentious one. Gainsbourg himself describes Stan as being in the grip (l’emprise) of the young Charlotte (Ciment and Jeancolas 9). This is a common device in the incest narrative, which, according to Rowe Karlyn, is ‘derived from Freud’s work on [incest] that ideologically inverts the social realities of white male privilege’ and ‘redirects sympathy toward beleaguered midlife heroes by portraying them as victims of unhinged and vengeful wives, seductive and manipulative daughters, or both’ (53). Further, Rowe Karlyn argues that adherents of so-called ‘Girl Power’ and Third Wave feminism are reappropriating these narratives to claim for girls and young women ‘the sexual entitlement boys and men have always enjoyed’ (53). It is difficult to see the young Charlotte as a victim primarily because the narrative is set up in such a way as to depict her freedom, strength and sexuality. The establishing in Charlotte for Ever of what Danielle Hipkins elsewhere calls a female teen perspective ‘takes a step back from the incest motif, revealing the parental generation to be generally chaotic, misdirected, and above all barely interesting’ (259). Indeed, Gainsbourg’s Stan cuts a rather pathetic figure as a grief-stricken alcoholic tormented by guilt over the death of his wife and his daughter’s constant accusations of his culpability. The conflation of art and life is also achieved in Charlotte for Ever by way of the partial reconstruction of the interior of the Gainsbourg family home at rue de Verneuil. The opening shot of the film tracks slowly across a series of images: a painting

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reminiscent of English artist Thomas Gainsborough and three black-and-white photographs, the first of Marilyn Monroe, the second of Charlotte Gainsbourg as a toddler, the third a close-up of her as an adolescent. Although shot in the Billancourt studios in Paris, the props are unmistakably Gainsbourg’s own, which creates the impression that we are not watching fiction but a home movie. The final shot, however, which shows the two protagonists lying together in an embrace in bed, is a deliberate unravelling of the life/art tapestry. The camera slowly pulls upwards to reveal that the bedroom, and indeed the entire house, is in fact a film set, a clear signal that we have been watching a carefully constructed fiction and not a fly-on-the-wall d ­ ocumentary shot inside the Gainsbourg family home. The music video accompanying the single ‘Charlotte for Ever’ combines scenes from the film with those shot especially for the video, creating an intentional intertextuality between the two. The most significant of these scenes in terms of the construction of Gainsbourg’s girlhood occurs at the very beginning of the clip when the young Charlotte emerges from the sea, dressed in a billowing skirt and an oversized shirt. The shot is a restaging of the Venus/Aphrodite myth but also recalls two similar sequences from French cinema: the shot of Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) emerging from the sea in Agnès Varda’s Sans toit ni loi (1985) and Juliette (Brigitte Bardot) emerging from the waves in Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu créa la femme (1956). The recourse to mythic symbolism through the reference to an icon of classical female beauty demonstrates Gainsbourg’s intention to fashion a myth out of his daughter, a myth that has to some extent endured into her later adult roles. As Gainsbourg sings in her near-breaking soft voice on ‘Charlotte for Ever’: ‘De moi tu est l’auteur’ (You are the creator of me). Gainsbourg himself said: ‘Ma plus belle œuvre, c’est elle’ (qtd. in Bellengier 61) (She is my best work). The reference to Varda’s and Vadim’s films also establishes two important features of the young Charlotte’s persona: the precocious sexuality of Bardot’s Juliette, and the homelessness and lawlessness of Bonnaire’s Mona.

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Serge Gainsbourg summarises the plot of Charlotte for Ever as follows: ‘Stan, scénariste à la dérive, ayant connu sa demi-heure de gloire dans quelque studio hollywoodien des années cinquante ou soixante, éthylique au dernier degré, suicidaire forcené. Voit tout en black excepte dans le regard laser et azure de la petite Charlotte. Vertiges de l’inceste et tendresse hallucinogènes’ (qtd. in Aknin et al. 178) (Stan, a drifting screenwriter, having experienced his half-hour of glory in some Hollywood studio of the fifties or sixties, extreme alcoholic, mad suicidal. All he sees is black except in the laser and azure look of the little Charlotte. Dizziness of incest and hallucinogenic tenderness). Reviews of the film were mixed. Wavell writes that the film, ‘hyped as an incest movie’, disappeared following ‘a savage panning and only a three-month run’ (36). Sylvie Simmons notes that many of the reviews labelled the film ‘distasteful’, ‘unhealthy’ and ‘sick’ (113). Notably, writers from the French film magazine Positif were some of the film’s most ardent supporters. Yann Tobin writes that Gainsbourg was ‘scandaleusement ignoré’ (scandalously ignored) at the Césars: mais c’est normal, pour Charlotte for Ever. Un film pudique (mais oui), nihiliste et romantique (et comment), très dixneuvième (siècle, pas arrondissement), bien écrit (je vous assure), prodigieusement éclairé, joué, décoré, tout – tout pour déplaire à « la profession » qui vote, apparemment. (56) (scandalously ignored, but that’s normal, for Charlotte for Ever. A modest film (but yes), nihilistic and romantic (and how), very nineteenth (century, not district), well written (I assure you), prodigiously lit, played, decorated, everything – all to displease ‘the profession’ who votes, apparently)

Gérard Legrand remarks: ‘On doit saluer ce risque, pris avec humour, mais avec passion’ (3) (We must applaud this risk, taken with humour, but also with passion). Legrand also praised its lead actress: ‘Vouloir faire passer Charlotte for ever pour un film scandaleux, c’est compromettre la carrière naissante d’une excellente actrice. Car les amorces de L’Effrontée explosent ici: émouvante

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de tendresse plaintive au début, elle est stupéfiante de fureur quand elle assomme Adélaïde contre le parquet’ (3) (To simply pass Charlotte for Ever off as a scandalous film is to compromise the budding career of an excellent actress. The fuses of L’Effrontée explode here: touching, with plaintive tenderness at first, she is stupefied with fury when she knocks Adélaïde to the floor). Also writing for Positif, Ciment and Jeancolas account, in part, for the negative reception of the film in terms of its central incest theme, doubly felt because the daughter and father roles are incarnated by Gainsbourg and her father (6). In 2016, Charlotte for Ever screened in New York as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s retrospective on the films of Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg titled ‘Jane and Charlotte Forever’. According to the Film Society’s website, the programme notes make reference to Gainsbourg’s ‘startlingly mature performance’. Reviewing the film’s screening at the retrospective, Peter Sobczynski describes Charlotte for Ever as ‘the kind of cinematic provocation that leaves you thinking there’s no way it could be made today and wondering how the hell it got made thirty years ago’. Sobczynski argues that despite the sleaziness of the narrative, Gainsbourg makes the film ‘watchable through the sheer force of her personality and self-­confidence’ and ‘is so strong and sure that you never get the sense she is being exploited, which is perhaps the only thing that keeps the proceedings from becoming utterly unbearable’. The press interviews accompanying the release of Charlotte for Ever helped establish what would become one of the key contradictions of Gainsbourg’s persona: her performance in the film is bold, direct and emotionally uncompromising, while offscreen, in media events surrounding the film, she came across as painfully shy. In the film, three key scenes demonstrate what Sobczynski calls the ‘sheer force of her personality and self-­ confidence’. In the first of these scenes, Charlotte dances halfnaked in the bathroom, admiring her reflection in the mirror. In the second scene she discovers her father’s lover Adélaïde in the bedroom and attacks her viciously, throwing her to the floor,

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tearing her clothes and repeatedly slamming her head onto the floor screaming ‘il est à moi pas toi!’ (he’s mine, not yours!). The third scene contains neither violence nor nudity, but it is perhaps the most explicit and ‘shocking’ of the film. Having banished Adélaïde from the family home, Stan and Charlotte begin a slow dance to an instrumental version of ‘Plus doux avec moi’ in which Charlotte finally permits Stan to seduce her. The moments of her seduction and acquiescence are revealed gradually through a series of glances towards her father culminating in a broad, complicit smile. It is via these facial gestures that the eroticism of the scene is established, and it remains unclear as to whether we are witnessing the prelude to a sexual encounter between the two or the climax of a more Platonic eroticism. Commenting on this ambiguity in an interview with Positif, Serge Gainsbourg remarked: ‘C’est le vertige de l’inceste, il faut le dire. Un inceste impossible’ (qtd. in Ciment and Jeancolas) (It is the vertigo of incest, it must be said. An impossible incest). This vertiginous impossibility is literalised in the final shot of the film when the camera lifts us up and out of the intimacy of the action to float above the set and ostensibly carry us out of the film. The ending of Charlotte for Ever is indicative of the way fictional narratives ‘rarely address incest directly because the topic is too explosive. However, the dynamics of incest are present again and again in popular culture through various degrees of displacement and condensation’ (Rowe Karlyn 54). Displacement is at work in Charlotte for Ever where the sexual relationship between father and daughter is displaced on to that between Stan and the young Adélaïde who, with her blonde hair and ‘conventional’ good looks, is something of the antithesis of Charlotte. In December 1986, shortly before the film’s release, Gainsbourg appeared with her father on Patrick Sabatier’s television program, ‘La vie de famille’. While a clearly inebriated and outspoken Serge literally steals the show from the host, a timid yet bemused Charlotte looks on, saying little, speaking only when spoken to. Her face registers only mild discomfort

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as her father pushes the microphone up to her lips. She delivers mostly one or two-word answers between Serge’s interjections extolling the beauty and photogenic quality of his daughter’s face. In response to Sabatier’s suggestion that she appears to be a very timid and reserved child and yet cinema is all about putting yourself on show, Gainsbourg says: ‘On vit ça normalement … je voudrais dire c’est … je fais ça comme plaisir alors il faut que j’aime ça mais … euh … je [ne] sais pas je [ne] peux pas expliquer’ (One lives this normally … I just want to say it’s … I’m doing it for fun, so I have to like it but … uh … I don’t know I can’t explain it). The almost inaudible voice, the significant pauses, the hesitations, and the attempts at rephrasing indicate the difficulties interviewers had when trying to penetrate the mind of the actress during this period of her career. Commenting on another television appearance, this time to promote L’Effrontée, in an article aptly titled ‘Speak Up, Sweet Charlotte’, Edmund White remarks that Gainsbourg was ‘hopeless, answering nothing but yes or no, and that after long pauses, in a tiny, breathy, stricken voice. She never stopped searching the floor for rescue or chewing her nails’ (78). This public persona, which was formed very early on in Gainsbourg’s life, would remain largely unchanged throughout her career. Describing Gainsbourg at an interview in 2011, Bethan Cole writes ‘at the Hotel Royal Monceau, Charlotte Gainsbourg is sitting curled into herself on a vast button-back sofa, all elongated limbs and eye-grazing fringe […] she is also rather shy, even recoiling from eye contact’ (12). *** The conflation of Gainsbourg’s ‘real’ life with that of her character in Charlotte for Ever continued in her next two roles, Agnès Varda’s Jane B par Agnès V (1988) and Kung-Fu Master (1988). In both films Gainsbourg plays the daughter of the protagonist played by her own mother Jane Birkin. Both films feature members of her family including her younger half-sister Lou

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Doillon and maternal grandparents, Judy Campbell and David Birkin, with scenes filmed at their London residence. In these three films, Gainsbourg’s status as fille de is literalised in the roles themselves. Following these minor roles in Varda’s films, Gainsbourg reunited with Miller for La Petite voleuse in 1988 before appearing in her first foreign film, the French–German–Italian ­co-production Il sole anche di notte (1990) directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Gainsbourg plays the small but significant role of Matilda, a disturbed adolescent who is sent to a reclusive monk to seek a cure for her melancholy. Gainsbourg, in her first nude scene, seduces him. Having not entirely mastered Italian for her lines, her dialogue was dubbed in post-­ production. Gainsbourg next appeared alongside Anouk Grinberg in Bertrand Blier’s postmodern female buddy film Merci la vie (1991), a role which, according to Tony Crawley, ‘liberates young Charlotte Gainsbourg from childhood roles’ (20). During the filming of Merci la vie, Gainsbourg spent five days working on Eric Rochant’s Aux yeux du monde (1991) in which she appears only episodically as Juliette, the girlfriend of protagonist Bruno, played by her future long-term partner, Yvan Attal. Gainsbourg and Attal were reunited the following year on the set of Amoureuse (dir. Jacques Doillon, 1992). They would go on to co-star in several films, including five directed by Attal, and become, according to Vogue Paris, ‘one of the longestserving and most-loved couples of French cinema’ (Garrigues). The magazine celebrated the ‘power couple of French cinema’ in a series of photographs and film stills and described them as ‘[d]iscreet, in sync and humble’ (Garrigues). In 2018, French Vanity Fair featured Gainsbourg and Attal on the front cover, in a pose which reproduces, with positions reversed, a famous photograph of Serge and Jane from the 1970s which appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2016. It was not the first time the couple had appeared together on a magazine cover: they previously featured on the covers of the May 1995 and August 2004 editions of French cinema magazine Première. Amoureuse was

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another instance in which Gainsbourg’s role was closely connected to her family. The director Jacques Doillon was Birkin’s partner at the time, and Gainsbourg also remarked that the film’s dialogue ‘évoquaient ma vraie vie et mon père qui venait de disparaître’ (qtd. in Baumann and Ciment 34) (evoked my real life and my father who had just died). Gainsbourg’s next role, The Cement Garden (1993), again saw her working with family, this time with her uncle Andrew Birkin. The film marked her English-language film debut while further ­developing her reputation for provocative artistic output.

‘What it feels like for a girl’: The Cement Garden

The Cement Garden developed two important aspects of Gainsbourg’s star persona: the transnational and the provocative. The transnational aspect of her persona was developed primarily through her learning to speak English in a way that would remain with her throughout her career and the provocative aspect built on what had already been established in her early film roles through the depiction of troubled girlhood and the incest motif. Set in an isolated house amid a concrete wasteland, The Cement Garden is ostensibly the story of fifteen-year-old Jack (Andrew Robertson) and his seventeen-year-old sister Julie (Gainsbourg). Following the sudden and unexpected death of their father (Hans Zischler), their mother (Sinead Cusack) becomes bedridden and soon dies. Fearing they and their younger siblings will be placed in foster care, Julie and Jack place their mother’s body in a trunk in the basement and fill it with cement. A subtle entropy follows in which we witness the gradual breakdown of the family unit, partially restored only once Jack and Julie assume the mantle of surrogate parents. The deaths of their parents and the absence of authority result in the dissolution of the incest taboo, allowing Jack and Julie to explore their mutual desires. Gainsbourg’s Julie represents a complex

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girlhood through both her androgynous appearance and her challenging of societal conventions regarding sexual identity and gender roles. According to Tracy Hargreaves, the term ‘androgyny’ was coined to describe the ‘intersexed, intermediate body’ (2). For Hargreaves, androgyny can take a number of forms: ‘a sensibility, a pathology, as symptomatic of repressed desire …, the embodiment of an identity through usually samesex sexual orientation and/or cross-gender identification, an emblem (or fantasy) of a behaviour where positive traits, identified as masculine and feminine, work harmoniously in a single individual’ (3). All these forms of androgyny are at work in Gainsbourg’s early films: the meaning of androgyny, however, ‘depends on its function in a given discourse’ (Hargreaves 3). In The Cement Garden, for example, Gainsbourg’s androgyny is used to disrupt the stereotypical masculine and feminine traits assigned to gender roles, particularly in Julie’s ‘Girls can wear jeans’ monologue. The film received a mixed reception upon its release. William Johnson, writing in Film Quarterly, remarked that it ‘gained notoriety as a film about teen incest, a misconception that put it in double jeopardy with critics and the public’ (32). Nonetheless, critics generally agreed the cast delivered fine performances, especially Gainsbourg. Johnson argues that the siblings’ roles are ‘performed superbly’ (35). Acknowledging that the film is essentially Jack’s story, Maitland McDonagh remarks that Gainsbourg ‘has the tougher role, and while Julie borders on cliché, the coltish Gainsbourg gives her a pragmatic, teasing life that’s surprisingly compelling’ (36). In the New York Times Caryn James writes that Gainsbourg’s Julie is ‘intentionally, just as inscrutable to viewers as she is to Jack’. In a 2008 review of the DVD release, Kate Stables writes that Gainsbourg’s ‘delicate, footsure portrayal of taboo-busting big sister Julie is outstanding’ (85). While Gainsbourg had previously made films outside France, The Cement Garden was her first foray into English-language cinema and helped lay the foundation for her transnational stardom. She was not, however, initially considered for the role.

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Birkin had searched desperately to no avail for an English actress whom he considered to be the equivalent of his French niece before deciding to cast Gainsbourg in spite of the fact she was not fluent in English and spoke it with a heavy French accent. Reluctant to have Gainsbourg’s voice dubbed, Birkin engaged a language coach. As Gainsbourg herself explains: Ma mère m’a toujours parlé en français. Je n’ai appris l’anglais qu’au lycée. C’est pour ça que j’étais tenté de jouer en anglais. J’ai rencontré une coach en qui Andrew a une confiance totale et elle a estimé que je pouvais faire le film. Mais on a eu, avant le tournage, six mois de travail. De travail très technique – comme déplacer sa voix ou de dire des phrases avec un bouchon dans la bouche! (qtd. in Bellengier 114) (My mother always spoke to me in French. I only learned English in high school. That’s why I was tempted to act in English. I met a coach who Andrew had complete confidence in, and she felt that I could do the film. But we had, before the shoot, six months of work. Very technical work – like throwing your voice or saying phrases with a plug in your mouth!)

Most importantly for her transnational and international career, her voice coach work and English-language training for The Cement Garden gave Gainsbourg the skills to continue to work confidently in English-language productions: ‘Je suis incapable de prendre un accent, j’ai mon accent à moi. Ça reste aussi personnel que du français. Mon accent anglais, je l’ai travaillé sur le film Le Jardin de ciment. … Avant, j’avais un accent français très fort’ (qtd. in Sotinel) (I can’t put on an accent. I have my own particular accent. It’s as personal to me as French. I worked on my English accent for the film The Cement Garden. … Before that, I had a very strong French accent). Indeed, Gainsbourg’s next major film role, following a brief cameo playing herself in Michel Blanc’s Grosse fatigue (1994), was Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre in 1996, a film which

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would gain for Gainsbourg wider recognition as an Englishlanguage actress. The accent and articulation she cultivated in these two films, particularly when coupled with the distinctive timbre of her voice, would become one of the distinguishing features of her star persona internationally. Much, too, is made of Gainsbourg’s English in press articles. Amy Larocca notes that her accent is ‘almost British, except for the inflections, which are entirely French – it makes perfect sense, given that she’s the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’ (‘62 Minutes’). Similarly, Zee and Bullock remark that Gainsbourg speaks ‘in her soft English-schoolgirl diction’ (202). Ludovic Hunter-Tilney claims that ‘Gainsbourg’s spoken English – refined, softly spoken, ­composed – evokes the Chelsea bohemia of her mother’s youth. But a Gallic sheen and the occasional stumble for a word are reminders that French is her first language’. Andrew Pulver, too, notes that Gainsbourg gets her ‘surreally plummy English accent’ from Birkin (3), and that despite the fact ‘she grew up in Paris, and still lives there, she doesn’t seem to have a trace of a French accent’ (3). Cole writes that while Gainsbourg has the ‘irregular beauty you’d expect from an arthouse heroine’; she has a ‘cut-glass, Englishrose voice’ that is ‘classic – as timelessly British as a green summer lawn’. Cole describes Gainsbourg’s enunciation as ‘crisp’ and ‘not in the slightest bit French as you might expect. Instead of the “zees” and “zises” of her father, she uses upright consonants and vowels that are pure Queen’s English. It’s only her word order that sounds European.’ In New York Magazine Alissa Quart describes Gainsbourg’s ‘disturbingly lovely’ voice as resembling ‘that of a drowsy British schoolgirl on the brink of losing her innocence in an unsavory fashion’ (77). Anne Billson remarks that Gainsbourg’s English accent ‘is so perfect you tend to forget that, English mother notwithstanding, she isn’t quite bilingual’. The second significant aspect of Gainsbourg’s persona developed in The Cement Garden is provocation, which manifests itself in two main ways: first, through her ongoing association

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with the incest motif; and second, through a more general provocation embodied in the character of Julie. Gainsbourg courted controversy when in a 1994 interview with French monthly magazine for young women 20 Ans she remarked: ‘L’inceste entre un adulte et un enfant est choquant, car on peut s’interroger sur le consentement, mais une relation entre frère et sœur ne me dérange pas. Ça me parait normal d’avoir des désirs quand on grandit ensemble’ (qtd. in Bellengier 117) (Incest between an adult and a child is shocking because one can question the consent; but a relationship between brother and sister does not bother me. It seems normal to have desires when you grow up together). These are sentiments the character of Julie appears to share: rather than rebuff Jack’s awkward attempts at seduction, she somewhat perversely encourages him. In a key scene she is shown sunbathing in the backyard, wearing a green bikini and sunglasses and listening to a portable radio. She invites a nervous Jack to rub sunscreen onto her back. This scene calls to mind the famous scene from Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962), in which Humbert Humbert (James Mason) first lays eyes on the young Delores Haze (Sue Lyons) as she sunbathes on her New Hampshire lawn. Birkin offers a somewhat degraded version of Kubrick’s scene, with the carefully manicured lawns of the Hazes’ residence replaced by the barren concrete wasteland of Jack and Julie’s family home (see figure 4). While the tendency may be to read Kubrick’s Lolita through a paedophilic gaze, the film does assume a quasi-incest narrative after Humbert marries Mrs Haze (Shelley Winters) and informally adopts Lolita as his daughter. This is not the first time the young Gainsbourg was cast as a Lolita-like figure. In Charlotte for Ever, there is direct reference to Nabokov’s novel which the character of Charlotte claims to have read at boarding school, along with the works of Henry Miller, a detail no doubt intended to demonstrate her precocious intelligence and lack of sexual naivety. In The Cement Garden, Gainsbourg’s Julie embodies an unconventional and complex girlhood. Like her previous

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4  With Andrew Robertson in The Cement Garden (dir. Andrew Birkin, 1993, BBC)

‘child’ roles, Julie is an orphan of sorts who is mature beyond her years, demonstrates a precocious sexuality and shows little regard for societal conventions. Her androgynous appearance departs from stereotypical notions of girlhood while facilitating the film’s questioning of gender roles and norms. Melissa Anderson remarks that Gainsbourg, with ‘her close-cropped hair and lean physique’, recalls Jane Birkin’s tomboy in Je t’aime moi non plus (1976) and that Gainsbourg’s ‘striking, unconventional appearance highlights The Cement Garden’s exploration of fluid gender expression and boundary-breaking desire, motifs that the actress, barely out of her teens, ennobles with tremendous intelligence’. While the film essentially centres on the narcissistic Jack, Gainsbourg’s subtle, complex portrayal of Julie lends a power to the role which dominates the film. Birkin identifies this complexity, manifested as a duality that encompasses contradictions which both Gainsbourg and Julie share: ‘Comme celui de son personnage, son sourire peut ressembler au plus beau des arcs-en-ciel. Mais aussi au plus dangereux des couteaux’ (qtd. in Bellengier 115) (Like that of her character,

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her smile can look like the most beautiful rainbow; but also, the most dangerous of knives). The pivotal moment in The Cement Garden in terms of the film’s problematising of gender roles is Julie’s ‘Girls can wear jeans’ monologue. Roughly midway through the film, Jack walks in on Julie and Sue (Alice Coulthard) who are busy dressing their younger brother Tom (Ned Birkin) in a long blonde wig and a dress trimmed with pale blue ribbon. Jack teases his brother for wanting to look like a girl. Julie then slowly approaches Jack, carefully ties a matching ribbon around his neck and, pulling on it gently, draws him closer to her. She sweeps his hair from his face in a gesture both maternal and seductive and, her voice lightly cracking, whispers: ‘Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short. Wear shirts and boots because it’s okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading because you think that being a girl is degrading. But secretly you’d love to know what it’s like wouldn’t you? What it feels like for a girl?’ It is a powerful moment in the film, not only because of the subject matter and the tight framing of the exchange but also because of the way Gainsbourg delivers the lines in her distinctive voice and with an almost expressionless face.1 At the end of her monologue, Julie ties the ribbon around Jack’s neck into a bow. There is a cut to a shot of a mirror in which Jack is shown standing beside Tom, the matching ribbons and their long hair producing a twinning effect: Jack is no longer a boy but not quite a girl. As Fred Haeseker remarks, Gainsbourg and Robertson are ‘an example of inspired casting – not only do they resemble each other, they both have androgynous looks. It’s no wonder Jack and Julie’s little brother is confused about gender roles.’ In her early film roles, Gainsbourg tends to embody a certain type of girlhood which might be called ‘troubled girlhood’. The

The power of the delivery was not lost on Madonna who sampled Julie’s monologue at the beginning of ‘What It Feels Like for a Girl’ from her album Music (2000). 1 

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subfield of girlhood studies known as girls’ media studies provides a useful context for a discussion of Gainsbourg’s incarnation of girlhood. According to Fiona Handyside and Kate Taylor-Jones, the term ‘girl’ is ‘slippery and ­ precarious … allowing a variety of accounts of how girlhood finds its sonic and visual shape within contemporary cinema cultures’ (10). In Precocious Charms: Stars Performing Girlhood in Classical Hollywood Cinema, Gaylyn Studlar examines the ‘convergence between representations of youthful femininity … and the phenomenon of film stardom’ (2). Studlar addresses the ‘central conceit of a star who was affiliated with cinematic depictions of girlhood, whether during a relatively short period of time in an extraordinarily long career … or across a lengthier part of her screen work’ (9). Both are the case with Gainsbourg, who carries her girlhood with her into her adult working life. Girlhood is a complex notion because it has what Handyside and TaylorJones call a ‘discursive and performative volatility’ which makes it ‘difficult to define what exactly constitutes girlhood and find the line where girlhood ends’ (8). Subsequently, both women and girls are ‘caught in an elastic construction that blurs the boundaries between the two’ (Handyside and Taylor-Jones 8). This is particularly the case with Gainsbourg who not only plays characters somewhat younger than herself but who has also been described as a kind of ‘eternal adolescent’ (Frois). In 2001, Thierry Klifa and Christophe d’Yvoire observed: ‘Malgré ses quinze ans de carrière, et la vingtaine de films qu’elle a à son actif, son image est irrévocablement liée à une certaine juvénilité (84) (Despite her fifteen-year career, and the twenty or so films she has under her belt, her image is irrevocably linked to a certain youthfulness). In 2017, DJ and producer Sebastian Akchoté, remarked that Gainsbourg is ‘46 years old, but in the minds of the people, she’s a shy girl’ (qtd. in Vozick-Levinson). In 2017, Gainsbourg herself remarked: ‘J’ai fait jeune fille très longtemps. J’ai l’impression que ma période femme, au cinéma, est passée à l’as’ (qtd. in Faure) (I played the young girl for a very long time. I have the impression that my ‘woman’ period

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in cinema has been overlooked). Marc Esposito in the French film magazine Studio remarked in 1988 that from L’Effrontée to La Petite voleuse Gainsbourg ‘a grandi. Elle semble aujourd’hui sortie de l’adolescence, sans être encore une femme, mais tout ce qu’on aimait en elle dans L’Effrontée est toujours là. Et sera sûrement là encore longtemps’ (8) (has grown up. She seems today to have left adolescence behind without yet being a woman; but everything that one loved about her in L’Effrontée is still there and will surely be there for a long time). The blurring of the boundary between girlhood and womanhood is in part due to Gainsbourg’s ‘troubling teenage physique’ (Frois) and in part to an acting style which not only brought maturity to her early roles, but which also lends her mature roles an unmistakable element of girlhood.

‘Enigmatic and unsettling’: Jane Eyre (1996)

She has immense resources of violence and emotion. … When she got Jane Eyre, it made perfect sense. – Jane Birkin

Franco Zeffirelli’s big-budget, internationally distributed French, Italian and British co-production of Jane Eyre afforded Gainsbourg greater visibility on the international film scene, particularly with American audiences. Prior to Jane Eyre, Gainsbourg was essentially perceived both in France and abroad as a French actress. However, her role in Zeffirelli’s film, more so than The Cement Garden, brought to the fore her ‘Englishness’, something that will continue to come in to play throughout her career and mark her as a transnational star. Significantly, her role in Jane Eyre is also considered a career-changing moment. Writing for Refinery29, Daniel Barna and Gabriel Bell refer to Jane Eyre as Gainsbourg’s ‘breakout film’, arguing that prior to it the ‘very existence of Gainsbourg … was completely lost on American audiences’. They further remark that compared

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5  Jane Eyre (dir. Franco Zeffirelli, 1996, Cineritino S.r.L.)

with earlier film adaptations, the character of Jane ‘appeared just as odd and haunted as she does in the novel’ and that with Zeffirelli’s film ‘a strange, sexy, unforgettable star was born’ (see figure 5). Speaking of his decision to cast Gainsbourg as Jane, Zeffirelli remarked: ‘That day I saw seven girls. … Some were competent, some were not. One was extraordinary, but she was constructing a performance, calculating the effects, creating artifice, while Charlotte was absolutely straightforward, and, God knows, she wasn’t very encouraging to look at at that moment. She wore little makeup. She just wanted to be herself, and that’s how she got the role’ (qtd. in Fuller 4). Here Zeffirelli opposes ‘calculated artifice’ to the naturalness or unstudied nature of Gainsbourg’s acting style. His remarks perpetuate the idea – a common one in Gainsbourg’s films to date – of the actor ‘playing herself ’, being a natural at acting, or possessing a natural aptitude for the craft. This tension or contradiction

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between naturalness and craft, between being herself and incarnating a role, is central to Gainsbourg’s star persona. Like other contradictions which lay at the heart of her persona, the natural/ crafted dichotomy accounts in part for the enigmatic appeal the actress has for many critics. Furthermore, critics of Zeffirelli’s film drew comparisons between the character of Jane and Gainsbourg herself. Graham Fuller, for example, writes that Gainsbourg’s ‘reticence and modesty must have recommended her for the role of Bronte’s socially maladroit heroine’ and that Zeffirelli had been impressed by Gainsbourg’s ‘ability to assume the character instantly when she auditioned for him’ (4). Jane Eyre met with a mixed critical reception, with most critics taking note of Zeffirelli’s casting. Judy Gerstel writes that the director ‘eschewed predictability and risked non-­traditional casting’ and remarks of the choice of Gainsbourg that it is ‘she and not Rochester who is dark, brooding, enigmatic and ­unsettling. … As Jane, she projects a quiet charisma and stillness that is meant to take the place of conventional attractiveness. Gainsbourg casts a curious spell that helps to make Rochester’s eventual infatuation comprehensible, if not wholly convincing.’ Christine James claims that the film has ‘strong performances all around’; and Jay Carr notes the ‘solid performances’ of the cast and acknowledges that one can understand Zeffirelli’s choice of cast and ‘admire the places they try to go with the roles’. While recognising that Gainsbourg ‘is a plus in the title role because she isn’t afraid to play Jane’s plainness’, Carr nonetheless finds her interpretation of Jane ‘too lacking in nuance and detail to bring her from a generalized wary stoicism to a fully developed woman’ and claims that while one can admire Gainsbourg’s Jane and appreciate her ‘gravity’, she is ‘not a Jane who will quietly grow on you until she mesmerizes you’. In a similar vein, while recognising that Gainsbourg’s Jane ‘is homely in an interesting way, self-contained, somewhat elfin’ and that ‘the line of her mouth is a fascinating scribble’, Richard Alleva argues that ‘appearance can never take the place of performance in the case of a major dramatic role’ and ultimately

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finds Gainsbourg’s performance ‘absolutely static’ and monotonous on both a vocal and physical level (18). In contrast to these ambivalent assessments, Stephen Holden praises Gainsbourg’s ‘intensely focused performance’ and remarks that she ‘projects a canny critical intelligence and conveys the inner war between Jane’s passionate spirit and her education in servility with a cool, clenched ferocity’. Holden finds Gainsbourg a ‘more convincing Jane’ than earlier interpretations of Bronte’s heroine by Joan Fontaine or Susannah York. Of particular interest is his comment on Gainsbourg’s ‘undesirable’ appeal, a paradox which is an important feature of Gainsbourg’s star persona, and which is often characterised as jolie laide. Holden further argues that Zeffirelli lends Jane ‘a visual appeal that is compelling enough to pass for physical beauty’. Describing her as ‘[a]shen-cheeked’ with ‘her dark hair pulled into a bun, the corners of her mouth drawn down’ and ‘usually dressed in black’, Holden claims that Gainsbourg’s Jane ‘belongs to the same Hollywood mode of undesirable woman’ as Olivia de Havilland’s Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (dir. William Wylder, 1949): ‘the camera adores her while pretending not to’. While arguing that with some makeup, she ‘would be stunning’, Jane is nonetheless ‘certainly more attractive’ than Rochester’s other love interest the ‘blond flibbertigibbet’ Blanche Ingram (Elle Macpherson). Other criticism of Zeffirelli’s film can be divided into those critics who praise the film and Gainsbourg’s performance on the one hand and those who pan the film but praise Gainsbourg’s performance on the other. Of the former, Eva H. Kissin writes that Zeffirelli’s film is ‘probably the fairest Jane Eyre ever made’ and that the acting of all cast members is ‘superior’, noting that ‘Gainsbourg’s mature Jane is insistently pulled between her desire and her intellect’ (62); while David Sterritt describes the film as ‘more gripping and accessible’ than the array of its contemporary Austen adaptations and speculates that it ‘could well become a bigger hit’ thanks to the ‘smart performances’ of Zeffirelli’s ‘well-chosen cast’, the best of which

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is given by the ‘young French star’ (14). Sterritt further argues that Gainsbourg’s previous role in The Cement Garden ‘only hinted at the emotional richness she finds [in Jane Eyre]’ (14). For Sterritt, Gainsbourg, who is not ‘conventionally glamorous’, employs ‘her offbeat good looks to fine advantage, giving Jane a no-nonsense plainness to match the no-nonsense views of life and love that shape her actions in the story’ (14). In 2007, Pulver retrospectively described Gainsbourg’s turn in Jane Eyre as a ‘perfectly appropriate use of her spectrally weird voice and otherworldly screen presence’ (3). Among the latter criticisms, the Washington Post described the film as ‘empty and disappointing, despite the striking presence of Charlotte Gainsbourg’ (‘JANE EYRE (PG)’); and Leslie Camhi argues that Gainsbourg ‘carries this shaky film firmly on her slender shoulders’ (80). Camhi further observes that while literature has created a ‘few “plain” yet headstrong heroines’, they are ‘truly rare’ in cinema and it is a relief to discover that Gainsbourg ‘is no banal French starlet, but an extraordinary actress’ (80). Camhi goes on to describe Gainsbourg’s Jane as ‘frail and magnetic’ and a ‘model of ardent feeling and concentrated repression, physically awkward with fervent independence’ (80). A recurrent theme in these commentaries and criticisms is reference to Gainsbourg’s ‘unusual’ physical appeal which is integral not only to Gainsbourg’s Jane Eyre but to Gainsbourg’s star persona as such: ‘striking’, ‘frail and magnetic’, ‘socially maladroit’, ‘brooding, enigmatic, unsettling’, ‘quiet charisma’, ‘curious spell’, ‘homely in an interesting way’, ‘compelling’ visual appeal and ‘offbeat good looks’. There is a scene midway through Zeffirelli’s film in which the then governess Jane gives her young pupil Adèle (Josephine Serre) the following advice on drawing: ‘Remember, the shadows are as important as the light.’ It is an important line in the film, which encapsulates not only the complexities of the character of Jane but also an approach to artistic endeavour: an ability to portray light and shadow. Gainsbourg’s ability to render both in her performance is a feature not only of Jane Eyre but also of her persona more

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generally. Indeed, another key element critics refer to when discussing Gainsbourg’s performance in Jane Eyre is contradiction: they describe her ‘desire and intellect’, ‘ardent feeling and concentrated repression’, ‘passionate spirit and … cool, clenched ferocity’. These oppositions or contradictions form an important part of what Dyer might have called Gainsbourg’s ‘charisma’. Indeed, Dyer’s theory of charisma ‘places particular emphasis on the star as reconciler of contradictions’ (Stars 82). Similarly, Morin, in a move that presages Dyer’s charisma theory writes of ‘the synthesis of contrary qualities’ (The Stars 32). *** Following two major incursions into English-language filmmaking, Gainsbourg returned to French cinema with the eponymous role in Eric Rochant’s psychological fantasy thriller Anna Oz (1996). Her return to French-language cinema and her choice of diverse projects demonstrated her adaptability to different locations, languages and genres, something which will later become a hallmark of her career. Rochant, who had previously directed Gainsbourg in Aux yeux du monde, wrote the role of Anna Oz especially for her. It was not the first time a character had been created especially for her or with her in mind, indicating that Gainsbourg, from a young age, possessed a persona which lent itself to being distilled into film roles. Gainsbourg followed Anna Oz with another French film, Love, etc. (1996) directed by Marion Vernoux and based on the novel Talking It Over by Julian Barnes. It marked her third collaboration with Attal. In Love, etc. she plays Marie, a single young woman who becomes involved in a ménage à trois with two best friends. After Love, etc. Gainsbourg took a break from acting to have a child, the first of three with Attal. Between 1998 and 2000, Gainsbourg made four films: Passionnément (dir. Bruno Nuytten, 2000); Suspicion (dir. David Bailey, 2000); La Bûche (dir. Danièle Thompson, 2000), for which she won her second César for Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle (Best Supporting Actress); and Félix et Lola

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(dir. Patrice Leconte, 2000). During this period, she also made her first incursion into television, appearing in two telemovies: Nuremberg (dir. Yves Simoneau, 2000), in which she plays a French concentration camp survivor, and Les Misérables (dir. Josée Dayan, 2000), in which she plays Fantine. It was during the filming of Les Misérables in the Czech Republic that Gainsbourg first read the forty-page scenario written by Attal which would become Ma femme est une actrice. Based on Attal’s short film I Got a Woman (1997), Ma femme est une actrice marks an important turning point in Gainsbourg’s career and establishes her bobo Parisienne persona which would mark her career for at least the next fifteen years and become perhaps the most recognisable and enduring feature of her star persona. The appellation femme of the film’s title signifies a kind of quantum leap for Gainsbourg from fille de to femme. As Enthoven observed in September 2001, only months before the release of Attal’s film: ‘Cette actrice – qu’on a connue si jeune – est, désormais, une femme’ (238) (This actress – who we have known since she was so young – is already a woman).

2 T  urning point: my wife is an actress (and a star)

A willowy brunette in slim jeans, T-shirt and an oversized military parka steps into a Parisian cafe. Her long, messy hair frames her makeup-free face and she wears no jewellery save for a small diamond pendant. The woman is thirty-something Emmanuelle (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in the romantic comedy Prête-moi ta main (dir. Eric Lartigau, 2006), but it could be a description of Gainsbourg herself. Sheila Johnston describes Gainsbourg arriving for an interview as follows: ‘Tall, lean, with straight brown hair and large, irregular features, plainly dressed in jeans and a baggy khaki jacket, she has a kind of understated geeky chic’ (5). Elsewhere in Lartigau’s film, Gainsbourg wears a long navy coat with gold buttons, a Balenciaga from her personal wardrobe (Bellengier 224). The pendant is also Gainsbourg’s own; a gift from director Claude Berri, which she describes as her ‘most treasured possession’ (Greenstreet) and which she often wears in films and to festivals and premieres. According to Morin, the conflation of art and life is a necessary step in the creation of a star (The Stars). With Gainsbourg, the blurring of reality and representation reaches its apogee in Ma femme est une actrice (2001), a romantic comedy written and directed by her partner Yvan Attal. The film tells the story of sports reporter Yvan and his growing jealousy of his actress wife, Charlotte, played by Attal and Gainsbourg respectively. It was a turning point in Gainsbourg’s career: ‘Avant, je tournais un film par an, voire deux. Là, je vais en enchaîner trois’ (qtd. in Grassin and Loustalot 62) (Before, I shot one film every year

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or two. Now I’m going to make three). The role also cemented her status as a bobo Parisienne, which would become one of the most internationally recognisable aspects of her star persona. In an early scene in Ma femme, Yvan and Charlotte are walking the Paris streets at night. With her hair swept back into a loose chignon, wearing a charcoal sweater, flared jeans and a trench coat with its collar nonchalantly turned up, Charlotte is the epitome of effortless chic. Without warning, three fans stop her and ask for her autograph. Charlotte amiably obliges while Yvan looks on unimpressed. It is an episode that one imagines came straight from the couple’s real life. This scene is also an example, among many from Gainsbourg’s films from this period, of how her personal life and sartorial style intersect with those of her characters. Indeed, Charlotte’s casualchic look comprises clothes borrowed from Gainsbourg’s own wardrobe (Girner). This look, as it is articulated by Gainsbourg both on- and off-screen, consists mainly of unkempt hair, minimal makeup and a uniform of jeans, men’s shirts, simple T-shirts and a trench coat all in a muted palette. The use of Gainsbourg’s personal wardrobe in Ma femme is an intentional narrative device which blurs the distinction between real life and cinema, between fiction and biography, and between character and celebrity. Alison Smith remarks that the film is a ‘deliberate choreography of [Gainsbourg’s and Attal’s] celebrity status, a calculated mix of autobiographical accuracy and outrageous fiction’ (185). In a similar vein, Bellengier writes that Gainsbourg ‘joue son propre rôle dans une histoire qui n’est pas la sienne, tout en surfant en permanence sur la confusion entre le factice et le réel’ (181) (plays her own role in a story that is not hers, all the while constantly playing on the confusion between the artificial and the real). In an interview in 2001, Gainsbourg herself remarked: ‘Je n’ai pas cherché à jouer quelqu’un de différent. Je ne me suis même pas cachée derrière des costumes puisque je porte mes propres vêtements’ (qtd. in Bellengier 181) (I did not try to play someone different. I did not even hide behind costumes, because I wear my own clothes).

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Following Ma femme, Gainsbourg’s work in the first decade of the twenty-first century in both French and transnational contexts continued to establish her as the quintessential bobo Parisienne, a transnational star and, particularly for Anglophone audiences, an indie icon and cult star. This was a crucial period for Gainsbourg as these interconnected elements – bobo, transnational, cult – would remain key aspects of her persona.

Chez les bobos

The bobo Parisienne can be considered the dominant historical manifestation of the Parisienne type particular to late or consumer capitalism, and Gainsbourg its most famous exponent. A three-page spread in Vogue Paris featuring Gainsbourg claims she has transformed the image of the Parisienne (‘Tout comme Charlotte’ 141). The term bobo, often applied to Gainsbourg’s personal style so often transported to her film roles in this period, was first used by American journalist David Brooks to describe a new class of elites, the bourgeois bohemian, which arose in the 2000s out of ‘the resolution between the culture and the counterculture’ (43). Features of this new establishment include consumption that is less conspicuous than that associated with the yuppie establishment of the preceding generation (including a penchant for the artisan over the mass-produced and the social enterprise over the corporation), a ‘down to earth’ ethos, but also a particular aesthetic or ‘look’, which Brooks defines as ‘dishevelled yet elegant’ (16). Tim Murphy defines Gainsbourg’s brand of bobo chic as follows: Her clean-scrubbed, slouchy daytime look has almost ­single-handedly redefined everyday French style for a generation of young Parisian women. Her look, which she has cultivated since her late teens – wind-blown hair, unpainted lips holding a cigarette, jeans, trench coats, cowboy boots, half-buttoned men’s-tailored shirts, tank tops, chunky

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scarves – typifies an artfully rumpled yuppie-hipster hybrid that has taken hold in France: the bourgeois-bohemian, or le bobo.

Scott Gunther argues that the bobo can best be categorised as a ‘cosmopolitan, upper-middle-class individual’ who ‘eschews conspicuous consumption, spending large amounts of money instead on discreet luxuries’ (Gunther 105). While the term bobo can have an ironic, mocking, negative connotation and, when viewed as a new establishment, may sound ‘sinister and elitist’ (Brooks 11), as it is applied to Gainsbourg it generally has a neutral or even positive connotation. Indeed, Brooks counts himself as one of these new elites and mounts a minimal defence of their function in society: ‘We’re not so bad. All societies have elites, and our educated elite is a lot more enlightened than some of the older elites, which were based on blood or wealth or military valor. Wherever we educated elites settle, we make life more interesting, diverse, and edifying’ (11). While Brooks may have coined the term, Gunther traces the way bobo culture ultimately came to flourish in France, so much so that people ‘have almost entirely forgotten its American origins’ (105). One of the reasons Gunther gives for the popularity of the term in France when compared with America is the value the French bourgeoisie place on cultural capital (108). In both magazine spreads and her film roles, Gainsbourg is depicted as possessing a requisite amount of cultural capital, usually by way of a refined elegance but also more directly in the metiers of her characters: in L’un reste, l’autre part (dir. Claude Berri, 2005), she plays Judith, a student of architecture; in 3 Cœurs (2014) she is part owner of a provincial antiques store; in I’m Not There (dir. Todd Haynes, 2007), she plays a painter; and in Antichrist (2009) she is writing a doctoral thesis on gynocide. Gainsbourg herself identifies as bourgeois, with the caveat that she has never felt imprisoned by it. Her parents were, according to Gainsbourg, bourgeois materially but not spiritually: ‘Moi, je suis une bourgeoise depuis ma naissance.

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Je n’ai jamais eu de problèmes d’argent. Nous avons toujours vécu dans de belles maisons. Mais mes parents étaient si peu bourgeois dans leur tête que je n’ai jamais eu peur d’un truc installé, ennuyeux’ (qtd. in Grassin and Loustalot 56) (I am a bourgeois since birth. I have never had money problems. We have always lived in beautiful houses. But my parents were hardly bourgeois in their attitude, so I was never afraid of becoming comfortable or boring). In magazine spreads featuring Gainsbourg, the bobo aspects of her persona are frequently emphasised, generally in the form of mood boards depicting the various well-chosen commodities she consumes, the articles of clothing she favours, the ‘cool’ restaurants and cafes she frequents, and her favourite books and films. Mood boards, such as the one that appeared in Vogue Paris in 2007 titled ‘Tout comme Charlotte’, are used to promote identification with their subject through the consumption of certain boutique consumer products. Style guides often prescribe Gainsbourg’s look for those wanting to embody the sartorial elegance of the bobo Parisienne. In 2012, Grazia posted an online gallery (‘Les idées mode’), displaying a range of fashion ideas to steal from Gainsbourg, who they describe as the ‘icône mode de toute une génération’ (fashion icon of an entire generation) and the ‘image de la Parisienne rive gauche’. Grazia credits Gainsbourg with transforming basics such as flared jeans and a Burberry trench into cult pieces and praises her ability to temper fashion with elegance. While the bobo emerged out of a definite historical moment, the origins of the Parisienne are more difficult to trace. According to Debra Mancoff, while the term Parisienne was in use in the late eighteenth century, it only came into frequent use in the mid-nineteenth century to describe ‘a specific type of urban woman whose garments declare a self-fashioned image of position and desire’ (145). Fashionability and celebrity are dominant motifs of the Parisienne, who became a fixture in the visual arts, literature, physiognomies and fashion press of nineteenth-century France. Françoise Tétart-Vittu describes

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the Parisienne alternately as ‘synonymous with fashion’ (80), ‘a woman of fashion’ (78) and ‘a woman of the world’ (78). Sidsel Maria Søndergaard claims that Parisienne was ‘a blanket term for the well-dressed women of the metropolis, applied to both the elegant ladies of the bourgeoisie and the chic demimonde’ and that the chic Parisienne ‘became an icon for metropolitan femininity and an integral part of the visual culture of Modernity’ (39). Parisiennes were also among the first celebrities: images and exploits of popular nineteenthcentury demimondaines such as Cléo de Mérode and Sarah Bernhardt were reproduced and disseminated both in France and throughout the world by way of new printing technologies, in illustrated fashion journals, postcards and the popular press. This rise in female celebrity was concomitant with the rise of image culture and a commercial and widespread interest in the cult of appearances and the Parisienne retains to this day her status as the global image of the feminine ideal. As Octave Uzanne remarks: ‘les Parisiennes sont … astreintes à poser en modèles devant l’univers’ (Parisiennes de ce temps 59), ‘Parisiennes are compelled to pose as models to the universe’ (Modern Parisienne 23). The Parisienne, however, cannot be strictly defined by enumerating her features, whether physical or sartorial. Parisiennes are frequently said to possess an unknowable ‘something’, a je ne sais quoi irrespective of time and place. This universal essence is, paradoxically it seems, the only thing that cannot be bought and sold in the marketplace, in spite of certain promises made by fashion houses and perfumeries. The essence of the Parisienne appears to lie, then, somewhere outside the economy of exchange, production and consumption. Susan Ossman, however, argues that a woman becomes Parisienne not by possessing some innate or indefinable essence but rather by assuming an identity based on a principle ‘tethered to a specific ground through multiple mediations’ (25). This ground is the city of Paris itself; however, a woman may be ‘tethered’ to Paris from anywhere in the world. What is important for Ossman is that

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the woman ‘be willing to work with a particular understanding of the city, of culture, and self-cultivation’, independent of location or habitus (25). Indeed, the Parisienne ‘could be considered a critical demonstration of the determination to break with the idea that a person is simply a product of an unconsciously transmitted habitus, a singular emanation of some natural cultural context’ (25–6). Ossman further describes the Parisienne as ‘a highly gendered figure of a type of woman who has learned to take a certain distance from the idea that a person is simply a product of a natural or social milieu’ (25). This suggests not only a figure that exists outside national borders but also apart from class divisions which makes her the ideal model for universal or cosmopolitan femininity. Richard Bernstein claims that to be Parisian ‘is to have an identity that transcends social class, economic distinction; it is to belong to a world apart, to an intellectual and moral category, not of class, race and gender, but from a qualitative difference from the rest, an essential worldliness’ (73). For both Ossman and Bernstein, then, to be Parisienne is more than the mere transmission of a particular habitus or milieu. What defines the Parisienne is her ability not to be delimited in this way, by maintaining an essential connection to Paris without necessarily being confined to the city geographically. If the Parisienne is not tied to a particular social class, then it would seem that the bobo Parisienne presents a contradiction in terms: bobos belong to a class which Brooks defined as the ‘new elite’ or ‘new establishment’ (12). However, Brooks reminds us, bobo culture is itself ‘hybrid’ (11) with ‘rebel attitudes and social-climbing attitudes all scrambled together’ (10). Moreover, bobo culture is meritocratic (Brooks 53) and recognises the value of different kinds of capital, symbolic and cultural much more than monetary; or, as Brooks puts it, ‘affluent yet opposed to materialism’ (41). Economically, bobos are spread across a broad financial spectrum, from those whose capital is mostly monetary, to those who possess mostly cultural capital. The quintessential bobo will, however, have both.

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Film roles

Gainsbourg’s Parisienne-ness is essentially constructed along the following interconnected lines: her film roles (both those in which she is unmistakably Parisienne and those in which this is less clear), jolie laide appearance, bohemian and bilingual parentage, significance as a style icon, her role in advertising fashion and beauty products, and her cosmopolitanism. Taken together, these traits form a cohesive image of Gainsbourg as the quintessential bobo Parisienne. Despite the diversity of genre and subject matter of Gainsbourg’s films, the characters she plays tend to embody the bobo Parisienne and incorporate aspects of her real life and style. The accumulation of Gainsbourg’s film roles contributes to her Parisienne-ness in two ways. First, consistent roles in films in which she incarnates the Parisienne type, such as Ma femme, L’un reste, l’autre part, Prête-moi ta main and 3 Cœurs, both develop and establish her identification with the type. In cinema, the Parisienne type can be defined with reference to six motifs or categories: the blurring of art and life, cosmopolitanism, fashion and style, danger (in that within the film’s narrative she generally poses some kind of threat), prostitution (in the narrow, literal sense of the purveyor of sex and in the more general sense of being the object of consumption), and stardom or celebrity (including the reciprocal relationship between the Parisienne type and the star incarnating it). The precondition for the existence of the Parisienne as a type is that she generally fulfils all the categories at once, some more prominently than others. In Ma femme, the blurring of art and life manifests itself most obviously in Attal’s decision to cast Gainsbourg as both an actress and his ‘wife’. That Attal’s character is never quite sure if his wife is acting or not heightens this ambiguity and is best captured in one of the final scenes in which Charlotte, following her husband’s incessant interrogations, assures him she has not slept with her co-star John (Terrence Stamp). Yvan responds that she is a great ‘actress’. This remark is itself

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ambiguous: we do not know if he thinks she is a great actress in the sense that she does her job without crossing any lines, or if she is a great actress because he cannot tell if she is lying. The character Charlotte is also cosmopolitan, travelling between Paris and London to work in both English- and Frenchlanguage cinemas. While Charlotte’s origins are not disclosed in the film, the ease with which she shifts between French and English suggests she shares similar, if not identical, origins with Gainsbourg herself. Charlotte is also fashionably chic, a result of the importation of Gainsbourg’s own style into the film. She is dangerous because of the ambiguous relationship she maintains with her co-star, her refusal to respond directly to Yvan’s suspicion, and the threat this poses to their marriage. Charlotte is associated with the motif of prostitution in two ways: first, more figuratively, as an actress who ‘sells’ herself, and second, and more literally, through the historical association of actresses with prostitution. As Kirsten Pullen writes: ‘At particular historical moments, the body of the actress … and the body of the prostitute … slipped discursively into one: whore/actress. … The trope of the actress/whore pervades histories of prostitution’ (2). One scene in particular in Attal’s film introduces this trope. Yvan is having a drink at a bar with his sister (Noémie Lvovsky) when an old friend, Georges (Lionel Abelanski), joins their conversation. Having seen Charlotte in a film the previous night, Georges has a burning question for Yvan: ‘Ça te fait pas chier que ta nana soit actrice?’ (It doesn’t bother you that your girl is an actress?). The following dialogue ensues: Yvan: Pourquoi ? Qu’est-ce qu’elle fait ta nana, toi ? Georges: Elle est dentiste. Grâce à Dieu  ! Yvan: Et ça te fait pas chier ? Georges: Ben, elle couche pas avec plein de types. Yvan: Ah, tu crois que la mienne, elle couche avec plein de types ? Georges: Ben, je sais pas. C’est son métier … Yvan: Euh, je crois que tu confonds avec les putes.

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Yvan: Why? What’s your girl do? Georges: She’s a dentist. Thank God! Yvan: And that doesn’t bother you? Georges: Well, she doesn’t sleep with lots of guys. Yvan: Ah, you think mine sleeps with lots of guys? Georges: Well, I don’t know. It’s her job … Yvan: Uh, I think you’re thinking of whores.

Yvan goes on to assure Georges that his wife is just acting in these scenes, but Georges remains unconvinced. As the exchange escalates, Yvan becomes steadily less convinced of his own argument and the seeds of doubt are sown. Typical of many Parisienne films, including A Woman of Paris (dir. Charles Chaplin, 1923), Design for Living (dir. Ernst Lubitsch, 1933), Sabrina (dir. Billy Wilder, 1954), Une femme est une femme (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1961), Jules et Jim (dir. François Truffaut, 1962), La chamade (dir. Alain Cavalier, 1967) and Moulin Rouge! (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2001), Attal’s film plays on the narrative trope of the ménage à trois, in which the Parisienne is depicted either having an affair or having to choose between two men. It is a trope also found in Gainsbourg’s other Parisienne films: Marion Vernoux’s Love, etc. (1996) – loosely inspired by Jules et Jim (dir. François Truffaut, 1962) – which also stars Attal, and Dominik Moll’s Lemming (2006) in which Gainsbourg plays a Parisienne living in the provinces who embarks on an affair with her husband’s boss. Second, Gainsbourg’s roles in arthouse and international films, such as The Cement Garden, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003), Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep (2006) and her work with Lars von Trier, add a cosmopolitan and bohemian element to her star persona. Her association with these arthouse films and directors lend her cultural currency as a Parisienne Left Bank intello and connect her to a lineage of Parisiennes which stretches back at least as far as Juliette Gréco and which includes certain incarnations of Audrey Hepburn and Catherine Deneuve.

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‘Une beauté étrange’

Jolie laide is a recurring motif in the iconography of the Parisienne type. In 1868, Louise de Taillac remarked: ‘Of all women, Parisiennes are not the prettiest, this is well-known; and yet they are the most seductive women in the world’ (qtd. in de Young, Women in Black 252). The idea of jolie laide goes at least as far back as the first sociological studies of the Parisienne type. In his study of the modern Parisienne, Uzanne refers to the ‘fascinating ugliness’ (Modern Parisienne 179–80) of Parisiennes: They are not faultlessly beautiful. The lines of classic beauty are by no means followed in the Parisian type, but they possess something better than perfect beauty, their faces have charming irregularities which boldly appeal to the critic’s ideals, and one might say that the special characteristics of their charm is that it never wearies the taste of those lovers of the sex who, like Montaigne, adore Paris even in her imperfections. (Modern Parisienne 2–3)

Commenting on the mysterious allure of Gainsbourg and her half-sister Lou Doillon in a 2009 edition of Vogue, Sarah Mower remarks of French women generally: They have je ne sais quoi. They are bien dans leur peau. They invented chic. They have mystique […]. And sometimes they’re jolie laide into the bargain, a quality we rest-of-theworlders can’t for the life of us understand but that turns out in the flesh to be yet more annoyingly attractive than conventional prettiness. (194)

Mower identifies jolie laide as particular to the Parisienne type and goes on to detail how Gainsbourg and Doillon epitomise the type: ‘Charlotte and Lou have the chiselled cheekbones, strong noses, and style conviction that give them each the kind of jolie laide magnetism uniquely bankable in Paris’ (194). Similarly, Fraser-Cavassoni describes Gainsbourg as ‘an unconventional beauty’ who has ‘turned knock-kneed, Bambi-like

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gawkiness into an art’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’); and Zee and Bullock refer to her ‘odd, haunting beauty’ (205). Writing in C Magazine, Carole Sabas remarks that ‘if anyone understands the m ­ esmerizing effect of imperfect beauty’, it is Gainsbourg (134). Marshall Fine remarks that ‘[w]ith her lissome figure, underslung jaw, wide smile and deep, dark eyes, Gainsbourg possesses a beauty that can mask itself or beam forth, depending on camera angle or Gainsbourg’s affect’. Writing for the New York Times, Daphne Merkin remarks: ‘Today’s version of an iconic jolie laide is the French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose complex gamine charm has pedigreed status’. Elvis Mitchell describes Gainsbourg’s appearance in Ma femme as ‘a beguiling mixture of willowy plaintiveness and slightly irregular beauty lit up by a goofy smile’. Fashion designer Nicolas Ghesquière describes Gainsbourg as possessing ‘une beauté étrange’ (qtd. in ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg Pour Balenciaga’). Gainsbourg herself confirmed these observations when in Harper’s Bazaar she referred to her ‘funny looks’ (qtd. in Mistry 129), closely echoing a remark by Parisienne Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) in Funny Face (dir. Stanley Donen, 1956): ‘I always thought I had a sort of a funny face’. Gainsbourg and Hepburn possess a similar physiognomy (tall, brunette, androgynous, willowy frame and swan-like neck) and share a self-consciousness regarding their appearance. In Love in the Afternoon (dir. Billy Wilder, 1957), Hepburn’s character Ariane Chavasse tells Frank Flanagan (Gary Cooper), ‘I’m too thin! And my ears stick out, and my teeth are crooked, and my neck’s much too long’, to which Flanagan replies, ‘Yes, but I love the way it all hangs together’. This self-consciousness, combined with a je-m’enfoutisme or I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude, gives the Parisienne her peculiar contradictory appeal: With her stubborn-looking chin and slightly ragged quality, Gainsbourg is not conventionally beautiful but she is beautiful in her own way. Raised in Paris, where unusual looks in young women are far more prized than in the US, she

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was never under the same cultural pressure to adapt to a beauty norm. (‘Talent for Intensity’ 27)

After discussing several French actresses known for their beauty, including Juliette Binoche and Sophie Marceau, Mick LaSalle includes Gainsbourg in a category of actresses who are not conventionally beautiful or whose look is ‘so idiosyncratic that your eyes immediately go to them’ (8).

Bohemian and bicultural parentage

Gainsbourg’s jolie laide appearance is often attributed to her famous parents: ‘the girlish beauty of her mother and the unforgivingly original looks of her father’ produced in Gainsbourg a ‘combination … that is utterly transfixing’ (‘Talent for Intensity’ 27). Serge Kaganski writes: ‘Votre beauté spéciale évoque le charme hâve, anguleux et anglais de votre maman, les traits sinueux, le sex-appeal métèque de votre papa’ (Your special beauty evokes the gaunt, angular, English charm of your mother; the sinuous features, the metic sex appeal of your father). Deborah Orr, writing for The Independent, remarks: Gainsbourg is not beautiful in the way that her famous beauty of a mother was and is. In fact, she makes her ­mother’s beauty seem almost contrived in its handsome conventionality, because in Gainsbourg’s face one can see also the brooding, almost-ugly, physical magnetism of her father. Gainsbourg’s beauty makes physical perfection look like the biggest yawn in the world. Her face is mobile, ­interesting, strong, uncompromising. (10)

However, commentators’ observations of Gainsbourg as an amalgamation of her parents extend not only to her physical resemblance to them but also to her wider abilities. Orr argues that Gainsbourg ‘inherited their indestructible glamour too, their iconic status as people who expressed something important

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to the French of what it was to fully inhabit liberated, post-war Paris’ (10). The headlines of articles on Gainsbourg are also revealing: ‘Beyond the Gainsbourg Birthright’ (Rosen), ‘Born to Shock’ (Chaudhuri), ‘Daughter of the Revolutionary’ (Quart), ‘Birkin Passes Scandal Crown to Her Daughter’ (Campbell) and ‘Stepping Out of Serge’s Shadow: Charlotte Gainsbourg Talks … about Her Famous Parents, and Taking Her Own Path to Fame’ (Johnston). Most articles on Gainsbourg in one way or another make reference to her famous parents. FraserCavassoni refers to Gainsbourg as ‘European celebrity royalty’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’ 3). Quart observes that ‘whether with music or acting, [Gainsbourg] returns to Serge and Jane’ (78). Gainsbourg’s own remarks both reflect and reinforce this association with her parents: ‘I think that a lot of sympathy people have for me is due to how much people like my parents’ (qtd. in Quart 78). In W Magazine she remarks that she will ‘never do an interview without talking about them […]. When people don’t talk to me about them, I bring them up. Without them there’s something missing’ (qtd. in Marshall 198). What Quart calls Gainsbourg’s ‘haute bohemian Parisian childhood’ (77) is a reference to the bohemian lifestyle of her famous parents. The influence of her parents also extends to Gainsbourg’s status as a style icon: ‘Both of Gainsbourg’s parents were style-setters. Her dad practically invented the unshaven, louche template that French men have been following for decades. … And Gainsbourg’s mother … cut quite a picture as a leggy, free-spirited garçonne throughout the late ‘60s and the ‘70s’ (Marshall 198). Birkin is also credited with influencing Gainsbourg’s signature no-makeup look. Gainsbourg claims it was due to Birkin’s advice that she adopted this look: ‘during the 1960s, due to all the makeup, all the girls looked the same. She [Birkin] said you should stay as authentic as possible’ (qtd. in Fraser-Cavassoni ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’). Gainsbourg’s parents are also partly responsible for her minimalist, almost work-aday wardrobe. Despite their often flamboyant fashion choices, Gainsbourg’s parents favoured denim jeans, denim shirts,

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T-shirts and Converse sneakers; or, for Serge, white Repetto jazz shoes. Lou Doillon remarks that when she was growing up her family wore ‘jeans, white T-shirts and Converse. That was the uniform at home’ (qtd. in Cochrane 8) and that ‘I wanted to whack my head against the wall. Lipstick is vulgar! Hair dye is vulgar! This idea of looking as if you make no effort at all!’ (qtd. in Silcoff). Photographs of the Birkin–Gainsbourg clan in the mid-1980s show Jane, Charlotte and Kate Barry wearing matching blue jeans, white T-shirts and Converse sneakers. Similarly, iconic photographs by Tony Frank show Serge and Charlotte in matching denim jeans and chambray shirts.

Style icon

Gainsbourg’s Parisienne-ness is also closely aligned to her status as a style icon. In the period from 2000 to 2009, however, there was essentially one item of clothing that marked her out as distinctly Parisienne: the trench coat (see figure 6). In a 2004 feature in Harper’s Bazaar titled ‘The Allure of the Trench’, Suzy Menkes writes: ‘The one piece that every woman can wear anywhere is the trench. Seasonless, timeless and eternally chic, it is epitomized here by style icons Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg’ (153). Menkes adds that for Gainsbourg ‘a penchant for the trench seems to be in her genes’ (153). Gainsbourg herself claims that she ‘always wanted to wear a trench’ and has ‘a very strong image’ of her father wearing one in a music video clip. She describes trench coats as both ‘sophisticated-Parisian’ and ‘cinematic’, adding that one must be ‘of a certain age’ to wear one (qtd. in Menkes 153). When she felt ready, Gainsbourg purchased two Burberry trench coats which she wears ‘for all seasons and reasons’ (Menkes 153). Like Rampling, who claims that it is ‘not just about the trench but also about the nonchalant way you wear it’ (qtd. in Menkes 153), Gainsbourg claims that a trench ‘has to be broken in. I like a trench wrinkled and very lived-in. I wear mine

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so much – with jeans or a dress – that it is like my uniform’ (qtd. in Menkes 153). Christopher Bailey, the head designer at Burberry, claims that ‘the famous women who wear trench coats have helped it garner a place alongside the little black dress in the pantheon of style’ (qtd. in Michault 10). Jessica Michault remarks: ‘My immediate thoughts of a woman in a trench coat are Audrey Hepburn, Charlotte Rampling, Charlotte Gainsbourg – strong, confident with a timeless style’ (10). The trench is considered an essential item in the Parisienne wardrobe, and was established as such through cinema, the fashion press and style guides. In cinema, the trench has a ubiquitous place, particularly where it is used to signify Parisienne-ness. Examples of famous cinematic trench coats include Nelly (Michèle Morgan) in Marcel Carné’s Le Quai des brumes (1938), Thérèse (Marie Dubois) in François Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste (1960), Patricia (Jean Seberg) in Godard’s À bout de souffle (1960), Paula (Anna Karina) in Godard’s Made in U.S.A. (1966), Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve) in Jacques Demy’s Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) in Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code (2006) and Eva Grace (Kylie Minogue) in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors (2012). In the popular style guide, Parisian Chic, Inès de la Fressange refers to the trench as the Parisienne’s ‘second skin’ (26). In Paris Street Style: A Guide to Effortless Chic, Isabelle Thomas and Frédérique Veysset include the trench among eight articles of clothing that the Parisienne can always depend on, claiming that ‘[a]fter Lauren Bacall popularized the tight-belted trench coat, Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg gave it ­contemporary chic by wearing it casually with sneakers and jeans’ (52). Gainsbourg’s status as style icon is also founded on the minimal use of makeup and unkempt hair, a look that has Parisienne precursors. Brigitte Bardot, with her penchant for simple gingham dresses, striped sailor T-shirts, jeans, Capri pants, ballet flats and dishevelled hair, is one such precursor; so too are the bohemian Parisiennes of the pre-war Left Bank and post-war existentialism. Pamela Church-Gibson characterises

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6  Ma femme est une actrice (dir. Yvan Attal, 2001, Canal+)

the style of these bohemians as consisting of ‘black turtlenecks and uncoiffed, long hair’ and cites ‘the stylish chanteuse Juliette Gréco’ who ‘became an alternative fashion icon’ (‘New Stars’ 96–7). Gainsbourg’s predilection for an everyday uniform and eschewal of what has come to be known as ‘fast fashion’ also aligns her with the sartorial restraint of the Parisiennes of the post-war Left Bank existentialist movement who wore head-to-toe black as part of their anti-fashion statement. Mairi Mackenzie writes that the existentialists were ‘[u]sually educated, white and middle class’ who ‘rejected materialism and thus (theoretically) fashion’ (92). Yet, this anti-fashion statement became ‘a trend all of its own and the uniform adopted eventually filtered into the fashion system’ (Mackenzie 92). Commenting on her preference for specific items of clothing, Gainsbourg remarks: ‘I find it reassuring to put on the same clothes every day’ (qtd. in Mower 194). In an interview with Vogue, she states: ‘I dress in a practical way […] I always wear the same things’ (qtd. in Buck 288). Like the Left Bank Parisiennes, Gainsbourg’s uniform has become something of an anti-fashion fashion statement, the uniform for a generation of bobos both in France and abroad.

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Like her nineteenth- and twentieth-century precursors, Gainsbourg’s version of the Parisienne type also possesses a commercial aspect. For the most part, nineteenth-century mass media images of the Parisienne had commercial functions. The Parisienne was intimately connected to the development of the department store which, according to Ruth Iskin, ‘revolutionised retailing practices by introducing … new display and promotional strategies’ (185). During the nineteenth century, the Parisienne was increasingly the purveyor of French luxury goods. This culminated in her role as mascot for the 1900 Paris World Fair, at which she was the official icon of French commodities. The advent of fashion media and cinema established the Parisienne as the bearer of a particular look, whether created by the fashion industry or subsequently taken up by it. Gainsbourg’s Parisienne-ness has been used to sell commodities both directly and indirectly. Most directly, she lent her face to the Balenciaga fragrances ‘Balenciaga Paris’ and ‘L’essence’, with both advertising campaigns carrying the tagline: ‘As worn by Charlotte Gainsbourg’. As the worldwide face of the Balenciaga fragrance, Gainsbourg was firmly established as the new global image of French femininity. More indirectly, items from Gainsbourg’s personal wardrobe, as well as boutique goods such as tea and candles, are promoted through feature spreads in magazines. For example, a 2007 edition of Vogue Paris used mood boards to display Gainsbourg’s favourite items, including American Vintage T-shirts, Notify jeans, Balenciaga and Gerard Darel blazers, tea from the Parisian-based French gourmet tea company Mariages Frères and luxury scented candles by legendary French perfumer Diptyque.

Transnational stardom

Gainsbourg’s Parisienne-ness draws on a mythology deeply engrained in French cultural life. This mythology overdetermines Gainsbourg’s star persona and accounts, in part, for that

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je ne sais quoi journalists, critics and fashion editorials attribute to her and which contributes to her enduring appeal in both film and fashion discourse. However, her bobo Parisienne-ness has also contributed, in part, to her status as both a transnational and a cult star. ˇ urovicˇová situates the transnational ‘above the Nataša D level of the national, but below the level of the global’ (x). For ˇ urovicˇová, the transnational ‘acknowledges the persistent D agency of the state, in a varying but fundamentally legitimizing relationship to the scale of “the nation”’ while also implying ‘relations of unevenness and mobility’ in relation to the national (x). ˇ urovicˇová’s According to Russell Meeuf and Raphael Raphael, D use of the term transnational is productive for star and celebrity studies because it ‘effectively outlines a broad set of boundaries while still emphasizing the openness of transnational flows’ ˇ urovicˇová’s description is the (2). They argue that at issue in D capacity of media ‘to produce cultural meaning in relation to (but not dictated by) the existing structures of nations and states’ (Meeuf and Raphael 3). Yu argues that in order to define the problematic term ‘transnational star’, it is useful to compare it with the more common ‘international star’: ‘International star’ refers to a star who achieves international recognition and fame, even if he or she never makes a film outside his or her own country. … By comparison, a transnational star needs to physically transfer from one film industry to another to make films, often in a different language from his or her own. Although any star who makes films in another country may be called a transnational star, being able to make films in a different language is one of the defining features of transnational stardom. (1–2)

While it may be possible to argue for Gainsbourg as an international star, someone who achieved fame outside her native France before her forays into international cinema, this fame was limited, in part, to her status as fille de and not strictly the result of her film roles. Rather, Gainsbourg’s star persona

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is best described as transnational in the sense given above, not only because of her ability to make films in both French and English, but also because she has made films in several different locations, including Australia, Canada, Europe, South America, the United Kingdom and the United States. Further, Gainsbourg’s stardom can be properly described as transnational because of the cosmopolitanism of her persona, a ­cosmopolitanism linked both to her bilingualism and her status as a quintessential Parisienne. In Ma femme Gainsbourg, ostensibly playing herself, incarnates the transnational star par excellence, who moves seamlessly from Paris to London to make an English-language film. However, Gainsbourg’s own mobility between Paris and London was already evident in her previous roles in the British films The Cement Garden and Jane Eyre. Due to her bicultural heritage, Gainsbourg often crossed the English Channel not only for work but to visit her maternal grandparents. Indeed, her mobility and heritage were employed only a few years prior to Ma femme, when France’s national state-owned railway company the SNCF publicised the merits of the Eurostar through Gainsbourg’s personal history in a 1998 advertising campaign. Against a backdrop of blue denim, a single white shoelace is laid out representing the line from Paris to London with the word ‘famille’ at one end and ‘family’ at the other. The denim and shoelace, ostensibly from a Converse sneaker, are a reference to Gainsbourg’s iconic jean–Converse look of the period. The accompanying text reads: Quand une partie de sa famille est londonienne et l’autre parisienne, on a une basket de chaque côté de la Manche. Ou du Channel. Pas évident. Sauf si, comme Charlotte, on sait qu’Eurostar effectue chaque jour 17 aller-retours entre Gare du Nord et Waterloo International. Paris-London? C’est rive droite-rive gauche. (When one part of your family is a Londoner and the other Parisian, you have a sneaker on each side of la Manche. Or

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the Channel. Not easy. Unless, like Charlotte, you know that Eurostar travels back and forth between Gare du Nord and Waterloo International seventeen times every day. Paris-London? It’s right bank-left bank.)

In 2013 Gainsbourg recorded the theme song for the British– French television series The Tunnel, about two detectives who work on different sides of the English Channel. The song contains lyrics in French and English. Following Ma femme, Gainsbourg continued to make films in both French and transnational contexts which further developed her transnational and cult film stardom. She took a relatively small role in Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s independent American crime drama 21 Grams alongside Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts. Gainsbourg’s desire to make a film with Iñárritu and his star ensemble cast saw her travel to Los Angeles while six months pregnant to attend a casting session. Iñárritu cast her in the small but demanding role of Mary Rivers, the wife of a heart transplant patient (Sean Penn) who begins an affair with the wife of his donor (Naomi Watts). With this film, Gainsbourg’s career took an international turn (Bellengier 196). Following the critical success of 21 Grams, Gainsbourg returned to France to again star in a film directed by and co-starring her partner Attal, Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d’enfants. In a blurring of life and art reminiscent of their previous collaboration, Gainsbourg plays Gabrielle, wife of Vincent (Attal) and mother to Joseph, played by their real-life son Ben Attal. Set in Paris, Gainsbourg once again both sartorially and socio-­economically plays a bobo Parisienne. While the film follows a standard romantic comedy format typical of Attal’s work, the addition of a short scene in a Virgin music store with Johnny Depp in a cameo role set to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ lends an indie vibe to the otherwise formulaic film. Gainsbourg next starred in a series of French films which further solidified her bobo Parisienne persona: Claude Berri’s

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romantic drama L’un reste, l’autre part, Dominik Moll’s psychological thriller Lemming, Michel Gondry’s bilingual quirky romantic comedy La science des rêves (The Science of Sleep) and Lartigau’s Prête-moi ta main. All are set in Paris, with the exception of Lemming, in which Gainsbourg’s character has recently located to the south of France from the capital. In each film her character is marked as bobo by her occupation and/or milieu (artistic, bohemian and/or middle class) as well as her clothing (a mix of artfully undone and understated intellectual-chic pieces one might find in Gainsbourg’s own wardrobe). In Berri’s film she plays Judith, an architecture student who leaves her longtime boyfriend to embark on an affair with older married man Daniel (Daniel Auteuil); in La science des rêves she plays the notso-girl-next-door Stéphanie, a talented artist who captures the imagination and heart of her neighbour Stéphane (Gael García Bernal); and in Prête-moi ta main she is Emmanuelle, a furniture restorer who becomes involved with Parisian perfumer and eternal bachelor Alain (Alain Chabat). In Lemming, Gainsbourg’s Bénédicte leads a comfortable bourgeois existence with her husband Alain (Laurent Lucas). Their uneventful, happily married life is brusquely disrupted when Bénédicte hosts a dinner party for Alain’s boss Richard (André Dussollier) and his elegant but unhinged wife Alice (Charlotte Rampling). In Moll’s film Gainsbourg’s Parisienne persona is overdetermined by the casting of Rampling, another cosmopolitan Parisienne, which followed their appearance together in a fashion shoot for Harper’s Bazaar extolling the merits of the trench coat. The intertwining of Rampling/ Gainsbourg at the level of character – at one point in the psychological thriller Alice ‘possesses’ Bénédicte – strengthens the offscreen association of Gainsbourg with Rampling. The pairing of the two actresses is deliberate and is used to create not only a visual parallel (they are both tall, slim, pale, brunette, striking, although Rampling’s Alice is played with her usual upright grace, which is very much in contrast to the rangy, loping ­movements of Gainsbourg’s Bénédicte) but also a psychological

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one (although Bénédicte’s quiet reserve is in stark contrast to Alice’s abrupt, often brutal frankness). A promotional photograph for Lemming in which Gainsbourg’s face overlaps with Rampling’s recalls the famous shot from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) in which the faces, and ultimately the identities, of Alma (Bibi Andersson) and Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) merge. This is not the only time the two have acted together: in a further symbolic gesture, Rampling would go on to play Gainsbourg’s mother in von Trier’s Melancholia (2011). The films by Berri, Moll, Gondry and Lartigau all trade on Gainsbourg’s Parisienne-ness but they also demonstrate Gainsbourg’s ability to act in a range of genres: classic French drama, psychological thriller, quirky fantasy romance and comedy. Perhaps most surprising is Gainsbourg’s appearance in Prête-moi ta main which revealed a comic side hitherto unseen in her repertoire. It is a side Attal would further exploit in a rather outlandish way in later films Do Not Disturb (2012) and Ils sont partout (2016). Gainsbourg acknowledges that she is not usually associated with the comic register. Playing a comic role is one of the hardest things for her to do, she claims, and it is easier for her to express unease than laughter (Bellengier 223). It would, however, be von Trier who would find the balance between unease and humour in Gainsbourg’s acting style, her ability to deliver deadpan cutting one-liners with the same force as someone like Rampling, when he cast her in Antichrist. Prior to this, only really Miller used this ability of Gainsbourg’s to create the most humorous moments of L’Effrontée. Following Prête-moi ta main, Gainsbourg appeared in three international films: Emanuele Crialese’s Italian historical drama Nuovomondo (2006), in which she plays a beautiful, mysterious Englishwoman who emigrates to America; Todd Haynes’s unconventional Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There (2007), in which she plays French painter Claire, the wife of Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), one of the six incarnations of Dylan; and James Ivory’s City of Your Final Destination (2009), in which she plays a French woman living in Uruguay, the

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mistress of a much older writer. These roles saw Gainsbourg leave France to film in Argentina for both Crialese and Ivory and in Canada for Haynes and gave Gainsbourg the opportunity to appear as part of an ensemble cast alongside acclaimed actors such as Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney in City of Your Final Destination and Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger in I’m Not There. This period of Gainsbourg’s acting career greatly enhanced both the cosmopolitanism and transnationalism of her persona. Her role in I’m Not There, however, also signalled the transformation of Gainsbourg from an Anglo-French actress to a cult star. Cole writes that ‘roles such as Stéphanie in The Science of Sleep and Lucy in Golden Door …, not to mention her appearances in I’m Not There and 21 Grams, have made [Gainsbourg] the AngloFrench queen of the indie cinema circuit’ (12).

Cult film stardom

According to Paul McDonald, if actors associated with independent cinema ‘are not as widely known as blockbuster stars, then distinctions need to be drawn between “popular” stars and “cult” stars’ (199). For English-language audiences, Gainsbourg’s cult status can be more or less taken as read. Her work with von Trier in particular, but also with indie directors like Haynes and Wenders, along with her work in French domestic cinema, which is often exported into English contexts under the label ‘arthouse’, is the lens through which Anglophone audiences predominantly perceive her. For example, Lucy Mazdon argues in Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus: Franco-British Cinematic Relations that for British audiences the term ‘special’ is applied to all ­foreign-language, subtitled films: One result of this ‘specialization’ of foreign-language films has been the tendency to designate them as ‘art-house’, clearly positioned in opposition to the ‘commercial’ or

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‘mainstream’ offering of Hollywood and, to a great extent, Britain. … The very journey from one culture to another can significantly alter the identity of a given film – a lighthearted genre film from France becomes a ‘French specialized’ feature when it is renamed, subtitled and distributed via a British art-house circuit. In other words, when thinking about the Franco-British cinematic relationship it is vital to consider the varying modes of exhibition, distribution and reception to which they are subject as they move between cultures. (9)

In France, however, Gainsbourg’s status as a cult star is more problematic, not only because she cut her teeth in the French domestic market with varying degrees of box-office success, but also because many of her French films are popular dramas and romantic comedies. In 2010 Drew Tewksbury remarked: ‘In France, Charlotte Gainsbourg is an A-List celebrity. She’s the daughter of the most important musician in French pop music and has a film career spanning nearly three decades. In America, however, she has become something of an indie sweetheart, starring in challenging, sweet, and cerebral films by the most creative directors in the business.’ Added to this, Gainsbourg’s iconic lineage and her frequent appearance in the popular press work somewhat against the grain of cult stardom in her home country. Sexton, however, recognises that cult status ‘can encompass mainstream stars (who may gain a dual status as both mainstream and cult)’ and argues for the existence of ‘mainstream/cult cross-over’ stars who possess ‘a particular combination of mainstream and alternative values’ (87). Gainsbourg can be considered a cross-over star in this sense. While cult film stars and mainstream stars have much in common, what differentiates them, according to Sexton, is the kinds of films they make, the characters they play, the types of media publications they appear in and the way in which they are ‘discussed and positioned in the media’ (74). The following factors all contribute to Gainsbourg’s status as a cult star: her work with international, auteur and indie directors; the

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types of roles she plays (often troubled or emotionally disturbed women); the visibility of her films on the festival and arthouse theatre circuit1; her association with actors known for their indie-leaning roles; and extra-filmic discourse surrounding her films. In terms of her representation in the media, Gainsbourg appears in a range of publications in France, from more mainstream fare (such as Elle, Grazia and Marie Claire, tabloid press such as Voici, Gala and Paris Match, and high-end fashion publications such as Vogue, L’Officiel and Vanity Fair) to more intellectual publications (such as Les Inrockuptibles and Psychologies). In the English-language press, however, she is more frequently found in indie publications such as Oyster, Lulu, Interview, Loud and Quiet and Dazed, and seldom appears in gossip or tabloid magazines. Her media coverage in English-language publications tends to focus on her indie film roles, her music and her status as a style icon. Indeed, it is the latter that most problematises her cult status in and outside France, something she shares with indie stars like Chloë Sevigny, whose regular appearances in fashion magazines and advertising campaigns has meant her image has circulated in a wider range of media outlets than if she were uniquely a cult actor (Sexton 74). Nonetheless, it should be noted that Gainsbourg’s status as a style icon also adds to her cult credentials, primarily because it is in part responsible for her identification in the press as ‘cool’. A recurring motif in articles and interviews is Gainsbourg’s ‘coolness’. In a Hello! article titled ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg Shares the Key to Mastering Parisian Cool’, Ally Dean writes that ‘[n]o one embodies this intimidatingly cool factor more than British-French actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg’. In The

I’m Not There screened at Toronto International Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, 21 Grams premiered at Venice, Nuovomondo premiered at Venice and was introduced by Martin Scorsese at Tribeca Film Festival, La science des rêves premiered at Sundance Film Festival, Lemming was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and The City of Your Final Destination premiered at the International Rome Film Festival. 1 

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Boston Globe, Christopher Wallenberg remarks: ‘On the hipster barometer of indie-cool … Gainsbourg is off the chart.’ Dimitri Ehrlich writes that Gainsbourg ‘probably isn’t the kind of person who’d have a résumé. But if she did, it would be impossibly cool.’ Jon Wilde, writing for the Mail Online, writes: ‘In person, Gainsbourg is a compound of effortless chic and Gallic mischief, at once cool and wildly subversive. Not surprising really, given that she’s the offspring of Birkin and the late Gainsbourg.’ Makeup artist François Nars, who collaborated with Gainsbourg on a cosmetics line in 2017, calls her ‘very cool and authentic’ (qtd. in Dean). Discussing the collaboration with Nars cosmetics, Kelly Baker remarks that Gainsbourg is ‘admired worldwide for her bold style choices and her effortless chic vibe and this latest venture will only further cement her cool girl status (if possible)’. In a 2016 online fashion feature titled ‘21 Modern-Day French Fashion Icons We Can’t Get Enough of ’, Leisa Barnett describes Gainsbourg as ‘effortlessly cool’. Lauren Bradshaw labels Gainsbourg the ‘Queen of Parisian cool’ and notes her ‘brand of relaxed cool’. Catherine Piercy refers to Gainsbourg and her half-sister Lou Doillon as the ‘willowy guardians of neo-Parisian cool’ (144). In the press, Gainsbourg’s coolness is attributed to two main sources: coolness by birthright and coolness by association. Sarah Kennedy remarks: ‘As a family name, Gainsbourg sums up everything chic and cool about the notion of Parisian life since the late 1960s’. In London’s Evening Standard, Lydia Slater writes that ‘looking effortlessly cool is, of course, her [Gainsbourg’s] birthright’ (12). Writing for Glamour magazine, Ella Alexander claims that Gainsbourg ‘is part of one of the coolest families there is’. Jimmy So remarks: ‘Half of her cool came from [her father], half from her mother’. Leanne Delap writes that ‘raised by jet-set free-spirit Brit songstress Jane Birkin … little Charlotte was practically forced to be cool’. Gainsbourg is also often associated with other celebrities who are also known for their understated coolness and her name has been mentioned alongside the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chloë Sevigny and Patti Smith. Maureen

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Callahan describes Gainsbourg as ‘sort of a French Sofia Coppola: a subtly stylish girl with jolie laide appeal’ (198). Tim Murphy calls Gainsbourg ‘the French equivalent of Sofia Coppola’, and Sheila Johnston writes that Gainsbourg possesses ‘a kind of understated geeky chic, for all the world like Sofia Coppola’s French twin’ (5). Richard Gianorio, writing for Madame Figaro, remarks: ‘Elle a du style, une aura: c’est la Sofia Coppola française’ (She has style, an aura: she is the French Sofia Coppola). Former editor of Vogue Paris, Carine Roitfeld refers to Gainsbourg as ‘the French equivalent of Sofia Coppola, someone from a famous family with a very cool style that all the young girls in Paris want to look like’ (qtd. Murphy). In a fashion piece for Harper’s Bazaar, Gainsbourg is listed alongside Coppola as embodying the bohemian look. Zoe Whitfield describes Gainsbourg’s ‘day-to-day aesthetic’ as ‘chic but low-key, a bit like her indie cinema peers Chloë Sevigny and Sofia Coppola’. Amy Larocca refers to Gainsbourg as one of the ‘cool girls of the moment’ alongside Sofia Coppola and Kate Moss (‘The Anti-Anna’). For Sexton, this phenomenon of referring to other stars when expressing the uniqueness of a particular star not only demonstrates ‘the need to place actors and objects within pre-existing frames of reference’ but equally reveals ‘the discursive processes whereby the notion of stardom itself is constructed as something special (in that it is shared amongst a select number of special people)’ (75). Describing her as ‘an unconventional beauty’, Sean O’Hagan writes that ‘in a certain light [Gainsbourg] is a dead ringer for the young Patti Smith as immortalised by Robert Mapplethorpe’ (10) and Mick LaSalle refers to Gainsbourg as a ‘younger, prettier Patti Smith’ (8). Indeed, Gainsbourg’s dual career as a recording artist, known primarily for her musical collaborations, has also contributed to her indie stature and coolness through association with indie artists such as Air, Jarvis Cocker, Radiohead producer Nigel Goodrich, Beck, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de ­Homem-Christo and French DJ and producer SebastiAn (see figure 7). Just as Gainsbourg’s coolness is established with reference to other indie-cool icons, in the press she is also set up in

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7  With Beck in ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg Feat. Beck: Heaven Can Wait’ (music video) (dir. Keith Schofield, 2009, Caviar)

contradistinction to other French stars. In contrast with more conventionally glamorous mainstream stars like Julie Delpy and Emmanuelle Béart, Gainsbourg’s look and style have been called both ‘striking’ and ‘unconventional’, which marks her out as, to use Sexton’s term, an ‘off-kilter star’ (84). Quart describes Gainsbourg’s brand of cool as follows: And if she is the latest French starlet to gain indie fame in New York, she has achieved this distinction not just by being pop royalty but also by being fresher and frankly cooler than a Julie Delpy or Emmanuelle Béart. She has avoided the typical pitfalls of being a frigid Parisian beauty or a Betty Blue–style enfant terrible. Instead, she is melancholic, alluring, and ultimately highly competent, more in the manner of a young Jeanne Moreau. (78)

Indeed, Gainsbourg’s bobo persona is in some way the contemporary version of Moreau’s intellectual bourgeois chic of the 1950s. Vincendeau claims that in the late 1950s and 1960s Moreau was the ‘ideal woman of the modern intellectual bourgeoisie’ and that she was ‘the natural companion of artists, writers and publishers’ (Stars and Stardom 125). In a similar way,

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Gainsbourg is the ‘ideal woman’ of the new intellectual elite. There are, of course, differences in the personas of the two actresses – the term ‘sex symbol’, for example, is seldom, if ever, applied to Gainsbourg – but they do share the role of icon of cool for their respective generations. According to Sexton, coolness is associated with cult because it has signified numerous characteristics that ‘have proven ripe for cultist attachments’ and has historically been associated with ‘both exclusivity and nonconformity’ (77). Drawing on the work of Dick Pountain and David Robins, Sexton argues that when cool materialised in the twentieth century it was characterised by ‘a sense of ironic detachment, a kind of surly distance from, and implicit disapproval of, the social world’, but quickly developed into the foremost tenet of consumer capitalism as a result of ‘a process set in motion by the 1960s counterculture, who steered cool into a more materialistic direction’ (77). Gainsbourg’s stardom coincides with what Sexton calls the thorough commercialisation of cool (77). Despite its commercialisation, cool nonetheless continues to function as a means of excluding the mainstream and thus can be regarded as ‘a marker of distinction within a consumer landscape’: it therefore remains associated with exclusivity even though it has lost some of its rebellious nature (Sexton 77). Sexton argues that coolness is a contested concept which is open to interpretation and that the idea of authenticity is a primary means through which notions of coolness can be embraced or spurned: ‘people “trying too hard” to be cool may be rejected as being “inauthentically cool”’ (77). In commentaries and criticisms, Gainsbourg is frequently considered authentically cool, not just because of her ‘innate’ coolness which is ‘part of her DNA’ and her ‘birthright’, but also because of aspects of her personality, physiognomy and style. A further aspect to her coolness is her indifference to the notion of coolness itself. When asked if she is comfortable with r­ ecognition for her style, Gainsbourg responded: ‘I think it’s ­flattering … but it’s not something that I value’ (qtd. in

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Whitfield). Murphy writes that Gainsbourg is reluctant to admit that she is a fashion icon: ‘I’m happy if it’s the case, but I don’t really reflect on it … I don’t really care’ (qtd. in Murphy). In a similar vein, Fraser-Cavassoni writes that Gainsbourg ‘bristles at being called a style icon’ and remarks that ‘[s]tyle for me is a casual way of putting something on. It’s not thought out but needs to suit your way of life’ – which leads Fraser-Cavassoni to conclude that this is what makes Gainsbourg ‘everything she denies she is – a style icon, a rock star, an artist – and is precisely why she is so appealing’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’). In strictly filmic terms, however, it would be her work with von Trier that would most help create for Gainsbourg cult status on the ­international stage.

3 ‘Je t’aime, moi non plus’: the (dys)functional relationship of Gainsbourg and von Trier

Je rêvais bien d’excès De fantasmes indécents Sous mon air retenu Discret et bienséant I was dreaming of excess Of indecent fantasies Beneath my restrained demeanour Discrete and proper –Charlotte Gainsbourg, ‘I’m a Lie’

Gainsbourg’s star persona is built on an inherent contradiction that is not resolved but intensified in her performances. The two sides of this dialectic might be called the ‘proper’ and the ‘perverse’. Nowhere is this contradiction more obviously brought into play than in her collaboration with Lars von Trier. Indeed, a 2012 feature on Gainsbourg for Oyster Magazine claims that Gainsbourg ‘believes her own legacy will be her work with director Lars von Trier’ (Cavanagh 104). This statement comes after the pair made Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011) but before their collaboration on Nymphomaniac (2013), the third film in von Trier’s so-called Depression Trilogy, which further cemented Gainsbourg’s reputation for provocative film roles. While Gainsbourg has worked with other significant international directors and has made more films with her partner Yvan Attal, the significance of her collaboration with von Trier and the attention it has received from the press, critics and film

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scholars points to the importance of examining Gainsbourg’s star persona through the prism of von Trier’s films. Moreover, as an actress Gainsbourg has received more critical acclaim for her work with von Trier than with any other director and it was her performance in Antichrist that earned her the Prix d’interprétation féminine at Cannes in 2009. In his work with Gainsbourg, von Trier draws on, embellishes and reinforces two key aspects of her star persona that were formed before her collaboration with him: the transnational and the provocative. However, he also draws out a more latent characteristic that would be exploited more fully in their films together: Gainsbourg’s self-professed ‘masochism’. It is important to note when examining Gainsbourg and von Trier’s working relationship that what is at stake is not the individual actor or director but, following Vincendeau’s notion of the star text, the way their public personas are constructed through their films, promotion and publicity, and commentaries and criticisms (Stars and Stardom 24–5). What is of primary interest, then, is not only the way the media constructs Gainsbourg and von Trier’s relationship but also the way the actor and director themselves contribute to their respective star texts in their interviews and public appearances. For this reason, this chapter draws on remarks made by Gainsbourg in interviews as well as comments on von Trier’s directing style made by those he has worked with because it is to a large extent through these remarks that Gainsbourg and von Trier’s respective personas, ­particularly in relation to their working together, are constructed.

Transnational

In her acting career, Gainsbourg achieved transnational stardom through her work with various international directors in different national cinemas and languages. When she first collaborated with von Trier in 2009, she was already a French national star and had a growing, albeit modest, international profile. It would

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be her work with von Trier, however, that would raise her profile significantly on the international stage. Despite being described as a French star, or occasionally an Anglo-French or a BritishFrench star, the settings and locations of many of Gainsbourg’s films, their country of production and the nationalities of cast and crew, firmly locate her within an international and transnational film context. Her bilingual and bicultural background allows her to shift fluidly between identities depending on the project. Gainsbourg’s transnational stardom is closely tied to her cosmopolitanism, which works on two levels: on the one hand, her characters are at times cosmopolitan, possessing a globalised lifestyle, attitude and sense of style; on the other hand, Gainsbourg as an actress can be defined as cosmopolitan, a French star who moves across borders to work in new geographical and industrial contexts. Her cosmopolitanism – quite literally, her ‘world citizenry’ – is arguably most notably exploited by von Trier, who creates utopian (in the literal sense of ‘nowhere’ or ‘no place’) spaces in which to set his films. In all three Gainsbourg/ von Trier collaborations, there are no clear signifiers of a specific location or country; there are no famous landmarks or references to place names (cities, towns, streets) that would indicate where the action is set geographically. Filmed in Germany, Antichrist has no distinct national setting; nor do Willem Dafoe’s American accent and Gainsbourg’s English accent indicate that we are in either the United States or Britain. Likewise, the use of an international ensemble cast in Melancholia makes a single distinct national location difficult to discern: the mother and father are played by British actors Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt respectively, while Kirsten Dunst speaks with a clear American accent; von Trier regular Stellan Skarsgård is Swedish, while the wedding planner is played with a heavy accent by German actor Udo Kier. In Film Quarterly Rob White describes Melancholia’s setting as a ‘grand resort-hotel …, a kind of enchanted castle, a magic island’. Of the setting of Nymphomaniac, Boyd Van Hoeij writes:

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although there are references to pounds (as in British money), the film is set in a weird sort of no man’s land, geographically speaking, where people speak English with a wide variety of accents – just imagine how different Uma Thurman, Udo Kier and Jamie Bell all sound in English and know that [Shia] LaBeouf attempts a British accent in some takes – and where there are no clear geographical landmarks that could help anchor the action in a recognizable reality (it was shot mainly in Belgium and Germany, as the large sockets in the homes clear [sic] show, and people talk about ‘high school,’ an institution unknown by that name in Britain).

Carol Siegel notes that ‘the lack of specificity about the time and place’ in Nymphomaniac gives the film a ‘decontextualized, transhistorical, and transgeographical’ quality (64). In her von Trier films, Gainsbourg likewise possesses no identity in any strictly national sense. In Melancholia and Nymphomaniac her characters are given the simple names Claire and Joe respectively, with an absence of surnames that may have indicated ­nationality. In Antichrist she is given no name at all, and in the credits is listed only as ‘She’. The use of Gainsbourg’s cosmopolitanism is not limited to von Trier’s films. Despite being shot in French-speaking Canada, Wim Wenders’s Every Thing Will Be Fine has the feel of being set ‘nowhere’, something it shares with Gainsbourg’s von Trier films. As Fionnuala Halligan remarks, Wenders’s film ‘seems slightly unreal, out of time and place – none of the characters appear particularly rooted in the area, despite their clipped accents (which are not uniform and mostly distracting). This could be anywhere.’ Halligan further argues that the look and feel of the film make it ‘seem like a fable’.

Provocation

Gainsbourg’s bicultural origins have provided her with a star persona that is both complex and contradictory. From her

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English mother and grandmother she inherited the properness of the English middle class; the reserved, quietly spoken demeanour that she assumes in interviews and most film roles. From her French father she inherited the penchant for provocation and perversion, for pushing the boundaries, both her own and those of the cinema-going public (although it is worth nothing here that Birkin too was known both for her daring film roles and fashion choices, and for her controversial work with Serge Gainsbourg). It was von Trier who first put these two aspects to work and he was the first director to utilise the paradoxes of Gainsbourg’s persona to their fullest potential. Provocation is a key aspect of Gainsbourg’s star persona, and she has been associated with scandal and provocation arguably since before her birth. Even in utero she was a provocation: a slightly pregnant Jane Birkin posed topless with the top buttons of her bell-bottomed jeans popped for the record cover of Melody Nelson, Serge Gainsbourg’s concept album which cast Birkin in the role of Lolita to Gainsbourg’s Humbert Humbert. The provocation became Gainsbourg’s own when in 1984 she recorded ‘Lemon Incest’ with her father and continued with her roles in Charlotte for Ever and The Cement Garden, which both dealt with the subject of incest. Alexandra Marshall sums up this moment in Gainsbourg’s career in a 2014 article for W Magazine: ‘It’s hard to imagine an artistic debut more controversial than that of Charlotte Gainsbourg’ (198). However, these earlier forays seem somewhat tame compared with her work in von Trier’s films in which she plays a grieving mother who performs genital self-mutilation, an anxiety-ridden sister facing an apocalypse and a masochistic sex addict. In film and popular press, frequent reference is made to the element of provocation in Gainsbourg’s persona. In France Dimanche, Laurence Paris writes: ‘Depuis des années, entre séduction et charme, discrétion et provocation, Charlotte Gainsbourg est parvenue à se faire un joli prénom dans le monde du s­ pectacle’ (For years, between seduction and charm, discretion and provocation, Charlotte Gainsbourg has succeeded

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in making a name for herself in the entertainment industry). La Presse reports that since Antichrist, Gainsbourg is ‘la muse d’un cinéaste qui cherche à pousser la provocation toujours plus loin’ (Lussier) (is the muse of a director who seeks to push provocation always further). Melissa Anderson, writing in The Village Voice on the occasion of the Film Society’s retrospective ‘Jane and Charlotte Forever’, remarks that Birkin and Gainsbourg are indisputably ‘the most provocative distaff screen-acting dynasty of any era or nation’, describing the pair as ‘fearlessly committed to audacious ventures’. Anderson goes on to cite Gainsbourg herself – ‘I wouldn’t refuse material just because it has to do with something taboo’ – and further argues that Gainsbourg’s performance in L’Effrontée signalled ‘the emotional boldness that has come to define her career, never more so than in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist’. Newshub reported that Gainsbourg ‘admitted that she aims to provoke people with her controversial career choices and that she’d be bored if she wasn’t “pushed to her limit”’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: I’m a Masochist’). In W Magazine, Marshall writes: ‘Some critics have observed that Gainsbourg’s relationship with von Trier echoes the one she had with her father, with both men using her as an instrument to shock and titillate. Gainsbourg doesn’t deny it: “When I was young, I got a taste of being a tool for someone else’s provocation, and I liked it”’ (198). In Vulture magazine, Carl Swanson characterises Gainsbourg’s relationship with the Danish director as that of a child to a surrogate parent who is both ‘withholding’ and ‘semi-sadistic’ yet ‘enthralling’. The reference to the parent/child relationship calls to mind the complex relationship between the young Gainsbourg and her father, particularly as it played out in their artistic output together. Nymphomaniac in fact provides a visual nod to Charlotte for Ever when von Trier has Joe’s torturer wear a single black leather glove, just as Stan, played by Serge Gainsbourg, did in the earlier film (see figures 8 and 9). Von Trier is notorious for his difficult working relationships with his actresses and his so-called directorial cruelty has been the focus of much media and critical attention. Jimmy So writes:

Gainsbourg and von Trier

8  With Jamie Bell in Nymphomaniac (dir. Lars von Trier, 2013, Zentropa)

9  With Serge Gainsbourg in Charlotte for Ever (dir. Serge Gainsbourg, 1986, G.P.F.I.) Von Trier identifies with female leads, and has a habit for putting actresses through a wealth of traumatizing situations: Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, Bodil Jørgensen in  The Idiots, Björk in Dancer in the Dark, Nicole Kidman in  Dogville, Bryce Dallas Howard in Manderlay, Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia—and, of course, Gainsbourg. None of them end up well, and Antichrist was even awarded an ‘anti-award’ for misogyny by the Cannes Ecumenical Jury.

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Matthew Sweet writes: ‘Ever since he put Emily Watson through the emotional mincer in his first big international success, Breaking the Waves, Von Trier has nurtured his reputation for gleeful directorial cruelty’ (12). Indeed, all von Trier’s leading actresses up until Gainsbourg have expressed reservations about his directing style, citing what Sweet calls von Trier’s ‘ability to inspire such self-destructive commitment’ in his actresses (12). The exception is Bryce Dallas Howard who worked with von Trier on Manderlay (2005), the final instalment of his American Trilogy. While Howard claims that von Trier provided ‘a very generous and safe environment’ for his actors, he nonetheless does not ‘put up any walls at all with his personality’ (qtd. in Cavagna). Björk walked off the set of Dancer in the Dark (2000), citing von Trier’s ‘misogyny’ as the main cause. Commenting on the experience, Björk remarked: ‘He needs a female to provide his work soul, and he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming. And hide the evidence’ (qtd. in Heath). In 2018 Björk accused von Trier of sexual harassment. Among the list of accusations were ‘unwanted whispered sexual offers from him with graphic descriptions’ (qtd. in Parfitt). Von Trier denied the allegations: ‘That was not the case. But that we were definitely not friends, that’s a fact’ (qtd. in ‘Not the Case’). Scholarly reaction to von Trier’s films tends to focus more on the critical approach his films take on misogyny than on his treatment of individual actresses. Linda Badley argues that in Antichrist von Trier employs ‘his trademark strategy of raising provocation to the level of metacommentary and metaculture’ to critique a deeply engrained misogyny (149). Tarja Laine claims that ‘rather than being misogynist’, von Trier’s films offer ‘a serious metacinematic commentary on misogyny’ (242). Joanna Bourke finds von Trier’s work ‘more misanthropic than misogynistic’ (qtd. in Badley 149). The charge of misogyny tends to focus on von Trier’s working method with his actresses, which he claims is the product not of vilification but of deep-seated identification. As Dana Thomas remarks: ‘When asked the

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(loaded) question of why he makes women suffer in (and for) his films, Trier’s answer is disarmingly straightforward: “Those characters are not women. They are self-portraits”’. Similarly, Butler and Denny note that von Trier ‘frequently asserts … that he actually identifies more with the female than the male characters in his films, that they more truly represent him and his inner self ’ (3). There may be a categorical confusion between misogyny and what Paula Quigley calls women’s suffering and sacrifice in von Trier’s films: his method, Quigley argues, is to push women’s suffering ‘to its extreme, to the point where the depiction of the woman’s suffering becomes so excessive that it can no longer function as cathartic. Consequently, these representations are much more resistant to being recuperated as “positive”’ (156). It is this lack of positive recuperation that, for Quigley, leads to the charge of misogyny against the director. In addition to this, as Badley argues, von Trier has ‘written some of the most compelling heroines in recent cinema and elicited stunning, career-topping performances from Emily Watson, Björk, Nicole Kidman, and Charlotte Gainsbourg’ (1–2). Commenting on Bjork’s accusations, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘Well, yes, maybe he’s capable of that. But he didn’t do it with me. And I never felt that he was forcing me into anything, so I don’t feel it’s doing him justice. But then maybe he was that way with her, I can’t say’ (qtd. in Snapes). Referring to what Sweet calls von Trier’s ‘more baldly sadistic’ strategies on the set of Dogville (2003), Nicole Kidman described her experience working with the director as oscillating between fairy tale and nightmare: ‘Lars was gentle with me – he was gentle and soft, and then he would beat me up emotionally when he felt he needed that’ (12). In the brief documentary accompanying the DVD release of Dogville titled Dogville Confessions, Kidman states that von Trier ‘gets a little hard on me’ and describes the filming ambivalently as an ‘experience’. When asked if she was a ‘masochist’ for agreeing to work with the director, Kidman replied ‘No’ (Sweet 12). To date, Gainsbourg is the only lead actress to work with von Trier on more than one project.

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However, she was not von Trier’s first choice for the role of ‘She’ in Antichrist. Gainsbourg was approached after Eva Green refused to agree to von Trier’s conditions (Jeffries). When asked in an interview following her role as Claire in Melancholia about von Trier’s directing style Gainsbourg remarked that vulnerability is ‘something that he likes’ (qtd. in M. Siegel). When on the set of Melancholia Gainsbourg expressed doubts about her acting, von Trier reportedly told the film’s producer not to ‘reassure’ her. ‘He knows how to play with me’, Gainsbourg said. ‘There’s a bit of cruelty in that’ (qtd. in M. Siegel). Writing on Antichrist specifically, Nick Haramist remarks: ‘To some, it’s yet another example of von Trier’s sadistic irreverence’.

Masochism

The third aspect of Gainsbourg’s star persona that von Trier draws on in his films is her self-proclaimed masochism. Indeed, just as von Trier’s sadism has been discussed in the press and in commentaries on his films, reference is also frequently made to Gainsbourg’s ‘masochism’. Gainsbourg herself has often stated in interviews that she has a masochistic side. In 2014 Newshub ran an article titled, ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: I’m a Masochist’, in which Gainsbourg is quoted as saying, ‘I’m probably a bit of a masochist. Then again, let’s be honest, I’m faking pain. I know we’re playing a game. I abuse myself very easily in real life. I like criticism. Anything that’s hard or negative is enjoyable to me, up to a point.’ In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘I think I do have a masochistic streak, I’m sure about that’ (qtd. in ‘Surviving Madness’). In an interview for Vulture magazine, Gainsbourg claimed: ‘I never felt he [von Trier] was taking pleasure out of my suffering. He goes through those emotions with you. Or that’s what I felt. But at the same time, I’m very masochistic’ (qtd. in C. Swanson). Carl Swanson describes Nymphomaniac as ‘a porny, anxious Decameron à deux, in which Gainsbourg – as a character, yes, but

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also as an actress – is thoroughly, and voluntarily, abused, pleading repeatedly, “Fill all my holes”’. In 2009 Gainsbourg stated: ‘I have a streak of masochism in me’ (qtd. in Haramist), while R. Kurt Osenlund, writing for Slant magazine, describes her as von Trier’s ‘masochistic muse’. Writing on Antichrist for The Independent, Orr claims that Gainsbourg ‘appears to have relished the idea of delivering herself into von Trier’s hands’ (10): ‘He is demanding, that’s for sure. But difficult – I don’t think so. He wasn’t difficult, I didn’t feel a difficulty because I was willing to be manipulated, and I think I wanted that. I think I was quite masochistic at the time’ (qtd. in Orr 10). In an interview with Laura Snapes for The Guardian in 2017, Gainsbourg said: ‘I find it interesting to put myself in those positions in Nymphomaniac to go into those weird grounds of masochism. I enjoyed myself, a lot. So, I did ask myself, maybe I am masochistic? I must have a streak. I don’t like real-life violence. But there’s something that I find … tempting, I guess. I don’t want to analyse it too much’. Elsewhere, Gainsbourg speaks of the qualitative difference between her music and her acting: with music, she says, ‘I’m able to express myself. With (acting) I’m just a tool’ (Kompanek). While acknowledging that there are differences between Gainsbourg and her character in Nymphomaniac, Gainsbourg nonetheless admits she understands her character’s masochism: ‘It’s both humiliation and excitement. … It’s something I do understand’ (qtd. in Kompanek). Later in the same interview, Christopher Kompanek points out that Gainsbourg ‘relates Joe’s masochism to acting’, to which Gainsbourg replies: ‘I haven’t explored and put myself into that extreme experience, but I do understand the masochism. For me, there’s a little glimpse of that in acting. It’s very extreme to talk in that way but when you put yourself into emotions, you have to like the suffering a little bit.’ This ‘extreme experience’ to which Gainsbourg alludes is typical of actors who take on roles in what has become known as the ‘new extremist’ trend in contemporary European cinema, features of which Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall identify as ‘graphic and confrontational images of sex and violence’

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(1) with an ‘emphasis on shock effects and unpleasurable sensations’ (6). Though this trend is primarily a movement in French cinema, Horeck and Kendall also find similarities in the work of non-French European filmmakers including von Trier and cite Antichrist as one of the most ‘noteworthy’ provocations of the movement (4). Indeed, as Siri Erika Gullestad points out, Antichrist was ‘met with strong negative reactions’ when it screened at Cannes, including walk-outs and booing (79). This type of audience reaction is a feature of what Nikolaj Lübecker calls the ‘feel-bad film’, a term which refers to ‘the emotional state of the spectator when the lights go on’ (14). Lübecker cites von Trier as one of the foremost exponents of this type of cinema, which communicates its message ‘through the body of the ­spectator to her intellect’ (16). It is Gainsbourg’s masochism and von Trier’s so-called sadism that form the basis of their collaboration, at least as it is depicted in the media construction of their working relationship. The use of these loaded terms does not in any way imply a psychoanalysis of Gainsbourg and von Trier as such. It is more a psychoanalysis of their relationship as it is mediated through the press and allegorised in their films together. To reiterate Vincendeau’s point about stardom: it is not the ‘true’ person behind the star text that is of interest but rather the star text itself (Stars and Stardom xi). Their relationship reached its climax with the third collaboration, Nymphomaniac, which, as John Tulloch and Belinda Middleweek point out, charts ‘all the nymphomaniac phases of Joe’s [Gainsbourg] sexual life, from precocious teenage sexual demands on men of all ages, through heterosexual encounters among all types and classes; marital sexuality; sadomasochism; and a recent lesbian relationship with the teenager P’ (17). The story is told in a series of anecdotes recounted by Joe to the bookish recluse Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) who, having found her lying badly beaten in a dark street, carries her back to his dingy, dimly lit apartment. According to Lübecker, von Trier’s tendency is to ‘work within a psychoanalytic framework’ (28). Carol Siegel notes that

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the character of Seligman, a secular Jew, is the stereotype of the psychotherapist who confronts Joe’s ‘raw, unrestrained sexuality’ with ‘Jewish liberal humanism’ (67). Indeed, Nymphomaniac presents us with the analytical situation par excellence: the ‘patient’, known only as ‘Joe’, confides in the ‘analyst’ Seligman a series of fantasies of sexual humiliation (Joe’s titular ‘nymphomania’). For Freud, the manifest content of masochistic fantasies is strikingly similar from patient to patient: it consists of ‘being gagged, bound, painfully beaten, whipped, in some way maltreated, forced into unconditional obedience, dirtied and debased’ (‘Masochism’ 276), all of which happen to Joe at one time or another in the film. Indeed, it could be argued that Nymphomaniac is, in part at least, a loose adaptation of Freud’s essay ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’. In this essay, Freud identifies what he calls a ‘moral masochism’ in which the masochist ‘wants to be treated like a small and helpless child, but, particularly, like a naughty child’ (‘Masochism’ 276). This pathological feature of masochism is demonstrated in a number of places throughout the film where Joe, sitting up in bed dressed in oversized men’s pyjamas, seeks, without success, the moral condemnation of Seligman who, in line with the psychoanalytic method, refuses to give Joe what she wants. Thus, Joe continually ups the ante, presenting Seligman with more and more degraded and violent fantasies designed purely to shock. Ultimately, Joe tells Seligman of an underground S&M practitioner, K (Jamie Bell), who offers to place women in degrading and painful situations. He does this for no fee, or at least we see no money changing hands, nor does he seem to derive any particular pleasure from the situation. At first glance, these scenes look like a salient allegory for Gainsbourg and von Trier’s working relationship: the tormentor is the director who places Gainsbourg/Joe (nicknamed ‘Fido’ by K) into more and more compromising and humiliating situations. These scenes of humiliation and suffering appear to be figurative for their work together; indeed, figurative for the relationship between von Trier and his lead actresses in general. The only difference

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between these actresses and Gainsbourg is that she, like Fido, kept coming back.

Masochism: contracts, games and rituals

In his analysis of the masochistic ego, Gilles Deleuze establishes contract and ritual as necessary for the achievement of the masochistic aim: ‘The masochistic contract generates a type of law which leads straight into ritual. The masochist is obsessed; ritualistic activity is essential to him, since it epitomizes the world of fantasy’ (94). Contracts and rituals exemplify what Frida Beckman, following Deleuze, calls ‘the centrality of the formal in masochism’ (96). It is the same with Gainsbourg’s work with von Trier: ‘the boundaries of their collaborations were detailed in explicit contracts’ (Snapes). Gainsbourg herself, in an interview, describes the way von Trier works: ‘It’s both humiliating and exciting. I had to go there. It was part of the deal’ (Kompanek). Rather than view the masochist as disempowered by the situation, it is through these contracts and rituals that the masochist most effectively establishes his or her autonomy: the contract ‘represents a personal act of will on the part of the masochist’ (Deleuze 102). Gainsbourg also compares her work with von Trier to a ‘game’ which has specific rules, one of which ‘includes not asking questions’ (Kompanek). The formality of the contract in Nymphomaniac was taken so seriously by von Trier that he so arranged things that Gainsbourg and Bell were never formally introduced. The only words they spoke to each other were dialogue. Bell speaks of the experience as follows: ‘I hadn’t said hello to Charlotte Gainsbourg before I started hitting her in the face. I didn’t even say hello to her. I really didn’t, I swear to God, I didn’t say a word to Charlotte Gainsbourg the entire time we were making that film’ (qtd. in Godfrey). The films Gainsbourg made with von Trier also deal, in part at least, with games, contracts and rituals. In Melancholia, there

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are the various rituals belonging to the wedding ­reception such as cutting the cake, the bridal dance, speeches and the absurd guessing game involving a large jar full of beans; as well as the end-of-the-world ritual Claire (Gainsbourg) suggests – to share a glass of wine on the terrace and listen to some music – and which her sister Justine (Kirsten Dunst) ridicules: ‘You know what I think of your idea? I think it’s a piece of shit.’ In Antichrist, there are the little ‘games’ He (Willem Dafoe) puts She (Gainsbourg) through in an attempt to help her overcome her crippling anxiety. Finally, in Nymphomaniac there are numerous scenes in which games, contracts and rituals play an important part, culminating in Joe’s contract with her torturer in Part Two. In Nymphomaniac, each of the sexual encounters Joe orchestrates is governed by explicit rules, whether established by Joe, by the other parties involved, or arrived at mutually; as Deleuze points out, the masochistic contract ‘implies in principle certain conditions like the free acceptance of the parties, a limited duration and the preservation of inalienable rights’ (91–2). This goes back as far in her story as the ‘chocolate sweeties’ game which the young Joe (Stacey Martin) plays with her friend B (Sophie Kennedy Clark) on a train. The game consists of a simple premise: the one who has sex with the most men on the train wins a bag of chocolate sweeties. In the scenes in which Joe visits the torturer, the rules of the sessions are clearly outlined, and her visits quickly become the only meaningful ritual in her daily life. The rules set down for what is to happen in the room are binding; any breaches of the contract are punished by the worst kind of torture: the threat of expulsion. After the intimacy of her work with von Trier on Antichrist, Gainsbourg was recast as part of an ensemble cast in Melancholia. This had a profound effect on Gainsbourg who felt von Trier had turned her out into the cold: ‘j’ai eu beaucoup de mal à trouver ma place sur le film. Je me sentais à l’écart, d’autant plus qu’on a commencé le tournage par les scènes avec beaucoup de figuration et que je n’ai pas osé aller voir Lars par peur de le déranger’ (qtd. in Bellengier 266) (I had a hard time finding my place on the film.

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I felt left out, especially since we started shooting scenes with a lot of extras and I did not dare to go see Lars for fear of disturbing him). Gainsbourg also remarked, ‘I felt very paranoid, really, because he didn’t have time to deal with me or reassure me. Later on, I asked him if he wanted to fire me. I was so paranoid!’ (qtd. in O’Hehir).

Sadomasochism

The use of masochism and sadism in these interviews, commentaries and criticisms is not strictly clinical: critics and interviewers are not ‘diagnosing’ Gainsbourg and von Trier in a pathological sense. However, if these psychoanalytic tropes are applied to their respective star texts, patterns of behaviour emerge that in some way justify their application. The question, then, is: what happens when these two personalities come together? On the one hand, there is the pleasure in suffering which Gainsbourg professes; on the other, von Trier’s reputation as a cruel director bent on the psychological and emotional destruction of his leading women. It would appear, then, that their collaboration has the feeling of destiny – Gainsbourg’s quest for a director who will push her to the extremes she requires to bring out the latent qualities of her persona on the one hand and von Trier’s search for an actress who is able to meet his every demand, no matter how perverse or cruel, on the other. As Deleuze claims: ‘It may seem obvious that the sadist and the masochist are destined to meet. The fact that the one enjoys inflicting while the other enjoys suffering pain seems to be such striking proof of their complementarity’ (40). However, as Deleuze goes on to point out: ‘a genuine sadist could never tolerate a masochistic victim …, [n]either would the masochist tolerate a truly sadistic torturer’ (40–1). For Deleuze, the belief that sadism and masochism form a functional unity is ‘the result of misunderstandings and careless reasoning’ (40). According to Gaylyn Studlar, Deleuze sets out to correct the ‘misconceived

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notion of a sadomasochistic entity. He considers sadomasochism to be a semiological and clinical impossibility’ (In the Realm of Pleasure 13). Gainsbourg’s masochism, her willingness to be exploited, sits uneasily with von Trier’s sadism, constituting a dysfunctional relationship which is at the same time highly productive. What, then, does this say of Gainsbourg’s and von Trier’s working relationship? ‘Admittedly’, Deleuze states, ‘the term sadomasochism does not merely imply the external event of two persons meeting. Nevertheless, the theme of an encounter often persists, if only in the form of a “witticism” floating in the unconscious’ (43). This is why, in part, it seems humorous to describe Gainsbourg and von Trier’s relationship as ­‘sadomasochistic’; and in part why there is always a certain light-heartedness when Gainsbourg labels herself masochistic or when the press refers to von Trier as a sadist. If there is such a thing as a sadomasochistic entity, it might lie in the notion of an essential identity between the two; or, as Freud put it: ‘A sadist is always at the same time a masochist’ (qtd. in Deleuze 43) and, by the same logic, a masochist is at the same time a sadist. In other words, the sadomasochist is an intra- rather than inter-psychical phenomenon. The balance of both sadism and masochism in a single personality depends on to what extent an active or passive role is assumed. To understand Gainsbourg’s masochism as it presents itself in her filmic universe, it is necessary to go back to her earliest roles in which she played a very different character type to that revealed in her work with von Trier. In roles such as Charlotte for Ever, L’Effrontée and La Petite voleuse, it is possible to identify a sadistic streak that plays itself out in her relationship with the characters closest to her, such as her father Stan in Charlotte for Ever and the family housekeeper Léone in L’Effrontée. One also finds it in Gainsbourg’s account of her relationship with her father: ‘Je l’avais pour moi seule. Il me gâtait énormément, de manière folle. En plus, je savais comment le retourner comme une crêpe’ (qtd. in Kaprièlian 240) (I had him all to myself. He spoilt me enormously, madly. On top of that,

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I knew how to play him like a violin). At some point, then, in her career an introversion of this sadistic drive took place and was converted into its opposite. Indeed, Freud writes of the ‘regular and close connections of masochism with its counterpart in instinctual life, sadism’ (‘Masochism’ 278), and identifies this kind of ‘secondary masochism’ as a primal sadism ­‘introjected’ or ‘turned inward’ (‘Masochism’ 279). In the same way, von Trier’s sadism has been described as an extroverted masochism: ‘It is as though, for all of von Trier’s purported identification with his female characters, he actually enjoys putting them through their torments. And whether this is a simple sadism and hatred of women or a reflected masochism and hatred of himself, it does not ultimately matter. It is certainly something that exercises his critics and leads to their accusations of misogyny’ (Butler and Denny 3). In this sense, Gainsbourg and von Trier may understand one another, even if they cannot play each other’s game; and it is this understanding, which might be called ‘unconscious’, that accounts for the success of their collaborations together. In the purely theoretical situation in which the sadist and masochist meet, it is only the masochist, however, who ‘appears to us in the light of a great danger, which is in no way true of its counterpart, sadism’ (Freud ‘Masochism’ 274). It is the masochist who takes the risks, who enters into contracts with what Deleuze calls ‘ambiguous destinations’ (92), while the sadist – in this case quite literally the director – has the vision, the control, the power to exact what is required, and is the setter of limits. Alongside the Fido scene from Nymphomaniac, there are two further examples in Gainsbourg’s collaboration with von Trier of this notion of ambiguous destination. The first is the infamous strangulation sequence from Antichrist. In an article in the New York Times titled ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: From Grim Pain to Hell in Eden’, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘The toughest, most painful and scary, was the strangulation because Lars really didn’t have a limit. … He didn’t want me to die, but he wanted me to go as far as I could’ (qtd. in Dupont). The other is the

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apocalyptic end-of-the-world sequence from Melancholia. In an interview with Vulture magazine, Gainsbourg described the experience as follows: I was pushed to my limit in Melancholia, but I was willing to go there. For the last shot, with me, Kirsten, and the little boy all together, Lars said, ‘I want to have a bit of an experiment with you. Every morning I’d like to shoot this scene. Again. You can listen to whatever you want, do whatever you need. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s the end of the world and I want to see an expression of something.’ It was terrifying, because at a point, it wasn’t acting anymore. The suffering and the cruelty of the moment was horrible. Lars said to me in a very cynical way, ‘With you it’s like filming animal life: You have to wait for something to happen.’ (qtd. in M. Siegel)

The ambiguous destinations in von Trier’s Depression Trilogy function, however, on three main levels: the actor’s experience, narrative and the audience’s experience. As Lübecker points out, in the ‘purest examples’ of the feel-bad film, the ‘intensification of the feel-bad climate is so radical that the spectators begin to worry where things are going …, about the nature of the spectatorial contract’ (3). At the conclusion of Nymphomaniac, the audience has a share in Joe’s disappointment; and this, according to Lübecker, is ‘the source of the “feel-bad” experience; this is how von Trier puts a deadlock on catharsis’ (27).

4 G  eneric and geographic border crossings: the (un)homeliness of Gainsbourg’s persona

On a hot afternoon in a small town in south-eastern Queensland, a woman in her mid-thirties is playing darts and drinking beer in a run-down pub. She is recently widowed, motherof-four Dawn but also unmistakably Charlotte Gainsbourg. Gainsbourg is as arresting a presence in the outback pub as she is set against the craggy peaks, dry fields and endless sky of the Australian landscape (see figure 10). As Stephen Holden remarks in his review of The Tree: ‘with her lean body, haughty carriage and air of compressed tension’ Gainsbourg is ‘almost as striking a figure’ in the film ‘as she was playing a demonic wife [in Antichrist]’. Despite the strange location Gainsbourg ‘exudes a sympathetic, matter-of-fact naturalness’. Holden here points to another important contradiction in Gainsbourg’s persona, which is brought into play particularly during this stage of her career: she is both ‘striking’ and ‘natural’, both out of place and at home. It is a strange familiarity one experiences watching Gainsbourg during this period, which the German term unheimlich or ‘unhomely’ describes well and which, as Freud points out in his seminal essay on the subject, is the opposite of heimlich, which has for its simplest meaning ‘familiar’ and ‘native’ (‘The Uncanny’ 219). It is not necessary here to go as far as Freud and equate the unheimlich with the ‘terrifying’. Rather, it will suffice to adhere to the more general meaning of unfamiliar or non-native that at the same time retains both the native and the familiar: ‘heimlich is a word the meaning of which develops towards an ambivalence, until it finally coincides with

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10  The Tree (dir. Julie Bertuccelli, 2010, Les Films du Poisson)

its opposite, unheimlich. Unheimlich is in some way or other a sub-species of heimlich’ (Freud, ‘The Uncanny’ 225). Both contemporaneous with and following her work with von Trier, Gainsbourg took on a number of eclectic roles that took her across geographical and generic borders. This culminated in her appearance in the action blockbuster Independence Day: Resurgence, which also marked her debut in Hollywood. This period in her career also saw her act in French, English and, for the second time, in Italian. After filming von Trier’s international English-language arthouse horror film Antichrist  in Germany, Gainsbourg returned to Paris in 2008 to co-star in Patrice Chéreau’s French-language psychological thriller Persécution (2009). For her next film project, Gainsbourg embarked on a two-month film shoot during the Australian summer of 2009 for the English-language, Australian–French co-production The Tree, directed by Julie Bertuccelli, a meditation on mourning at the margins of the real and the imaginary. Gainsbourg then shot Melancholia in Sweden, before returning to France to co-star in Confession of a Child of the Century (dir. Sylvie Verheyde, 2012), a reinterpretation of Alfred de Musset’s autobiographical novel, a Franco-German co-production shot in Paris and the AuvergneRhône-Alpes region of France. Despite its French-language source text, this period drama was shot in English and featured British rock star Pete Doherty as the libertine Octave. Gainsbourg

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next had a minor, somewhat comic role as one half of a hedonistic lesbian couple alongside Asia Argento in Yvan Attal’s comedy of manners Do Not Disturb (2012). Following Nymphomaniac, which was shot in Germany and Belgium from late August to early November 2012, Gainsbourg played the gender-fluid daughter of a matriarchal despot in the French-language film Jacky au Royaume des filles (dir. Riad Sattouf, 2014), a dystopian comedy filmed in the Bry-sur-Marne studios in France and in Georgia. Gainsbourg’s next project was a secondary role alongside her partner Attal in Michel Spinosa’s spiritual and psychological thriller Son épouse (2014) shot in France and India. Spinosa’s film marked the starting point of a series of films Gainsbourg would undertake in quick succession in 2013: Wim Wenders’s arthouse melodrama Every Thing Will Be Fine, shot in Canada in two stages; Benoît Jacquot’s psychological romance 3 Cœurs, during which she also filmed for six days in Italy for Asia Argento’s Italian-language arthouse family drama Incompresa (2014); and French social dramedy Samba (2014) by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, the duo behind the international hit Intouchables (2011). In his biography of Gainsbourg, Bellengier characterises this period of her career as ‘une palette de rôles aussi variés que surprenants’ (a palette of roles as varied as they are surprising) and ‘éclectisme et prises de risque’ (eclecticism and risk-taking) (243). Indeed, during this time Gainsbourg demonstrated an ease of ­movement between genres, modes of filmmaking, filming locations and languages, showing she is quite at home in these outof-place places. However, the three films which best exemplify this (un)homeliness, particularly in terms of place and genre, are The Tree, Samba and Resurgence. The Tree plays on notions of the un/familiar, not only through situating Gainsbourg in an unlikely location that serves as an allegory for loss, but also through its use of ambiguous imagery. In Samba, the ‘native’ Gainsbourg is a symbol of a certain type of Frenchness in an unfamiliar setting (a box-office film featuring one of France’s biggest stars, Omar Sy). In Resurgence Gainsbourg’s native-ness is imported into an even more unfamiliar setting, a Hollywood action blockbuster.

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Far from France: a foreign body in the Australian landscape

Based on the 2002 novel Our Father Who Art in a Tree by Australian writer Judy Pascoe, The Tree is set against the arresting landscape of the south-eastern Queensland town of Boonah and explores themes of death, grief, parenthood, nature and regeneration. The casting of Gainsbourg in the lead role met with mixed reactions. Laura Kern describes every frame as ‘exquisitely composed’ but Gainsbourg’s performance as ‘awkward’, arguing that the actor is ‘not at her most comfortable (delicacy isn’t exactly her strong suit)’ (73). Peter Bradshaw claims that Gainsbourg ‘gives the kind of performance you suspect she can do standing on her head’. Robert Koehler praises Gainsbourg’s ‘fine, unshowy performance’ and argues that it is her ‘total involvement in this woman’s tragedy that makes the central drama work as well as it does’ (36). Lisa Mullen notes the ‘stupendously beautiful moments’ of the film but claims that Gainsbourg ‘wavers too much between earth mother and doormat to be completely convincing’ (79–80). While acknowledging that Gainsbourg does not give ‘a bad performance’, Francesca Davidson argues that the casting of the French actor ‘doesn’t sit altogether comfortably …, particularly in terms of relevance to the story’ (23). The relevance of casting Gainsbourg can, however, be traced back to Bertuccelli’s own experiences of being a foreigner in the Australian landscape: As a French director looking at this country from a distance, I find several advantages to setting this story in the Antipodes (as is the case in the book), in this scenery far away from France, from home, from me. The southern hemisphere, the opposite side of the world, different culture, vegetation, climate, habitat, so many differences which enrich the tale and highlight its universality. The process of mourning is akin to going into exile, to tearing one’s self away from the other, from a part of one’s self. It is a journey one must undertake to willingly part from the other while keeping him within, as an exile trying to maintain internal contact

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with his or her roots. Therefore, I found it was important to me to go and tell this story far away from home. (Qtd. in Hopgood 15)

Three key scenes from the film illustrate well the notions of exile or homelessness. In the middle of night, Dawn slips out of her dilapidated weatherboard house and climbs an imposing Moreton Bay fig tree. High in the canopy the air is thick with the sound of cicadas, wind chimes and the gentle breeze in the leaves. Without warning there is an eruption of fireworks nearby. Dawn stares up into the branches as bursts of colour light up the sky and cast a red hue over her pale face. The shadows of the gently swaying branches pass across her body. She tentatively steps onto the platform of a tree house landing. Coloured lanterns are strung up around the branches behind her. She kneels, cranes her long neck and looks upwards, her eyes searching, and then in a soft voice says: ‘Speak to me’. With this utterance, Dawn begins her communion with the eponymous tree. It is a strange, haunting image, made even more so by the fact that Gainsbourg imports something of her own psychology to the role of Dawn, a griefstricken mother of four whose husband, Peter (Aden Young), died suddenly from a heart attack. The following morning finds Dawn asleep, cradled in the curve of a thick root of the tree, as though enveloped within its embrace, and covered in a loosely woven blanket of leaves. If the tree has become the home, or even the embodiment, of the father/husband, then homes and their (dis)placement have already been defamiliarised in the opening credit sequence. In this sequence, we see an old weatherboard house being relocated on the back of a truck. Inside the moving house Peter walks through the hallway and opens the front door, revealing a scenic vista seemingly in motion. The powder blue sky and sun-bleached, scrubby ground of the central-west Queensland desert pass him by as he stands stationary in the doorway. Another uncanny and arresting image is that of Dawn sliding into bed next to a large tree branch that moments earlier had crashed through the bedroom window – a sort of reprisal

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for her burgeoning romantic involvement with her new boss George, the local plumber (Marton Csokas). In this shot, Dawn carefully arranges herself under the twigs and smaller branches and lovingly contemplates and caresses the deep green leaves. A cut to a crane shot filmed through a hole in the corrugated iron roof shows Dawn asleep in the foliage. There is a somewhat Proustian feel to the way the tree as object shudders with the spirit of the dead father/husband. However, unlike Proust’s concept of involuntary memory, in which the object suddenly yields up this spirit independent of the will of the subject, it is Dawn who directly addresses the tree, who asks it to return the past to her. Ultimately, however, the logic of the narrative is not Proustian but Freudian. The Tree is a complex film suspended somewhere between melancholy and mourning, between the denial of death (this suspension is literalised in the makeshift and temporary tree house Dawn’s daughter constructs amid the branches) and its acceptance. This is the true meaning of exile in the film: Dawn finds no home in either mourning or melancholia. The affair she begins with the local plumber is just that, an affair, while the transmogrification of the father/husband’s spirit into the watchful and vengeful tree denies Dawn sanctuary in the house of mourning. In the final scene, when the family is shown hurriedly leaving the now destroyed house, there is a strong sense not of moving on but of flight. When Bertuccelli wanted Gainsbourg for the role, she was perhaps thinking of this suspended state between melancholy and mourning which is an important part of Gainsbourg’s persona. It is a strikingly similar role to that of She in von Trier’s Antichrist and of the grieving mother in Every Thing Will Be Fine, which says as much about Gainsbourg’s persona as it does about the characters she plays: indeed, one journalist described her as the ‘go-to girl for frail, damaged and/or shy’ (Wise 4). In other words, there is something in Gainsbourg’s persona that both justifies and overdetermines her appearance in these roles. Perhaps it was the sudden death of her own father, the complex and overdetermined nature of their relationship (Serge as

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‘father/husband’), that Gainsbourg brings to the screen in such roles. And it is perhaps here where the choice of Gainsbourg for the role of Dawn becomes most apparent: Quart calls Gainsbourg ‘melancholic … in the manner of a young Jeanne Moreau’ (78); De Botton refers to Gainsbourg’s ‘sensitivity and her melancholic air’ (74); Jean-Paul Enthoven observes there is ‘tant de mélancolie sur sa frimousse angélique’ (238) (so much melancholy in her angelic face); and Edmund Lee notes that Gainsbourg can ‘project a melancholic air even when she’s still’. Gainsbourg herself admits: ‘Je suis très sujette à la mélancolie’ (qtd. in Mairesse) (I am very prone to melancholy). If we conceive loss as Bertuccelli does, as a form of homelessness, then to have Gainsbourg as a foreign body in the Australian ­landscape makes this exile doubly felt.

Fille de France at the box office: Samba

Samba tells the story of Alice (Gainsbourg), an executive recovering from burnout who during her sabbatical volunteers at a detention centre to assist in the processing of illegal immigrants. Here she meets Samba (Omar Sy), an illegal immigrant from Senegal who has been living and working in France for ten years and who is threatened with repatriation to Africa. The film is ostensibly about the collision of two worlds, or more precisely, two ‘Frances’ (see figure 11). This is neatly established in the opening credit sequence via the long travelling shot that takes us from the glamour of a gala event at a swish Parisian venue, through the back corridors of the hotel, past waiting and kitchen staff, to finally rest on the lowest rung in this social ladder, Samba at the sink washing the grimy dishes of the haute bourgeoisie. Samba was written with Sy in mind for the title role, the actor having already appeared in three other films by the French directorial duo. As for the part of Alice, Nakache and Toledano had a precise idea in mind: ‘C’était l’actrice parfaite parce qu’on la connaît, on a presque grandi avec elle, elle est touchante, elle

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11  With Omar Sy in Samba (dir. Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2014, Quad)

est comme ça, hésitante, timide. Pour nous, c’était vraiment elle qu’il fallait pour mettre face à Omar, pour essayer de trouver de l’humanité là-dedans’ (qtd. in Bellengier 2013) (She was the perfect actress [for the role] because France practically grew up with her; she’s touching, she’s like that, hesitant, shy. For us, it was really her that had to face Omar, to try to find humanity there). As Nakache explains, the pair cast Gainsbourg because she is ‘très différente, elle vient d’un autre univers qu’Omar. C’est le contraste entre les deux qui nous intéressait, faire s’entrechoquer ces deux personnalités pour créer un couple de cinéma inédit et surprendre’ (qtd. in Colpaert) (very different; she comes from another universe than Omar. It is the contrast between the two that interested us; to clash these two personalities to create a new film couple and to surprise). At the time of the film’s release, Studio featured a cover image of Sy and Gainsbourg, with the accompanying tagline: ‘Omar, Charlotte: Le pas de deux de Samba’. The image depicts Sy as tall and handsome, smiling directly at the camera with his trademark wide smile, his prominent white teeth gleaming, and his large brown forearms wrapped tightly around Gainsbourg’s comparatively small frame. In contrast, Gainsbourg looks away from

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the camera, her head tilted down slightly. She too is smiling but it is the shy, reserved smile one usually associates with her. The photograph is one of contrasts: his openness/her reservedness, his strength/her fragility, his dark skin/her pale skin. It encapsulates not only their contrasting characters in Samba but also the contrasting personas of the two stars that are imported into the film itself. According to Vincendeau, stardom in France is divided between the box office where male stars tend to dominate, and cinephilia where female stars have a greater presence (Stars and Stardom 24–5). A similar distinction can be drawn between Sy and Gainsbourg: on the one hand, Sy’s rise to stardom has been to a large extent dependent on the success of his films at the box office; on the other hand, Gainsbourg’s popularity is due much less to her box-office credentials than to extra-filmic c­ onsiderations, such as her status as fille de and style icon and subsequent coverage in the popular and fashion press (Vincendeau, ‘From the Margins’ 547). Like other star systems, the French star system reflects the prevailing values of the society from which it emerged. For Vincendeau, this means that in the French star system ‘whiteness dominates’ (‘From the Margins’ 547). Indeed, the marginalisation of nonwhites has for a long time been a dominant and much criticised feature of French cinema. Over the past decade however, an ‘increasing number of actors from immigrant, and non-­ privileged, backgrounds have not only found film roles, but they have reached the pinnacle of the star system’ (Vincendeau, ‘From the Margins’ 547). Most notable among them is Sy, who rose to prominence embracing stereotypical roles which also have a self-reflexive, critical purchase. While Sy is often characterised as an ex-banlieusard from an immigrant background and Gainsbourg is described as French royalty and the quintessential bobo, the two stars share both public appeal and an international profile through their work in films with a global reach. As Guillaume Gendron remarks: ‘Dans une France fragmentée … Omar Sy est aimé. Follement.

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Du bobo au populo’ (In a fragmented France … Omar Sy is loved. Madly. From the bobo to the masses). While Sy’s popularity extends across both racial and social divides, as the poster child for a new globalising middle class Gainsbourg’s popularity is more limited by race and class. Gainsbourg and Sy reflect different notions of Frenchness or French national identity, which Samba stages by juxtaposing the two stars along the lines of class and race. More importantly, for the development of Gainsbourg’s star persona, it does so in the popular blockbuster format. Samba was released in the wake of a debate on national identity launched by then President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. According to Travis Nesbitt and Val Rust, ‘the mere existence of such a debate and subsequent media coverage reflects the burning preoccupation with questions of national identity in contemporary France, a preoccupation that has only intensified with the increasing racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and sexual diversity of the nation’ (219). For Robert Zaretsky, France is ‘increasingly at war with itself over the meaning of secularism and these two conflicts, deeply entwined with one another, are dramatically reshaping France’s sense of national identity’. Within the context of the changing face of Frenchness it is worth considering briefly the faces of Gainsbourg and Sy, which play a significant part in their respective personas. Gainsbourg’s face, in spite – or because – of its somewhat unconventionality, has been used to promote the image of quintessential Frenchness, particularly through her work with fashion labels like Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton, associations that both draw on and reinforce Gainsbourg’s status as ‘true French royalty’ (Cusumano). While with Gainsbourg we are dealing with the face as a totality that is more than the sum of its parts (the strong nose, the jaw which juts out defiantly, the distant, haunting eyes, the thin, often taut lips – in short, everything which equals the descriptor jolie laide), with Sy we discover a devolution of the face onto a single aspect: the smile. Indeed, articles or interviews with Sy invariably contain reference to his smile

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(Gilbey, Zeitchik, N. Swanson, Hargreaves and McKinney, and Muñoz). In spite of her non-Gallic ancestry, it is Gainsbourg’s whiteness that above all qualifies her as French. Sy’s popularity, by contrast, hinges on his white smile, which breaks through and tempers the blackness of his skin, to appeal directly to the public: its function is to reassure a France increasingly divided along racial lines. Like Sy, Gainsbourg is from an immigrant background. Her father was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants and her mother is British by birth. Gainsbourg’s and Sy’s respective situations are not, however, strictly comparable. Vanessa Schwartz remarks that the French policy of assimilation has helped to successfully ‘integrate European immigrants in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – if by success one means being recognized as French despite familial national origin’ (Modern France 84). Schwartz goes on to argue that ‘few recall that Yves Montand was born to Italian immigrants or that Serge Gainsbourg was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants’ (Modern France 84). While Gainsbourg’s immigrant background may not have been a factor in her casting in Samba, it does ­complicate the binary notion of French and Other. In Samba two key scenes in particular play on the cultural ambiguity of Gainsbourg’s persona. In both scenes this ambiguity is used for comic effect as a way to endear us to Alice but also to reinforce the fact that it is not so much Alice that we are watching but Gainsbourg herself. In the first of these scenes, Gainsbourg’s accent is the subject of comic treatment. When told her English accent is ‘too BBC’, she is encouraged to adopt an almost burlesque French inflection to her spoken English: ‘Do yoo ‘av an accoont at zee bank?’ According to Martin Shingler, in many instances the voice is often ‘the distinctive and defining feature of the star’s persona’ (80). Gainsbourg’s voice, and her accent in particular, plays a significant role in establishing her star persona as international or cosmopolitan, particularly as it is discussed in press articles. The fascination commentators have with Gainsbourg’s voice prompts consideration of how it operates in her film roles, particularly in terms of its ramifications

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for characterisation and, more broadly, as a ­signifier of national identity. Depending on the particular requirements of her English-language films, Gainsbourg can use her own accent or, as she is often required to, manufacture French-inflected English. In I’m Not There, in which Gainsbourg plays a French artist living in the United States, the perceptive viewer will notice that she often slips in and out of a French accent. The second key scene that imports Gainsbourg’s star persona to the role of Alice and that makes explicit reference to her star text occurs midway through the film. In this scene Alice and Samba find themselves at a cafe at three o’clock in the morning. They discuss her burnout and, when Samba presses her for details, Alice explains that she was given leave from work after breaking a colleague’s mobile phone over his head. She then goes on to outline the possible side effects of burnout, which include overeating, alcoholism and sex abuse, before telling Samba: ‘Moi, c’est le sexe. Je me suis laissée complètement. C’est un carnage’ (With me, it’s sex. When I let myself go it’s a real carnage). After an awkward moment, she reassures Samba that she is joking. The reference to sex addiction and excess evokes Gainsbourg’s daring and controversial performances in Nymphomaniac and Antichrist. The ambiguity of the scene, both for Samba and for the audience, derives in part from the obvious instability of Alice’s character but also from a central ambiguity in Gainsbourg’s star persona which blends a strong sense of propriety with an often well-concealed tendency towards the perverse. Samba also blurs the line between character and actor through certain visual cues that link Alice with Gainsbourg and that include her physical appearance and bobo style. While in Samba she alters her appearance slightly for the role of Alice (skirts and heels are items rarely seen on Gainsbourg on- or off-screen), there are still discernible elements of Gainsbourg’s style in the film: the loose-fitting grey and charcoal longsleeve T-shirts, skinny jeans and oversized collared shirts with the top few buttons artfully undone. She also wears her

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own watch, a small Cartier mini baignoire yellow gold watch with black alligator band, a personal item she often wears in her films and is frequently photographed wearing. The watch is not only a signifier of Gainsbourg the star but also Alice’s social and ­economic position. In Samba, Gainsbourg also has her same trademark long brown hair, either worn down or tied back loosely. However, perhaps most important in terms of Gainsbourg’s appearance is her face. Indeed, the uniqueness of Gainsbourg’s face always comes through in her film roles, often overpowering the character. The deliberate choice of casting Gainsbourg permits Alice to emerge as a relatable character for a middle-class French audience: Samba’s situation is mediated through Alice but only in so far as we are also aware that we are watching Gainsbourg.

An indie icon in Hollywood: Independence Day: Resurgence

A United Nations research mission headed by scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) arrives at the site of a former alien battleground in Central Africa. During a tense exchange with an African warlord, a tall, willowy brunette with dishevelled hair, minimal makeup and an air of insouciance appears. ‘What are you doing here?’ Levinson says, ‘I’m so surprised to see you, a little bit.’ Anyone familiar with Gainsbourg from her previous arthouse film roles might find themselves asking the same question. However, their surprise would not be due to seeing a French star suddenly turn up in Hollywood. Indeed, there is a long tradition of this, from Annabella and Jean Gabin through to, more recently, Marion Cotillard, Juliette Binoche and Audrey Tatou. What is most surprising is that someone with Gainsbourg’s filmography should show up in a film like Resurgence. Indeed, Gainsbourg’s recent migration to the United States and her debut in Hollywood was a significant departure for an actress known outside of France primarily for her arthouse roles. This new type of role brought into play all the familiar aspects of her

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international persona (bilingual/­ bicultural background, cosmopolitan femininity, physical appearance and voice) while at the same time expanding her star text into a new transnational context. Andrea Bandhauer and Michelle Royer argue that the concept of the transnational ‘is very useful in providing an understanding of stars’ mobility and the cross-cultural dynamics of celebrity cultures’ (2). However, as they go on to point out, Hollywood ‘is still considered to be at the centre of the transnational mobility of stars’ (2). The same is true for Gainsbourg, whose role in Resurgence confirms this idea of Hollywood as the testing ground for the transnationality of stars, primarily because Hollywood ‘has played an essential role in manufacturing stardom across the world’ (Bandhauer and Royer 2). Gainsbourg is not the first French actor to move to the United States to make films in Hollywood; her case, however, is somewhat different from other French actors who do not possess a bilingual and bicultural background. One of the most successful French actresses of the 1930s, Annabella travelled to the United States in the early sound era. Similarly, Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier – two of France’s most successful émigré stars – established careers in the United States. Alastair Phillips traces the ‘radically varying degrees of success’ (85) that Boyer and Annabella achieved in Hollywood, indicating that national fame does not always translate to the international scene. During the Second World War, Jean Gabin, the leading French star of the 1930s, went to Hollywood for a brief period, joining French actors Michèle Morgan, Marcel Dalio and Jean-Pierre Aumont. Gabin made only two films, neither of which served to establish his fame in Hollywood. Vincendeau uses Gabin’s brief experience to ‘throw into sharp relief the contingent difficulties experienced by the great majority of French actors in Hollywood, who … never really made it in the USA’ (  Journeys of Desire 115). In the post-war period, French actors such as Louis Jourdan, Leslie Caron, Simone Simon and Simone Signoret also worked in Hollywood cinema with limited success.

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In her discussion of the phenomenon of French actors in 1990s Hollywood, Irène Bessière remarks: ‘Film historians have long noted “great” emigrations: the Italians for economic and/or political reasons; the Germans as a direct consequence of Nazism; and the continual toings and froings of the British. By contrast, French actors who moved to Hollywood, with the exception of the World War II years, did so for purely cinematic reasons’ (71). Bessière considers the cases of Juliette Binoche, Emmanuelle Béart, Sophie Marceau, Vincent Perez, Jean Reno, Guillaume Canet, Virginie Ledoyen, Géraldine Oailhas and Julie Delpy, and argues that while the French careers of these actors are more or less comparable, this is not true of their international work. For Bessière, ‘their experience of Hollywood has widely differed, they have not enjoyed the same success and their French careers have not benefitted to the same extent’ (72). For these stars, whether they are trying their luck in Hollywood because they were summoned there or came of their own volition, they ‘feel that going to Hollywood is an obligatory stepping-stone to an international career’ (Bessière 71). More recently, Marion Cotillard has had greater success in her transition to Hollywood: following her Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for La vie en rose (dir. Olivier Dahan, 2007), she was subsequently cast in Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010), Contagion (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2011), Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen, 2011) and The Immigrant (dir. James Gray, 2013). There is, however, another significant difference between Gainsbourg and these French expatriate stars. According to Vincendeau, stars ‘carry the “burden” of national identity, being constantly defined by their [nationality]’ (Stars and Stardom 31). Similarly, as William Brown points out in his article on Charlotte Rampling, ‘stars, and in particular female stars, begin to be conflated with their nationality when working abroad even when the role does not demand of them that they “represent” a certain nation/ nationality’ (53). Gainsbourg, like Rampling, does not ‘overtly represent’ one particular nationality, but rather possesses an

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‘outsider status’ that can be seen in her international roles (54). In a 2015 interview for French magazine Télérama, Gainsbourg remarked: Je me suis présentée à des castings, comme beaucoup d’acteurs français, mais je n’ai pas été pris. J’ai fait des essais pour des films aussi différents que The Tree of Life de Terrence Malick, l’adaptation du Da Vinci Code ou Le Tour du monde en 80 jours, avec Jackie Chan. Je trouve amusant de se frotter à ce genre de cinéma. J’ai failli jouer dans Terminator. J’étais choisie mais je me suis dégonflée. Le scenario était trop nul. Ils voulaient me faire signer en me promettant un meilleur rôle par la suite. Je me suis défilée et, à la place, j’ai fait le film de Lars von Trier Antichrist. (Qtd. in Rigoulet, ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’) (I showed up at castings, like a lot of French actors, but I was never chosen. I auditioned for films as different as The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, the adaptation of Da Vinci Code or Around the World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan. I find it amusing to cross swords with this type of cinema. I almost acted in Terminator. I was cast, but I got cold feet. The screenplay was terrible. They wanted me to sign on, promising me a better role later. I escaped and, instead, made the Lars von Trier film Antichrist.)

These remarks might initially indicate that perhaps Gainsbourg did, as Bessière has argued in relation to her compatriots, see working in Hollywood as a vital step in establishing an international career. However, her rejection of the role in Terminator despite the promise of a subsequent better role suggests that Gainsbourg was less interested in securing a Hollywood role for the sake of advancing her career than in the experience of acting in Hollywood itself. Murphy’s article for the New York Times, written prior to Gainsbourg’s shift to Hollywood and appropriately titled ‘Indifference and Whispers Prove Alluring’, is testament to Gainsbourg’s lack of commercial ambition in relation to Hollywood:

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Gainsbourg looked every bit the glamorous French star ready to seduce America. … But after Ms. Gainsbourg put in her obligatory 45 minutes on the red carpet, posing for photos and answering reporters, she turned to the film’s publicist and whispered, in her girlish voice, ‘May I go now? I want to get home with Joe’, her 3-month-old daughter. Her gentle bit of indifference not only explains her allure in France but underscores why she isn’t straining for greater recognition in the United States.

In Interview Magazine, Ehrlich remarks that Gainsbourg ‘has managed to avoid all of the ego-trappings of major stardom, instead working with a seriousness and purity that seem to belong to a different era’. This remark suggests Gainsbourg is ambitious more in terms of pushing herself as an actor than in advancing her career or pursuing higher paid roles. It may be argued that this is another factor that distinguishes Gainsbourg from other European actors who move to Hollywood: her status as fille de, her a priori status as a French celebrity, protects her from the vicissitudes of fame and wealth, allowing her to concentrate on the roles that she perceives as best providing her with a different acting experience. In other words, the exposure Hollywood provides was not the reason Gainsbourg sought the role in Resurgence. Following the death of her half-sister, photographer Kate Barry, Gainsbourg left Paris and moved her family to New York. In the press, her migration is represented as both exile and renaissance. Gainsbourg also speaks of enjoying her anonymity in New York: ‘j’arrive vraiment à oublier mon notoriété – je suis toujours surprise lorsqu’on me reconnaît. Quand ça arrive, les gens me parlent des films de Lars, pas de mes parents. Je ne suis pas du tout venue pour fuir leur célébrité, mais je découvre ce que c’est d’être la fille de personne’ (qtd. in Chayet) (I have really arrived at forgetting my notoriety – I am always surprised when someone recognises me. When that does happen, people speak to me about my films with Lars, not my parents. I didn’t at all come here to escape their celebrity, but I am discovering what it

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is to be the daughter of nobody). Gainsbourg’s surprise at being recognised as an indie film star contrasts with her experience of celebrity in France, where she is often approached in the street, an experience parodied by Attal in Ma femme est une actrice. In the English-language press, Gainsbourg is often described as an indie film icon and is best known for her roles in indieleaning films. While her foray into the Hollywood blockbuster may initially seem surprising, Gainsbourg’s shift from arthouse to blockbuster is not so unexpected when one considers her career up to this point. She seems equally at home acting in French comedies such as Prête-moi ta main and Ma femme est une actrice, in French dramas like L’un reste, l’autre part and 3 Cœurs, and thrillers such as Lemming and Persécution. Samba registered a shift towards more popular or mainstream cinema and prefigures her work in Resurgence. For her part Gainsbourg, who ‘never second-guessed starring in Resurgence’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: “Independence Day”’), has her own reasons for accepting a role in her first big studio production: ‘The big change (in today’s age) is TV. When I was 15, going to the cinema was a big deal, we used to go with friends every week. I mean, it was part of our culture. Today, my own children, they don’t go to the movies. So I think it’s great to have those kinds of films that make us go to the movies’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: “Independence Day”’). Gainsbourg’s choice to make a Hollywood blockbuster should also be viewed within the wider context of her evolving film career: ‘I think every experience now is becoming more special in the sense that I really know what I want as an actress. … I’m not career driven, but I know what I’m aiming for and it’s a little more precise, and that’s something I’ve been enjoying’ (‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: “Independence Day”’). In fact, the reasons she gives for appearing in Resurgence are the same as those she gives for Antichrist and Nymphomaniac: a challenge in terms of her metier as an actor. Gainsbourg remarks: ‘But that’s what my work’s about – I like to be able to go to those extremes. Even this film [Resurgence], it was an extreme – it was a ­completely new experience’ (qtd. in Alexander).

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The casting of Gainsbourg in Resurgence draws on three key elements of her appearance and performance style. First, her Frenchness, which, as Bessière points out, is one of the primary functions of French actors transplanted into Hollywood and includes ‘traditional stereotypes, such as arrogance and seduction’ (74). Second, her physical appearance, including her clothing, hair and makeup. Third, the particularity of her voice. Gainsbourg plays Dr Catherine Marceaux, a psychiatrist who investigates extraterrestrial phenomena. Her first appearance in the film is accompanied by the following exchange: Levinson: What are you doing here? … I’m so surprised to see you, a little bit. Marceaux: I’m a little surprised that you remember my name. Levinson: Hey, hey, come on let’s be professional. Marceaux: Well we both remember what happened last time we tried to be professional. Floyd: I’m sensing a palpable tension here. Levinson:  We’ve bumped into each other at a few conferences. Floyd: I bet you have.

This exchange quickly establishes the character of Catherine as both intellectual and sexy. Indeed, Catherine Marceaux belongs to a long line of stereotypical French women who qualify as the ‘thinking man’s’ sex symbol. Her precursors include Arletty and Juliette Gréco, as well as the intellectual brunettes of the French New Wave such as Jeanne Moreau and Anna Karina. This stereotype is confirmed at the end of the film, during an exchange between Catherine, David and his father. Just as Catherine is leaning in to kiss David, his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) says: Julius: Who are you? David never mentioned a beautiful woman in his life. David: Dad! Julius: I’m Julius. I’m his father. Catherine: Enchantée. I’m Catherine Marceaux.

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The use of ‘enchantée’ here is telling: nowhere else in the film has Catherine spoken French or even dropped French words into her dialogue, the standard signifier of Frenchness in Hollywood films. Nor has she spoken English with a French accent. Rather she uses the prim, public school accent for which she is best known on the international scene. The insertion of ‘enchantée’ into the dialogue underlines the fact that not only is David’s love interest mysterious but that she is French, which makes her doubly alluring. As Virginia M. Allen argues, there is a ‘profound Anglo-Saxon conviction that sexy … women are usually French, and as a corollary, most French women are sexy’ (viii). This is not the first time Gainsbourg’s Frenchness has been used to denote a sexy, smart and desirable woman. In Haynes’s I’m Not There, she plays Claire, the love interest of Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), and resorts, somewhat inconsistently, to a French accent. Hearing her speak for the first time, Robbie remarks: ‘You’re French! […] What, are you kidding? That’s perfect!’ As Larocca remarks of Gainsbourg: ‘She is very beautiful in the way that American women always want French women to be beautiful: no makeup, slightly careless, incredibly thin’ (‘62 Minutes’). In Resurgence, Catherine/Gainsbourg’s wardrobe also marks her out as French, or rather, as a specific image of contemporary French femininity: the bobo Parisienne. Catherine is dressed in a classic bobo style, replicating Gainsbourg’s personal style. She wears a loose-fitting stand-collared dark green blouse, a belted mid-length navy skirt and an oversized military parka. Her outfit is accessorised with a large satchel nonchalantly slung over her shoulder and a men’s watch. She wears her long, dark brown hair out loosely and has minimal makeup and unpainted lips. The utilitarian-chic skirt is reminiscent of those Gainsbourg wears in L’un reste, l’autre part, and she wears similar jackets in Prête-moi ta main and in advertising campaigns for Gerard Darel and Comptoir des Cotonniers. A loose-fitting blouse is a staple for Gainsbourg and forms part of her unofficial bobo uniform. Gainsbourg’s costume for Resurgence consists mainly of pieces

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from Swedish ready-to-wear label Acne, a brand favoured by indie-leaning celebrities, and Gainsbourg ‘worked closely with costume designer Lisy Christl to craft looks for her role’ (Shanahan). Of her on-screen style in the film, Gainsbourg states: ‘I don’t stray far from my casual personal style on camera’ (qtd. in Shanahan). Unlike the other characters, whose costumes include ‘futuristic suits and ranger boots’, Gainsbourg wanted Catherine’s look to be ‘feminine and relatable’ (Shanahan). However, more than her clothing it is her trademark loose tresses and her seemingly makeup-free face that distinguish Catherine as a chic bobo Parisienne and overdetermines the character with the star (see figure 12). As Chrisafis observes: ‘The thing about Gainsbourg is that whatever the role … it’s still always her face, her features that you’re looking at, her father’s jaw, the boyish smile, the quirky look’ (10). Gainsbourg’s voice also plays a significant role in establishing her star persona as international or cosmopolitan. In the case of French actors in Hollywood, Phillips and Vincendeau note that actors like Jean Gabin, Annabella and Alain Delon ‘floundered in Hollywood partly on account of accents that were discordant, faintly ridiculous, or simply difficult to understand’ (11). Unlike other French actors who have made forays into Englishlanguage cinema, Gainsbourg’s roles, and by extension her

12  With Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day: Resurgence (dir. Roland Emmerich, 2016, Twentieth Century Fox)

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identity, have not been limited by language or her tone of voice. Nor has she suffered any crises of identity directly linked to her nationality, as was often the case with French émigré actors who preceded her. Gabin, in particular, found that his identity as a Frenchman was compromised whenever he was required to act in English. As Vincendeau points out: By fusing anxieties over his performance in an unfamiliar language with the essence of his national identity, Gabin got to the heart of an issue affecting all émigré actors in Hollywood. Not only do they portray ‘foreign’ types more or less tightly connected to their original nationality, but in acting in a different language, their own relationship to this identity changes. (‘Not for Export’ 115)

Gainsbourg’s experience of English-language cinema is wholly different to Gabin’s. Speaking about her role in Resurgence, she remarked: ‘It was exciting because I’d seen the previous one and also just because I could be myself in that role. I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone else. I didn’t have to exaggerate. I could keep my English, sort of French accent’ (qtd. in Alexander). Nonetheless, Chrisafis points out that despite Gainsbourg’s ‘perfect bilingualism’, she does not feel completely at home with the English language, primarily because she feels she lacks vocabulary: She spoke French at home – her father didn’t speak English and Jane Birkin didn’t want to create some kind of secret language for her and the kids. Gainsbourg’s strange and wonderful English accent – somewhere between P. G. Wodehouse and estuary – comes from coaching for one of her early films, The Cement Garden. She refuses to change this accent – even in Melancholia where her sister, Kirsten Dunst, is incongruously American. (10)

In Resurgence, Gainsbourg’s accent is explained by the seemingly incidental line: ‘My mother lives in London.’ A similar

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explanation is given by Dawn (Gainsbourg) for her accent in the Australian film The Tree: ‘My mother was English … my father was French.’ The recourse both these films have to explaining her characters’ accents, in terms of parental lineage, underscores the blurring of star and role. The absence of an immediately identifiable accent and her excellent command of the English language – in contrast to other French actors – marks Gainsbourg out as simultaneously French and not French. Gainsbourg’s appearance in Resurgence was the result of two interrelated causes: on the one hand, her self-imposed exile to the United States; on the other, her ongoing project to pursue roles that extend the limits of her acting range and experience. Her forays into cinema both in and outside of France have helped create a persona for Gainsbourg that is at once typically French and transnational. Gainsbourg possesses what Brown in his analysis of transnational star Charlotte Rampling calls a ‘polysemic’ quality; that is, she is simultaneously French, nonFrench and, at times, English (55).

5 Transmedia stardom and celebrity

Despite the currency of the term, when applied to film stardom or celebrity ‘transmedia’ is not a new concept. Sarka Gmiterkova traces the origin of transmedia celebrity and stardom to the 1930s when a ‘carefully orchestrated’ star system first appeared: ‘Central to such scheme was a narrative dispersed across movies, promotion campaigns, and publicity, and which also influenced a portfolio of carefully selected products endorsed by the star’ (116). As Richard Dyer points out, all stars are essentially transmedia: ‘Star images are always extensive, multimedia, intertextual’ (Heavenly Bodies 3). For Dyer, a star persona is comprised of his or her films along with the concomitant promotion of those films such as ‘pin-ups, public appearances, studio hand-outs … as well as interviews, biographies and coverage in the press of the star’s doings and “private” life’ (Heavenly Bodies 2–3). Moreover, the construction of a star’s persona also depends largely on ‘the way the image is used in other contexts such as advertisements, novels, pop songs’ (Heavenly Bodies 3). In its current usage, however, the concept of transmedia also takes into account ‘the relationships between industries, texts, and audiences in the digital and information age’ and can ‘refer to the movement or relationality of a given text across media formats’ (Palmer 180). Stardom, according to Landon Palmer, provides a suitable critical framework for considering the ‘structuring correspondences between industries, as even star images that seemingly hold primacy within “one” medium (such as film stars) find their images re-produced in other media

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for promotion and discourse’ (181). Elizabeth Ellcessor argues that the ‘transmedia story’ of a star is fashioned through recurring ‘connections between [different] discursive sites’, the creation of which ‘involves entertainment industry professionals, corporate interests, and promotional labor by the stars themselves’ (46). Gainsbourg’s transmedia stardom can be tracked across three main discursive sites: film culture (most notably the Cannes Film Festival), fashion (including her status as style icon, muse to Nicolas Ghesquière and her appearance in the fashion press and in advertising campaigns), and music (her career as a recording artist and her recent foray into directing music videos).

Film culture

Perhaps the main site of Gainsbourg’s transmedia celebrity is the film festival circuit. As both a popular and critically acclaimed French actress and an international indie icon, Gainsbourg has been a guest at high-profile film festivals including Berlin, New York, Toronto, Tribeca and Venice. However, it is the Cannes Film Festival that has most shaped and exploited Gainsbourg’s star image and an examination of Gainsbourg’s appearances at Cannes will contribute to an understanding of both the role of the star at film festivals and of how film stars function within the broader ssphere of contemporary global celebrity. According to Morin, film festivals are both commercial and aesthetic phenomena, the function of which is to ‘commercialiser ce qui est esthétique, d’esthétiser ce qui est commercial’ (‘Notes’ 2279) (commercialise that which is aesthetic and to aestheticise that which is commercial). For Marijke de Valck, film festivals ‘function as sites of cultural legitimation’ (‘Fostering Art’ 100); they differ from the mainstream film industry, with its focus on the box office, in that they are a space where ‘filmmakers can acquire symbolic capital’ (‘Fostering Art’ 105). De Valck and Mimi Soeteman argue that festivals can add symbolic

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and cultural value in a number of ways but the ‘most striking is without doubt the bestowal of awards’ (‘“And the Winner Is”’ 293). While prizes are the ‘most tangible form of symbolic capital’ (de Valck, ‘Fostering Art’ 106), film festivals are about more than just prizes and awards: cultural legitimisation can also be achieved merely by a film being selected by a festival. However, not all festivals are equal in terms of the cultural recognition they offer: ‘The festival system is heavily tiered, and only a limited number of festivals have the authority to bestow globally recognized prestige. […] Winning an award at the Cannes film festival is the most prestigious honor a filmmaker can receive’ (de Valck, ‘Fostering Art’ 106). Films festivals in general, and Cannes in particular, are, above all, spectacles. In his 1955 essay, ‘Notes pour une sociologie du festival de Cannes’, Morin defined the film festival as the film world on parade: ‘II est bien connu que le véritable spectacle du Festival n’est pas celui qui se donne à l’intérieur, dans la salle de cinéma, mais celui qui se déroule à l’extérieur, autour de cette salle. A Cannes ce ne sont pas tant les films, c’est le monde du cinéma lui-même qui s’exhibe en spectacle’ (‘Notes’ 2273) (It is well known that the true spectacle of the Festival is not that which is given inside, in the cinema, but the one that takes place outside, around the cinema. At Cannes it is not so much the films, it is the world of cinema itself on parade). In discussing Cannes, Vanessa Schwartz makes the sociological distinction between the economic structure of the film industry and what she, following Morin, calls ‘the development of the star system as a symbolic order’ (It’s So French! 77). This symbolic order is developed primarily through ‘the connection between stars, photography, and film’ (It’s So French! 77) and is driven by the press or media. The press, according to Schwartz, represents Cannes as ‘an elite international gathering to which millions around the world were invited through the voyeuristic powers of the mass media’ (It’s So French! 77). There are, for Schwartz, four main aspects to a film festival that contribute to both the star system as a symbolic order and to the symbolic capital of

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the film industry in general: red-carpet events and photocalls, press conferences, prizes and scandals. One of the formal aspects of film festivals in which stars partake and which further help construct their symbolic image as ‘real’ people is the press conference. For Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong, the ‘most interesting aspect of a major festival press conference is its global dimension, with press as well as filmmakers from all over the world’ (25). It is at the press conference where the symbolic and the economic overlap, particularly because at these conferences, regardless of the location of the festival, English is the second language for stars and directors: ‘Film festivals cannot be separated from international business, especially a film business where English-speaking (Hollywood) films dominate the global market’ (Hing-Yuk Wong 25). Often an integral part of the press conference – but not restricted to it – is the festival scandal. Indeed, scandal is not something anathema to a festival like Cannes but an extension of it, falling as it does, perhaps incidentally, into the category of promotion of films, stars, directors and the festival itself. According to de Valck, Cannes uses scandals to ‘promote its own institution and guarantee its status as the most important international festival’ (‘Fostering Art’ 116). Thus, Andrew Sarris argues, ‘the worst of Cannes’ is ‘really the best of Cannes’, and that if it ‘were less a zoo and more an art gallery Cannes would be paradoxically less interesting even to people whose primary interest is ostensibly in the art of the film’ (30). Film serves largely to legitimate the presence of the star at a festival and Gainsbourg has attended red-carpet events, premieres, award ceremonies, photocalls and press conferences at Cannes in the capacity of actor, presenter, jury member, prize winner and unwilling participant in scandal. In May 2017, as part of the magazine’s coverage of the Cannes Film Festival for that year, Vanity Fair ran an article on Gainsbourg titled ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg Reflects on Cannes Controversy, Accolades, and Disappointments’, which demonstrated the important connection Gainsbourg has to Cannes. Gainsbourg most recently

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appeared at Cannes in 2019 to open the festival with Javier Bardem and to present Gaspar Noé’s Lux Æterna, in which she starred opposite Beatrice Dalle, out of competition. Prior to this she attended the 70th Festival in 2017 where she presented Les fantômes d’Ismaël out of competition for the opening night of the festival with co-stars Mathieu Almaric, Marion Cotillard and Louis Garrel; and the 67th Festival in 2014 to present Incompresa, directed by Asia Argento, which screened in the Un Certain Regard category. However, it was in 1986 that Gainsbourg, aged fourteen, made her first appearance at Cannes to open the 39th Festival alongside ninety-four-year-old French actor and director Charles Vanel. She next attended Cannes in 1990 to present the film Il sole anche di notte out of competition at the 43rd Festival. The role of the star in festivals often extends beyond photocalls and promotion; they also ‘participate in juries and other formal institutional events of the festival’ (Hing-Yuk Wong 8–9). As Hing-Yuk Wong notes, the jury at Cannes is ‘an important institution that adds prestige to a festival. Its members’ prominence guarantees the quality of the prizes the festival presents’ (23). In 2001 Gainsbourg was a member of the jury of the 54th Festival, presided over by Liv Ullmann. Acting as jury member increases the visibility of the star. It was as jury member that Gainsbourg attended a number of premieres and red-carpet events dressed by Nicolas Ghesquière of Balenciaga. This marked an important stage in her collaboration with the designer, who would go on to dress her for subsequent Cannes appearances. Following her role as jury member, Gainsbourg’s next appearance at Cannes was in 2005 when, alongside co-star Charlotte Rampling, she presented Lemming in competition at the 58th Festival. It was, however, her appearance at the 62nd Festival in 2009 that marked the high point of her association with Cannes, when she presented Antichrist in competition alongside director von Trier and co-star Willem Dafoe. Gainsbourg won the Prix d’interprétation féminine for her role as She in the

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film. Looking back at the 2009 Festival, Gainsbourg recalled how apprehensive she was before the screening of the film: ‘For Antichrist, I was really nervous about people booing, because my mother had gone for a film 20 years earlier and had a terrible time with people booing, whistling, so I knew that in Cannes people can get aggressive. I thought we’d get the worst, but they were very respectful. I was even a little disappointed!’ (Danger Mouse). Gainsbourg saw her award at Cannes as an opportunity to increase both her visibility and viability as a lead actress, particularly with other directors (Bellengier 251). A festival prize is widely regarded as a hallmark of quality and winning brought Gainsbourg much cultural recognition and ascribed value to her artistic work as an actress. It also led to more media exposure. Moreover, the fact that she won it for Antichrist, a film that provoked much scandal at Cannes and in subsequent press, further increased her media exposure. While the kind of symbolic capital an award at Cannes brings an actor may be difficult to quantify, following her award for Antichrist Gainsbourg was cast in films by several renowned directors including Wim Wenders, Arnaud Desplechin, Benoît Jacquot and Asia Argento; starred opposite Omar Sy in Samba; and was cast in US productions including Independence Day: Resurgence and Norman (dir. Joseph Cedar, 2016). She also continued working with von Trier. Following her win in 2009, Gainsbourg presented The Tree out of competition on the closing night at the 63rd Festival in 2010 and also presented the Palme d’Or to Apichatpong Weerasethakul for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. In 2011 Gainsbourg presented Melancholia in competition at the 64th Festival. It was at the press conference for Melancholia that Gainsbourg became an unwilling participant in one of Cannes’ most controversial moments when von Trier, seated beside Gainsbourg on the panel, referred to himself as a ‘Nazi’ and claimed to ‘understand Hitler’. Charlotte Higgins described the aftermath of the press conference in the following way: ‘The organisers of the festival issued a statement saying they had been “disturbed”

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by the remarks, that he had apologised, and that the festival would never allow the event to become the forum for such pronouncements’. Von Trier was subsequently banned from the Festival with some suggestion that his comments had ruined the chances of Melancholia winning the Palme d’Or that year, which was awarded instead to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011).1 In response to whether she thinks von Trier’s comments would affect people’s perception of Melancholia, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘I hope not. He did a stupid thing, but it didn’t shock me because that’s who he is. … It didn’t affect the film in France when it came out. But we all wished we could have avoided it’ (qtd. in M. Siegel). It was Gainsbourg’s lack of reaction to von Trier’s remarks during the press conference that led to speculation about her complicity in or indeed tacit agreement with them. Gainsbourg accounted for this in the following way: ‘I didn’t react because it was so gradual. It was easy to react afterwards and say how stupid he was. I wish I’d said something at the time’ (qtd. in M. Siegel). Festival scandals come in different guises. In 2012 it was not Gainsbourg’s presence but her conspicuous absence from Cannes that sparked controversy, particularly as her new film Confession of a Child of the Century was presented in the Un Certain Regard category. After comments made by her co-star Pete Doherty – comments strongly denied by Gainsbourg – there was speculation in the press of an affair between the two stars. Gainsbourg accounted for her absence by evoking the touring schedule for her latest album Stage Whisper, claiming that it had nothing to do with avoiding Doherty (‘Charlotte manque’). While film ostensibly justifies the appearance of the star at a festival, media focus turns more often to the red carpet. As Christine Blumauer and Jérôme Segal point out, the official selection of films for competition at Cannes ‘guarantees that In 2018 von Trier was welcomed back to Cannes for the 71st Festival to present his latest film The House that Jack Built, indicating the reciprocal relationship between the film festival and its scandals.

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stars will show up on the red carpet and provides the glamorous side of Cannes with its international reputation as a major official event’ (157). Hing-Yuk Wong argues that it is the red-carpet event, ‘where the stars greet the press and their fans and are photographed before they enter the cinema’, that has ‘become the iconic image of film festivals in general’ (26). For de Valck, stars appear on the red carpet not only to promote their films, but to ‘add glamour’ to the festival (‘Fostering Art’ 108). While Gainsbourg’s status as a style icon is based primarily on her everyday wardrobe, it was Ghesquière who was responsible for the edgy, couture outfits she wears on the red carpet at Cannes: ‘I was part of the festival jury and needed a wardrobe—10 days of clothes. You need something that puts a little distance between what you really are and what you want to show; it’s a shield, a protection’ (Bullock). According to Church-Gibson, since the 1990s an interest in how stars dress in their films has been surpassed by an interest in what they wear off-screen. More significantly, in the twentyfirst century some film stars can ‘generate intense media interest and function as fashion icons quite independently of their on-screen roles, whereas traditionally their fans would go to the cinema to watch their films’ (Church-Gibson, Fashion 53). This represents a ‘radical and recent change in the “star system”’ whereby coverage of the star’s outfits in the press and on the Internet is arguably more significant as a site of study than the films themselves (Fashion 53). Gainsbourg’s collaborations with Ghesquière are in stark contrast to the style Gainsbourg adopts in her films and that which she embraces off the red carpet, at photocalls and press conferences. To these more ‘informal’ occasions, Gainsbourg imports her own brand of understated Parisian chic to the festival. In particular the 2009 festival demonstrates well the two ‘looks’ for which Gainsbourg is best known. On the red carpet for the premiere of Antichrist she wore a Balenciaga black, white and grey drape detail leopard print dress with a hemline falling to mid-thigh, accessorised with chunky black stiletto heels. Similarly, for the award ceremony in

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which she received the Prix d’interprétation féminine she wore a Balenciaga gold studded sleeveless halter-neck black dress with mid-thigh hemline with black strappy Balenciaga heels. For the Antichrist photocall, however, she was dressed down in slim-­ fitting dark grey Notify jeans, a white round-neck T-shirt, a black leather bomber jacket and light brown suede camarguaises ankle boots; a look that constituted her signature style of this period and which has been described as relaxed or casual elegance, or ‘effortless chic’ (Baker). One example of how Gainsbourg’s personal style contrasts with that of the more formal ensembles of other actresses at Cannes photocalls is the look she chose for the photocall for Melancholia in 2011, which she attended alongside co-star Kirsten Dunst. Dunst wore a vibrant marigold-coloured mousseline dress with ruched bodice and a loosely pleated skirt that fell below the knee by fashion label Chloé and metallic pale-gold Jimmy Choo heels; Gainsbourg, however, opted for a more relaxed look in a Balenciaga black shirt dress with an above-the-knee hemline with the sleeves casually rolled up and chunky Balenciaga heeled sandals, and nonchalantly posed with her hands in her pockets. The respective hair and makeup styles of the two actresses also underscore their difference. Dunst’s look was the quintessence of afternoon Hollywood glamour with her styled white blonde hair and deep-pink lip-shade, while Gainsbourg was the epitome of relaxed Parisian chic with her makeup-free face and her long brown hair worn out and falling messily about her shoulders. As one fashion journalist remarked: ‘She’s a walking antithesis to the immaculately styled, bronzed, and polished celebrities who’ve overrun today’s red carpets’ (‘The Charlotte Gainsbourg Look Book’). Fashion and style are just one aspect of a star’s physicality at the festival. Commenting on photographs of stars at Cannes, Morin identified four key poses and attitudes assumed by stars. Although written over sixty years ago, these four poses persist today, and all apply to Gainsbourg directly. The first typical classic pose expresses ‘la plénitude et la joie de vivre à la limite de l’extase; mythiquement consubstantielles à l’état

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de vedette’ (‘Notes’ 2275) (plenitude and joie de vivre on the verge of ecstasy, mythically consubstantial to the state of the star) and is generally conveyed in the stars’ radiant smiles, such as photographs of Gainsbourg sharing a laugh with co-stars Louis Garrel and Marion Cotillard at the premiere of Les fantômes d’Ismaël. The second classic comportment is ‘les poses amicales, enlacées et tendres entre vedettes’ (‘Notes’ 2275) (friendly, entwined and tender poses among stars), such as Gainsbourg and Laetitia Casta each with an arm around the other, as they posed together at the Women in Motion Awards Dinner at the 70th Festival in 2017. A third type of pose ‘se situe dans la ligne archétypique de la Vierge à l’enfant: on nous montre la vedette … embrassant une petite fille, vedette elle-même de préférence’ (‘Notes’ 2276) (is in line with the archetypal Madonna and Child: we are shown the star […] embracing a little girl preferably a star herself). Following her appearance at Cannes for Antichrist, Gainsbourg returned in 2010 to present The Tree and, as if in a deliberately recuperative gesture (the previous year Gainsbourg had appeared in a film in which she played a mother haunted by the image of infanticide), was photographed with young co-star Morgana Davies, alternately holding her hand while tenderly looking down at her, bending down to greet her, and with the little girl’s head resting on Gainsbourg’s arm. Similarly, at the photocall for Incompresa at the 2014 Festival, Gainsbourg was photographed embracing her young co-star Giulia Salerno while the young actress tightly wraps her arms around Gainsbourg’s waist and nestles her head into her chest. These photos, according to Morin, reveal to us ‘la richesse d’âme de la Star’ (the richness of the star’s soul) and that she is ‘toujours prête à verser le lait de la tendresse maternelle sur tout ce qui est innocent, faible et désarmé’ (‘Notes’ 2276) (always ready to pour the milk of maternal tenderness on all that is innocent, weak and disarmed). The fourth pose or comportment Morin calls ‘comic or piquant’ (‘Notes’ 2276) and although Gainsbourg herself has rejected the ‘cirque’ (circus) aspect of Cannes, claiming

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that it is not her ‘truc’ (thing) (qtd. in Bellengier 185), she nonetheless has been photographed sharing lighter, comic moments with co-stars. In 2009 a bemused Gainsbourg was snapped with a smiling Willem Dafoe patting von Trier’s stomach. In 2011, in what is most probably a reference to the previous photograph, a smiling von Trier pats the pregnant stomach of Gainsbourg as they attend the Melancholia photocall at the Palais des Festivals. According to Morin, these photos also humanise the stars while at the same time i­nviting us ‘à considérer que la vie des vedettes est follement amusante, parsemée de gamineries charmantes’ (‘Notes’ 2276) (to consider that stars’ lives are wildly amusing, peppered with charming playfulness). Film festivals like Cannes are as much dependent on stars as stars are on the publicity and coverage festivals provide. The relationship between the star and the festival may be said to be symbiotic in that there is a mutual dependence that transcends strictly filmic considerations. Festivals use stars to promote not so much films as the festivals themselves, and stars appear at festivals to increase their visibility and marketability as stars. Selection and prizes may appear to be the raison d’être for festivals – and indeed these things provide stars and directors with a certain symbolic capital that is often distinct from economic considerations. However, even for festivals as prominent as Cannes, awards ceremonies are often overshadowed by otherwise peripheral events like press conferences, the red carpet and photocalls. Gainsbourg’s star persona fits well with a festival like Cannes, primarily because this persona evolved not only out of her film roles but also out of public appearances and the press. As a global style icon and both a French/international and mainstream/arthouse star, Gainsbourg brings a very particular form of cultural capital to Cannes, while the festival reciprocally provides her with a certain symbolic capital in the form of awards, jury membership and unscripted scandal. Gainsbourg at Cannes contributes to our understanding of how film stars function within the global sphere of celebrity because her star

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persona possesses the kind of transmediality (film, fashion, press, scandal) perfectly suited to the festival circuit. As Morin points out, everything at Cannes works to ‘give’ us the image of the star: ‘Donner l’image est le terme exact, car il s’agit de poser, non tant pour le public de Cannes que pour l’univers entier par le truchement de la photographie, de la télévision et des actualités’ (‘Notes’ 2274) (Giving the image is the exact term because it is about posing, not so much for the public of Cannes as for the whole universe through the medium of photography, television and news).

Fashion

Gainsbourg is frequently described in the press as a style icon and her look is alternately referred to as chic, Parisian chic, casual chic, utilitarian chic, natural and effortless, and understated cool. Tim Murphy describes her style as ‘a study in understated elegance’. Lauren McCarthy claims that Gainsbourg is ‘a master of modern day French girl style’. Zee and Bullock describe Gainsbourg as a ‘fashion muse to indie-leaning women around the globe’ (205). Buck remarks that ‘[m]inimalism is too long a word to describe her style. Until she was nine, her mother dressed her as a boy. … The prepubescent androgyny remains in her narrow silhouette and her diffidence about fashion. She has two trench coats that she uses “like security blankets”’ (287). Gainsbourg is known for her penchant for an everyday uniform of jeans, T-shirt, boots and a denim jacket or blazer. In an interview in 2010, she stated: ‘I wear the same things again and again: the same pair of boots I bought in London and the same pair of jeans from Notify. I just change T-shirts’ (qtd. in ‘My London’ 42). Writing on how French women are renowned for a certain sartorial je ne sais quoi, Georgina Safe remarks that Gainsbourg, alongside her mother and her half-sister Lou Doillon, belongs to a category of Parisian women who ‘shrug up the sleeves of their blazers and trench coats and wear them

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over casual T-shirts with jeans […] in a fascinating melange of “I just threw this on” and sophisticated sex appeal’ (4). Gainsbourg’s significance as a style icon is also based on her minimal use of makeup and unkempt hair, both recognisable features of the bobo look. In an article titled ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Unconventional Beauty: How to Work the Red Carpet Like a True Parisienne’, Sophie Schulte-Hillen ­encourages readers to copy Gainsbourg’s ‘gorgeously unfussy appearance’ at the photocall for 3 Cœurs at the Venice Film Festival: With her trademark long, windblown layers and wispy, eyelash-skimming fringe, the Franco-English actress ­ looked like she had spent the morning strolling the Grand Canal, then quickly raked her fingers through her hair, dabbed on some moisturizer and dashed out the door. Her glowing skin and rumpled hair made a neat counterpart to her sleek Anthony Vaccarello asymmetric leather skirt and black sweater, showing that if there’s one thing to be learned from French style, it’s that there’s beauty in simplicity.

While contributing to her effortless everyday style, Gainsbourg’s minimal makeup and unkempt hair also provide a strong complement to the edgy couture outfits she wears, includ­ ing those designed by Anthony Vaccarello and most notably Ghesquière. Gainsbourg’s status as a style icon is not, however, only due to her own personal wardrobe preferences. She is also considered the muse of Ghesquière, creative director of Paris fashion house Louis Vuitton since 2013 and former creative director of the Paris fashion house Balenciaga from 1997 to 2012. Since at least 2001, when Ghesquière dressed her for Cannes, Gainsbourg has regularly worn Ghesquière creations on the red carpet and appeared in advertisements for both Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. A key difference between the Gainsbourg/ Ghesquière collaboration and other iconic, longstanding ­couturier/actress affiliations (such as Catherine Deneuve and Yves Saint Laurent in which the couturier designed outfits

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for the actress both on- and off-screen) is that Ghesquière has neither provided nor designed costumes for Gainsbourg’s film roles. Rather, Gainsbourg wears Ghesquière off-screen, demonstrating how film and fashion converge in the off-screen spectacle of red-carpet events such as award ceremonies, film festivals and film premiers. Yet, despite her association with Ghesquière and designer labels Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, Gainsbourg’s status as style icon rests less on her connection to couture than on her everyday uniform. It is this everyday look that most closely resembles the costumes her characters wear in her films. Gainsbourg’s status as style icon and affiliation with couture has facilitated what Pam Cook elsewhere calls ‘commodity stardom’ (4). According to Cook, the commodity star ‘undertakes a range of marketing activities including sponsorship, advertising and product endorsements’ (93). The publicity commodity stars generate encompasses ‘multiple outlets such as the press, magazines, film, television, the internet, and live appearances’ (93). As the face of the ‘Balenciaga Paris’ fragrance, Gainsbourg was featured in print advertisements which appeared in the press, in magazines, on the Internet, on billboards and at perfume counters in department stores. She also appeared in a short film with Ghesquière in June 2010, demonstrating the way that, as Cook points out, commercials ‘can be regarded as short films’ (94) and short films can ipso facto sometimes be regarded as commercials. Divided into five episodes, titled ‘La Rencontre’, ‘Le Parfum’, ‘La Peau’, ‘Le Patio’ and ‘La Nature Morte’, the film tells the story of the Balenciaga fragrance. The episodes consist of fragments of scenes and photographs of Gainsbourg and Ghesquière shot in black and white and accompanied by a voiceover of the pair discussing the perfume and their working relationship. An English-language version with subtitles was simultaneously released to reach an ostensibly global audience. These episodes have the glossy aesthetic of a fashion shoot and are an extension of the black-and-white photograph of Gainsbourg by acclaimed American fashion photographer Steven Meisel used for the print advertisements for the fragrance. The photograph

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shows Gainsbourg seated before a small pond in what appears to be an opulent Spanish-style patio, legs crossed, elbows resting on her knees, wearing only a lace slip, with her trademark long brown hair falling messily over her shoulders. In this photograph, attributes of Gainsbourg’s persona are brought into play: the slight rolling of the shoulders, a determined gaze fixing the camera, a face that is unreadable. It is a mix of the contradictory elements of timidity and confidence, of daring and reticence. It is these contradictory aspects of her persona that Ghesquière had in mind when choosing Gainsbourg as the face of his perfume. As Ghesquière remarks in the film: ‘With Charlotte, I wanted to draw on this sensitivity, her strength at the same time, but also this extreme sensitivity.’ The setting of the photograph, with its pre-Raphaelite aesthetic of waterlilies and the nymph motif, also establishes Gainsbourg as an ethereal, somewhat other-worldly figure of unconventional beauty. According to Alyxandra Vesey, star fragrances ‘function as products of transmedia’ and advance stars’ narratives ‘through brand cultivation and extension. Yet they also serve a deliberately commercial function as a celebrity intertext’ (996). While Balenciaga ‘Paris’ is not a star fragrance in the same way intended by Vesey (examples of which include fragrances by Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj) there is nonetheless in the Balenciaga campaign reciprocal and intertextual elements that both utilise and further develop the narrative of Gainsbourg’s celebrity. Gainsbourg’s song ‘Master’s Hands’, from her album IRM, released the year previous to the Balenciaga campaign, plays on the soundtrack to the short film, affording Gainsbourg the opportunity for cross-promotion. In this way, by connecting her persona with consumer goods, Gainsbourg demonstrates how stars associate their personal brand ‘with another in a mutual self-promotional exchange through which both expect to gain increased visibility and financial rewards’ (Cook 93–4). In ‘Transmedia Music: The Values of Music as a Transmedia Asset’, Paola Brembilla writes: ‘although the idea of a transmedia project can be initiated by one industry, it becomes a sort of

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ecosystem that breaks down hierarchies, blurring the boundaries between the central text … and its transmedia extensions’ (88). The use of Gainsbourg’s music for the Balenciaga campaign also demonstrates the way in which music is a particularly effective ‘transmedia asset on which cultural industries can capitalize in different ways’ (Brembilla 88). While some celebrities, according to Cook, ‘participate regularly in selling products’, others are ‘judicious in choosing brands with which to affiliate and many do not take part in any at all. The chosen brand generally conforms to the values represented by the star persona’ (94). This is certainly the case with Gainsbourg, who is very selective when it comes to which brands she chooses to work with. In addition to lending her image to Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton and, more recently, Yves Saint Laurent, Gainsbourg has collaborated with only three select ready-to-wear labels, a move which somewhat paradoxically suits her personal style and ethos better than her association with couture. On her decision to represent a ready-to-wear label, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘Je n’ai pas cherché à l’être, mais j’y pense. Ce qui est délicat, c’est de choisi la bonne marque … parce qu’il faut trouver un produit qui vous correspondre’ (qtd. in Bellengier 437) (I did not seek to be one [a brand ambassador], but I am thinking about it. The trick is choosing the right brand … because you have to find a product that corresponds to who you are). It was not until 2003 that Gainsbourg first lent her image to a label: French ready-to-wear brand Gerard Darel. The Darel campaigns featuring Gainsbourg lasted some five years and resonated with its target market, leading to significantly increased sales for the brand. In turn, Darel paid Gainsbourg handsomely, which allowed her to keep her father’s house in rue de Verneuil which at the time she was going to have to reluctantly sell (Bellengier 438). The deal with Darel also gave Gainsbourg a modicum of freedom to choose her film roles, something she has in common with other indie actresses and style icons like Chloë Sevigny. Gainsbourg collaborated with the brand a second time in 2015 and said of her reunion with brand founder

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Danielle Darel: ‘Ces retrouvailles m’ont fait plaisir. Que ce soit avec Nicolas Ghesquière … ou avec elle, les liens sont avant tout personnels’ (qtd. in Bellengier 448) (This reunion made me happy. Whether with Nicolas Ghesquière … or with her, the ties are above all personal). Gainsbourg explained her fidelity to the brand in terms of its history as a family brand. The Darel campaigns also gave Gainsbourg the opportunity to work with celebrated fashion photographers such as Peter Linbergh and Mario Testino, disseminating iconic images of the actress in magazines, billboards and shop windows, including a large two-window display in the Darel store in Saint-Germain-­desPrés, Gainsbourg’s own neighbourhood. The influence of Gainsbourg’s personal style on fashion was further strengthened by her foray into designing. She collaborated on a collection with Los Angeles-based cult denim brand Current/Elliott, which debuted in July 2014 at Colette in Paris, Maxfield in Los Angeles and on net-a-porter.com. Marshall describes the collection as a ‘streamlined capsule’ consisting of skinny jeans and roomy T-shirts, which are ‘tomboyish, with equal dashes of nerd and rock star’ and remarks that ‘if they look like the kind of stuff an understated French actress with intellectual pursuits might wear, that’s because they are’ (198). Gainsbourg described her inspiration for the collection as follows: ‘In making this line, the criteria were really simple: what I like and what I wear. I wanted basic clothes, not too much fantasy’ (qtd. in Marshall 198). Her film roles also influenced her designs and notably Gainsbourg included a marinière inspired by the one she wore in L’Effrontée (Marshall 198). It is a significant item of clothing and one with which Gainsbourg is irrevocably associated: as Buck points out, it was when wearing this ‘striped sailor sweater in L’effrontée’ that Gainsbourg ‘became famous’ (287). Writing in the New York Times, Erica M. Blumenthal remarks that the Current/Elliott collection reflects ‘the prevailing perception about the strenuously edited French wardrobe, with its combination of unfussy staples and just-loud-enough statement pieces. There are sharp blazers

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13  3 Cœurs (dir. Benoît Jacquot, 2014, Rectangle Productions)

and raw denim jeans, which, worn together, is very much Ms. Gainsbourg’s look, and layering knits and cotton shirting to mix in.’ It is a style very similar to Gainsbourg’s own on- and off-screen look and indeed closely resembles the style of Sylvie (Gainsbourg) in 3 Cœurs, released the same year as the Current/ Elliott collection. In Jacquot’s film, Gainsbourg epitomises the effortless chic of the bobo, wearing oversized shirts, straight leg jeans, loose chinos, a fisherman’s sweater or chunky knit cardigans and a dark overcoat with padded shoulders (see figure 13). Following her collaboration with Current/Elliott, Gainsbourg lent her image to French ready-to-wear label Comptoir des Cotonniers for its twentieth anniversary in 2015. She was the perfect choice for a brand that, according to Kennedy, ‘typifies French insouciance’. The campaign features Gainsbourg and her daughter Alice Attal photographed in the streets of Paris, drawing on another prominent element of Gainsbourg’s persona: family. One image features Gainsbourg enveloping her daughter in her overcoat in a maternal gesture, accompanied by the tagline ‘20 ans d’amour, 20 ans de style’. There is a strong visual parallel between Gainsbourg and her daughter, who possesses the rangy frame and strong nose of her mother. Indeed, the ad campaign draws heavily on the Gainsbourg pedigree: As a family name, Gainsbourg sums up everything chic and cool about the notion of Parisian life since the late

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1960s … Now aged 44, Ms. Gainsbourg is photographed for the new Comptoir Des Cotonniers fall campaign alongside her equally enigmatic daughter, Alice Attal. Francophiles may share in a moment here, of ‘What?’ when they see the images. It seems like five minutes since Charlotte the child was photographed with her parents … in any number of fabulous, Boho French scenes. The Comptoir des Cotonniers images of Ms. Gainsbourg and her daughter perfectly conjure those misty, merging into sunlit mornings, coffee aromas and sparkling, lamplit evenings fall in Paris is famous for. (Kennedy)

Of working with her daughter, Gainsbourg remarked: ‘J’ai commencé à travailler exactement au même âge, 12 ans. C’est en quelque sorte son premier boulot, et j’étais fière de l’accompagner’ (Bellengier 446) (I started working at exactly the same age, twelve years old. It’s sort of her first job, and I was proud to accompany her). Jane Birkin even came along to the shoot, making it a real family affair. It was not just Gainsbourg’s sartorial choices that inspired collaborations in the fashion world. Her trademark minimal makeup look was harnessed by French cosmetic company Nars in 2017 when she was invited to collaborate with founder François Nars on a makeup range. Kelly Baker writes that Nars is ‘the beauty brand of choice for high-fashion, forwardthinking, cool chicks’ and that therefore the collaboration with Gainsbourg ‘who is all that and more’ makes ‘perfect sense’. Similarly, Lisa Niven-Phillips writes: The concept of ‘French-girl beauty’ is one much discussed in the hair and makeup industry, but how to create a product range which perfectly encapsulates that elusive brand of insouciant Parisian chic? The answer: ask a French girl, which is exactly what makeup brand Nars has done via its upcoming collaboration with Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Released in April 2017, the collection comprised fifteen pieces including ‘a barely-there face tint and sheered-out cream blush

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that befits Gainsbourg’s uniquely minimal makeup aesthetic’ (Hou). The Nars collaboration again drew on Gainsbourg’s personal life with each product carrying the name of a family member or symbolic location connected with them. One velvet duo eye shadow is called ‘Rue Allent’ which, as Gainsbourg explains, ‘is a little street close to my father’s house where we used to walk our dog. It’s a tiny street so nobody really knows about it’ (qtd. in Hou). Another is called ‘Old Church Street’ and is named after the street of her maternal grandparent’s house in Chelsea where she stayed as a child. Gainsbourg also named lip and cheek tints after her daughters and mother, Alice, Jo and Jeannette, respectively: ‘I didn’t want to call it Jane. But Jeannette – my father would call her that’ (qtd. in Hou). The fashion press is perhaps the key site in which Gainsbourg’s distinct commodity stardom is developed, particularly through features in high-end publications like Vogue Paris, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar whose readership is interested in both culture and style. Significant in this aspect is Gainsbourg’s appointment as guest editor for Vogue Paris on two separate occasions. In 2007 Gainsbourg was invited by then editor Carine Roitfeld to guest edit the December 2007/ January 2008 edition. The cover, featuring Gainsbourg in a Ghesquière-for-Balenciaga back-pleat jacket in hand-painted blistered silk and matching miniskirt, was photographed by Craig McDean. It carried the title ‘Au charme et caetera’, a reference to her father’s song ‘Aux armes etc.’, with Gainsbourg’s signature underneath. In 2018 Gainsbourg was again invited, along with her mother and half-sister Lou Doillon, by current editor Emmanuelle Alt to guest co-edit the December 2018/ January 2019 edition. The cover features a black-and-white family portrait of the three women by Lachlan Bailey and bears the title ‘Noël en famille: Jane, Charlotte, Lou: Le clan Birkin’. In the editorial for the edition, Alt writes that these women are ‘incarnations du féminin moderne en jean, smoking, T-shirt et cheveux au vent. … Rien d’étonnant à ce que des millions de femmes ­veuillent leur ressembler’ (56) (embodiments of

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modern femininity in jeans, tuxedo, T-shirt and the wind in her hair … No wonder millions of women want to be like them). Writing on the effect of the star cover image and byline in general, Cook argues that they ‘entice consumers to buy the magazine in order to enjoy looking at the star and to possess her image’ and that the ‘illusion of access to inside knowledge and possession of [a star’s] image promised by such coverage sells magazines and is a primary mechanism for acquiring maximum public attention for the star’ (83). Commenting on the phenomenon of guest editorships of Vogue Paris in particular, Larocca writes that these are bestowed on ‘cool girls of the moment … who post endless photos of themselves and their skinny friends and the details of their lives – lives in which such mundanities as medicine cabinets and grocery lists are shown to be far more glamorous than your own’ (‘Anti-Anna’). Both editions contain just such ‘medicine cabinets’ featuring beauty and other apothecarial products supposedly favoured by Gainsbourg (makeup, tea, candles, etc.), with the 2018/2019 edition including a feature on denim, tips on how to deal with ageing and coups de cœur culturels such as playlists and recommended films, books and exhibitions. Larocca points out that, unless they are models, the cover girls of Vogue Paris need not be ‘typically pretty’. Gainsbourg, according to Larocca, is ‘somewhat jolie laide, with a long, narrow face and sad eyes’ that sets her alongside the likes of other non-model guest editors such as Sofia Coppola and Jeanne Moreau (‘Anti-Anna’). According to Cook, the quality fashion shoot ‘gives prominence to renowned photographers, designers and brand names. Despite their commercial motivations, a high level of artistry, craft and theatrical display is apparent in the shoots’ (84). The fashion shoot for the 2007/2008 edition of Vogue Paris features five quality photographs of Gainsbourg collected under the title ‘La science du rêve’, a reference to Michel Gondry’s film of the same name in which Gainsbourg starred in 2006. The shoot was styled by Roitfeld and photographed by Craig McDean. The text accompanying the images reads:

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On la (re)connaît en jean et santiags, elle sait aussi jouer le jeu d’une nuit sophistiquée, portée par l’excentricité créative des nouvelles robes du soir. Charlotte Gainsbourg se plaît à changer de rôle. En femme de la nuit, elle devient femme fatale. Un clin d’œil à sa mère, Jane Birkin, qui posait régulièrement pour Vogue en tenues de soirée. (Vogue Paris, no. 883: 199) (We know and recognise her in jeans and cowboy boots, she also knows how to play a sophisticated night game, fuelled by the creative eccentricity of the latest evening dresses. Charlotte Gainsbourg likes to change roles. As a woman of the night, she becomes a femme fatale. A nod to her mother, Jane Birkin, who regularly posed for Vogue in evening wear.)

The 2007 shoot is somewhat uncharacteristic for Gainsbourg. It features highly stylised photographs of Gainsbourg against a dark background in opulent evening dresses arranged in such a way that they ride up, exposing her thighs clad in garter belts, suspenders and sheer stockings. In spite of the clothing and poses, the overall effect is not so much erotic as it is awkward and stagey, a clearly ill-at-ease Gainsbourg gazing wistfully into the distance or staring down the camera with her trademark defiant gaze. The reference is not only to Birkin’s fashion shoots for Vogue; it also cites Francis Giacobetti’s provocative photo shoot of Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg for the December 1974 edition of Lui Magazine. However, Birkin’s sixties siren does not translate well into the figure of her daughter; something in Gainsbourg’s persona undermines the mise en scène of these images. For one thing, Gainsbourg has never conveyed eroticism or seduction corporeally, as Birkin does with ease. It is not the body that captivates in these photographs. The viewer is drawn to the face, the jaw, the nose, the eyes; everything which when taken together forms the image of Gainsbourg as an atypical beauty. The attempt to transform her into a fatal ‘woman of the night’ fails. By contrast, the fashion shoot for the 2018/2019

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edition of Vogue Paris features nine black-and-white photographs of Gainsbourg by Lachlan Bailey titled simply ‘Charlotte’. The shoot was styled by Vogue Paris fashion director Aleksandra Woroniecka and marks a return to the Gainsbourg of a more recognisable everyday style: jeans, Converse sneakers, leather jacket, overcoat, blazers, sparingly mixed with a few high-end pieces by Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. In stark contrast to the more polished look of the blow-waved curls and injudicious makeup of the Roitfeld/McDean shoot, Gainsbourg wears her hair out and wears virtually no makeup. If the comparison with Birkin fails to convince, a photo shoot for the US edition of Vanity Fair in 2017 takes a more effective comparative approach, ranging Gainsbourg alongside her contemporary French counterpart, Marion Cotillard. The photo shoot, by American photographer Justin Bishop, celebrated the seventieth anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival and was intended to capture ‘the cast of characters making up 2017’s Cannes tableau vivant’ (Miller et al.). The photo spread features a range of Hollywood and international directors and stars, including Gainsbourg and Cotillard, who were both in Cannes to promote Les fantômes d’Ismaël. The different star personas of Gainsbourg and Cotillard are already announced in the respective titles of their photographs: Cotillard is ‘The ShowStopper’, dressed in a sumptuous midnight-blue Armani Privé evening gown with deep neckline and a long slit up the leg, a homage to old Hollywood legends like Rita Hayworth; and Gainsbourg is ‘The Legacy’, dressed in a pair of black leather shorts and a cropped jacket with the sleeves pushed casually up over her elbows, the edgy ensemble accessorised with black leather lace-up derby shoes worn with white ankle socks. Cotillard stands bold and upright, the outline of her curvaceous figure standing out against a beige background; Gainsbourg is seated, legs crossed at the ankles with her knees apart, leaning slightly forward and resting her arms on her thighs. A newly styled boyish haircut, which replaces her recognisable long hair, and a slightly impudent look recall her earlier film roles in which

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she incarnated the gamine, tomboyish type. The photo shoot in fact duplicates the respective personas of these actresses as they are employed in Les fantômes d’Ismaël: Gainsbourg’s intellectual, androgynous Sylvia is played off against Cotillard’s femme fatale, Carlotta. There remains to say something about the title of the Gainsbourg image in the Vanity Fair shoot. On a more obvious level, the term ‘legacy’ refers to Gainsbourg’s Cannes pedigree, with the accompanying text stating: ‘The French actress and star of Ismael’s Ghosts has such deep roots at the Cannes Film Festival—her parents were some of the coolest regulars on the Croisette in the late 60s and 70s—that Gainsbourg’s first Cannes memory predates her acting debut’ (Miller et al.). However, legacy here may also apply to Gainsbourg’s stardom as a narrative that reaches not only into the past but into the future. Cotillard is not a star in the sense given the term by Morin. Indeed, she is closer to what Morin calls a ‘character actor’, someone who transforms themselves for a role and for whom no real interpenetration of character and actor can be continuously observed: ‘the star cannot appear when the reciprocal interpenetration of actor and hero fails to occur. Character actors are not stars: they lend themselves to the most heterogeneous interpretations, but without imposing upon them all a unifying personality’ (The Stars 38). In a certain sense, ‘Show-Stopper’ and ‘Legacy’ refer to quite distinct temporalities: the fleeting present in which the actor momentarily resides on the one hand, and the past/future continuum in which the star endures on the other.

Music

Music is the third key site in which Gainsbourg’s star persona developed. Indeed, it was as a singer that Gainsbourg, under the wing of her father, first came to the attention of the wider French public with ‘Lemon Incest’ reaching number one on the French charts in spite of its scandalous content. Criticism of

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her recording career has never failed to draw comparisons with her parents who, taken together, are credited with providing Gainsbourg with her signature vocal style: Jody Rosen remarks that Gainsbourg’s ‘dreamy whisper-singing … was pioneered by her father … and perfected in his famous collaborations with [her] mother’ (2); Christopher Muther claims that Gainsbourg ‘inherited her mother’s breathy, maudlin singing style’; Adrien Begrand argues that ‘the musical influence of both her father and mother remains inexorable’; Quart observes that there is ‘a storytelling quality to [the album], which Gainsbourg says was influenced by Serge’s “thing of talking and singing” at the same time’ (78); and Andrew Hussey claims that Gainsbourg’s ‘slightly-too-perfect English diction’ evokes her mother. In interviews and press Gainsbourg pays homage to her parents’ music: when asked to give a playlist or name her ‘favourite’ songs, Gainsbourg invariably includes at least one by Serge Gainsbourg or one of his collaborations with Birkin. Following her singing debut in 1984, Gainsbourg released her debut album Charlotte for Ever in 1986, written and ­composed especially for her by her father. The album contained several provocative songs and was a companion piece to their film Charlotte for Ever of the same year. Gainsbourg has stated that in the studio her father was like a conductor directing her performance and that the only advice he offered her was: ‘Never take singing lessons’ (qtd. in Binelli 26). Twenty years would pass before she released her second studio album, a period during which Gainsbourg made only small incursions into music: in 1994 and 2001 she participated in Les Enfoirés, the name given to the performers in the yearly charity concert for the Restaurants du Cœur; in 1996 she released a single ‘Love, etc.’ from the soundtrack of Marion Vernoux’s film of the same name in which she starred; in 2004 she released the single ‘If ’, a duet with Etienne Daho that appeared on his album Réévolution (2003); and in 2004 she sang ‘L’un part, l’autre reste’ for the soundtrack to L’un reste, l’autre part, in which she also starred.

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Gainsbourg often attributes this twenty-year hiatus from music to the unexpected death of her father in 1991 and her reluctance to pursue music without his guidance: ‘I never did it professionally. I mean, I did it because it was my father, because I loved working with him … When my father died … I felt there was no point in doing anything else without him’ (qtd. in Jasmin). Nonetheless, her duets and contributions to soundtracks attracted the attention of music producers interested in reviving her singing career and anticipating the strong commercial potential of a new Charlotte Gainsbourg album (Bellengier 357). It was French music executive Emmanuel de Buretel, best known as the founder of Because Music, who suggested that Gainsbourg make an album in collaboration with musicians she admired. Gainsbourg was still reticent: ‘with time I gradually wanted to do something again. I didn’t know how, or with who. I knew I couldn’t do anything on my own. So when I met Air, it all became possible’ (qtd. in Pulver 3). On 28 August 2006 Gainsbourg released her second album 5:55 in collaboration with French electronic music duo Air (Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel) and other alt-music industry luminaries. The album was produced by Nigel Godrich, the Grammy-winning English producer best known for his work with Radiohead. Godin and Dunckel wrote and recorded the music for the album and Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon and Gainsbourg contributed lyrics in English. Gainsbourg refused to write in French, claiming, ‘it’s too heavy for me, because of my father’ (qtd. in Pulver 3). Following 5:55, Gainsbourg worked with Calexico on a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Just Like a Woman’ for the soundtrack of I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’s biopic of Dylan. She then released her third album, IRM (in French: Imagerie par Résonnance Magnétique), in December 2009, produced by Beck Hansen. The album’s title is a reference to the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans Gainsbourg underwent after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage following a waterskiing accident. Doctors were surprised the accident did not kill her, or at least leave her

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paralysed. Rosen writes that with IRM Gainsbourg’s ‘anxiety of influence seems to have dissipated’ and that while on certain tracks she ‘still sings in that patented Gainsbourgian hiss … she branches out elsewhere, ambling through folk-rock ballads, venturing into dance-punk and blues, and letting Beck swamp her voice in layers of distortion’ (2). For Rosen, this gives rise to ‘an engrossingly eclectic pop record and a kind of coming-out party: the first time that Ms. Gainsbourg the chanteuse has displayed the charisma of Charlotte Gainsbourg the actress’ (2). The songs on the album were written by Beck, with the exception of Gainsbourg’s covers of Canadian singer Jean-Pierre Ferland’s ‘Le Chat du Café des Artistes’ and ‘La Collectionneuse’, based on an Apollinaire poem. Gainsbourg remarked that Beck ‘kept pushing me to write … but my father’s genius weighs too heavy on me’ (qtd. in O’Hagan 10). Instead, Gainsbourg’s input consisted of her reactions to certain rhythms and offering ‘a few words and titles’ and ‘ideas and directions’: ‘I brought some books: the poetry of Apollinaire, Through the Looking-Glass. Just clues for him, really. We didn’t have profound ideas or discussions. He just guessed what I wanted to sing about’ (qtd. in O’Hagan 10). In 2011 Gainsbourg released her fourth album, Stage Whisper, which assembled seven unreleased studio recordings, some from her work with Beck on IRM and eleven songs from her live tour performances. With IRM Gainsbourg became more personal; however, it was not until her follow-up studio album, Rest, that she fully broke away from the long shadow cast by her father and recorded a truly personal and intimate album. As Emily Zemler remarks, Gainsbourg ‘has often lived under the shadow of her father Serge’s success … On Rest, she finally feels ready to let that go and embrace imperfection’. Thibaut Wychowanok writes that Gainsbourg pays ‘homage to her genitor not just with the emotional “Lying with You”, but above all musically, exalting a certain nostalgia in sweeping yet personal tracks cadenced by heady electronic refrains, at once 80s and baroque, and also sometimes a little bit disco’. Nonetheless, Rest bears Charlotte

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Gainsbourg’s personal stamp and is described as ‘ruthlessly, explicitly personal’ and ‘intimate’ (Davis) and ‘one of her most ambitious, and personal projects to date’ (Feinstein). Writing for Paste, Ben Salmon notes that if ‘there is one enduring criticism of her music, it’s that she has restricted access to her own feelings and perspectives by relying on the words of others … On her new effort Rest, Gainsbourg opens up and tells her story, spurred by the sadness and anger she felt after the 2013 death of her sister Kate Barry.’ Of making the album, Gainsbourg said: ‘I didn’t have any fear about being too personal … I said what I wanted to say; I was talking to myself ’ (qtd. in Robinson). In Vanity Fair France, Marion van Renterghem writes that with Rest Gainsbourg ‘n’est plus l’adolescente effarouchée, écrasée par deux icônes, qui ne parlait qu’en chuchotant et ne chantait qu’en anglais pour éviter de regarder les choses en face. Ses vivants et ses morts, elle les affronte de plain-pied et en français dans ce dernier album’ (is no longer the frightened teenager, crushed by two icons, who spoke only in whispers and sang only in English to avoid confrontation. She faces both the living and dead on the same level and in French on her latest album). Rest displays an emotional boldness and a willingness on Gainsbourg’s part to open herself up to exposure and the threat of humiliation. It is also the first album on which she dared to write her own lyrics in French, and it won for her the Victoire de l’artiste interprète féminine de l’année (Female Artist of the Year) at the 2018 Victoires de la Musique (France’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards). Music provides another platform for Gainsbourg’s distinctive voice. As a recording artist, Gainsbourg’s voice becomes mobile, detached yet still eminently recognisable as belonging to her physicality. For Roland Barthes, the disembodied voice is more than ‘pure sound’ (Arnheim 143). Indeed, what Barthes calls the ‘grain’ of the voice denotes the body: ‘The ‘grain’ is the body in the voice as it sings’ (Barthes 188). Hussey remarks that Gainsbourg is ‘not so much … a gifted singer (as with her father, her vocal range is limited)’ but rather a ‘stunning interpreter

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of songs and situations’. Rosen too notes Gainsbourg’s ‘limited skill’ (2) as a vocalist and O’Hagan writes of her ‘fragile vocal style which echoes her emotional minimalism as an actor’ (10). Indeed, Gainsbourg’s untrained vocal style is an example of what Barthes calls the genotext or geno-song, which, in contrast to the phenotext or pheno-song, is concerned less with ‘competence’ and ‘perfection’ than with the ‘materiality’ of the singing. As Michael David Szekely argues, ‘Barthes also suggests framing the issue of grain in terms of a soul/body dichotomy, where we might take the soul of the pheno-song to exhibit a preoccupation with the general presentation of technical prowess and expressive force in the singing, while the body of the geno-song reveals the particular workings of the physicality in the singing’. Indeed, Gainsbourg’s body is a ubiquitous phenomenon on Rest: her physical vocal style is ‘well suited to an album full of songs about disorientation and fatigue. She is one of those singers who hits harder the quieter she gets. The intensity spikes as the volume lowers’ (Rosen 2). In September 2017 Gainsbourg released the music video for the title track of her album Rest. As well as appearing in the video, Gainsbourg was also behind the camera, marking her directorial debut. The video opens on Gainsbourg, a solitary figure in a makeshift recording studio in an old warehouse, surrounded by recording equipment and industrial lamps set against a bare concrete wall. Dressed in burgundy jeans and a denim jacket, Gainsbourg crouches on a concrete floor beside an old mattress piled with blankets, assorted papers and a coat. The space is in darkness except for three small artificial lights. The composition and sombre colours of the scene are redolent of a von Trier film, in particular the dark streets and interiors of the opening sequences of Nymphomaniac. The image track is accompanied by a pulsating, almost mechanistic electronic musical loop. As Gainsbourg begins to sing, there is a cut to a series of found footage shots spliced together in quick succession. Extracts from Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921), Le Boucher (dir. Claude Chabrol, 1970), Meshes in the Afternoon (dir. Maya

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Deren, 1943), Un jour Pina a demandé (dir. Chantal Akerman, 1983), Melancholia and Le Ballon Rouge (dir. Albert Lamorisse, 1956) are placed alongside footage of Gainsbourg and her daughters Alice and Jo Attal. When she stops singing, there is a cut to a long shot of Gainsbourg in the studio for the musical interlude. Gainsbourg originally asked von Trier to direct the music video for ‘Rest’. He declined, suggesting she should do it herself, which proved just the push Gainsbourg needed to make the leap into directing: ‘To go out and carry a camera for myself. Up to me to deliver my personality in either the archive footage I was choosing or the new images I filmed. … Thanks to this first step into directing, I was able to take possession of my own imagery’ (qtd. in Minsker). Von Trier did, however, tell her exactly what she must do, dictating ‘quite precisely “the rules” for me to follow’ while she diligently noted down ‘the master’s principles’ (qtd. in Minsker). Von Trier instructed Gainsbourg to illustrate each enunciated word with either an archival image or one that she had shot herself. When she is not singing, he advised her to shoot in the studio in a manner that is ‘as boring as possible’, explaining that because the song is like a loop she would eventually create her ‘own language’ (qtd. in Wychowanok). It was a significant moment for Gainsbourg who was hitherto represented as content for others to create and manipulate her image, most notably her father, von Trier and Ghesquière. The song ‘Rest’ is a meditation on the death of Kate Barry. The repetition of the word ‘rest’ throughout the song is a bilingual play on words. The English ‘rest’ evokes at once time taken to recover or regain strength, laying to rest and, in a musical sense, the interval of silence held for a specified duration. In contrast, the French variation ‘reste’, as Gainsbourg employs it in the second-person singular of the present imperative, means ‘stay’. The line ‘Reste avec moi s’il te plaît’, which translates as ‘Stay with me please’, is an impassioned plea addressed to her sister. Loss is a theme Gainsbourg returns to in the elegiac ‘Kate’, the surprisingly upbeat ‘Les Oxalis’ and the unsettling

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‘Lying with You’, which describes the days following her father’s death. The footage accompanying the lines ‘Reste avec moi, s’il te plaît’, taken from The Kid, shows the famous scene of a distraught little John (Jackie Coogan) crying. The choice of this extract was perhaps not arbitrary (The Kid was the first featurelength film in which Chaplin directed himself), nor is reference to Akerman’s Un jour Pina a demandé. In a scene preceding the one Gainsbourg uses in ‘Rest’, the voiceover states: ‘Pina Bausch constructs her pieces from collages, very subtle musical montages, stereotypical gestures, repetitive situations, and often autobiographical elements contributed by the dancers themselves.’ This could serve as a meta-commentary for Gainsbourg’s directorial style in ‘Rest’ in which she creates montages from film extracts blended with footage of herself and daughters to create repetitions and autobiographical elements to accompany a song about her sister’s death. Cinema, music and autobiography come together in the music video for ‘Rest’. Following ‘Rest’, Gainsbourg went on to direct a further five music videos from the album Rest: ‘Deadly Valentine’, ‘I’m a Lie’, ‘Lying with You’, ‘Les Oxalis’ and ‘Ring o’ Roses’. Grief, family and self-reflexivity are common threads running through these videos. They feature Gainsbourg and her family members (or references to them) and are deeply personal productions. ‘Rest’ contains extracts from Melancholia, footage of her daughters and a photographic portrait of Gainsbourg by Kate Barry; and ‘Deadly Valentine’, a musing on marriage, wedding vows and lifelong relationships, features her daughters Jo and Alice as younger incarnations of the protagonist ‘bride’ played by Gainsbourg. According to Gainsbourg, the song ‘mixes wedding vows with an offbeat tone. I wanted to express the idea of a lifetime engagement; a couple running to church, from childhood to old age, a lifetime path’ (qtd. in Bulut). Somewhat ironically, at the time of writing Gainsbourg has not married long-time partner Attal, despite accepting a public proposal made during his acceptance speech for the Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite. This disjunction between her life and the

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overt meaning of the song introduces a hint of irony into her otherwise sincere compositions, something often reflected in her film performances. In the video for ‘Ring o’ Roses’, a song about firsts – from first (maternal) kiss and first love to first signs of ageing and first grief – Gainsbourg features alongside her then nineteen-year-old son Ben Attal. Dressed in denim jackets with dark hair falling into their eyes, Gainsbourg creates a visual and ostensibly genetic parallel between herself and her son. Similarly, in the music video for ‘Lying with You’, in which she evokes the memory of losing her father, Gainsbourg and her youngest daughter Jo traipse through the labyrinthine rooms of his apartment in rue de Verneuil. Of her decision to feature her children in her music videos, Gainsbourg remarks: ‘Je suis tellement heureuse que mon père m’ait filmée et qu’il ne se soit pas censuré, même s’il pouvait s’agir de choses choquantes. J’avais envie d’offrir la même occasion à mes enfants, même si je ne pense pas que cela soit une aussi belle occasion’ (qtd. in Wychowanok) (I am so happy that my father filmed me and did not censor me, even though it could be shocking. I wanted to give my children the same opportunity, even though I do not think it’s as beautiful an experience). For the music video for ‘I’m a Lie’, Gainsbourg confronts her anxiety, stifling shyness and embarrassment, illustrating the pain of these emotions through contracted and distorted body movements: ‘J’entretiens l’inconfort / A l’allure qui dort / Grace à lui ­contractant / Chaque muscle de mon corps’ (I nurture unease / At a slow pace / Thanks to it stiffening / Every muscle in my body). In this clip her contorted body literalises the discomfort of ‘negative’ emotions while the sombre palate recalls the mise en scène of her ‘master’ von Trier. Of all her forays into the music video form, however, ‘Les Oxalis’ is the best example of the way Gainsbourg utilises the personal in her work, blending grief, family and self-reflexivity into a chiaroscuro of contradictory emotions. It is also the clip that best demonstrates her visual debt to von Trier. Following a cinematographic promenade through Montparnasse Cemetery,

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composed of black-and-white, almost still shots, the camera comes to rest on a black-and-white photograph lying on a park bench. A cut brings the camera closer to the photograph and a second cut shows a hand holding it. The photograph, a well-known one taken by Barry, shows Gainsbourg in bed, sheet pulled up under her chin, cigarette in mouth, unkempt hair framing her face, looking defiantly into the camera. The camera then tracks in and another image, that of a denim-clad Gainsbourg seated on an imposing sand dune, is superimposed over the shot of the hand holding the photograph (see figure 14). As the camera continues to track in, the original image begins to fade as the new one is slowly saturated with colour. The palette of this new image – the white blonde sand, powder blue sky and washed-out denim – is in stark contrast to the black and white of the preceding image. This transition is a critical moment in the video and can be read as an allegory for an important transition in Gainsbourg’s creative life. The lyrics accompanying this segment of the video are the refrain of the song, sung in English (the verses are all in French): ‘Take one is over / Bid Adieu to you ol’ sister / Under Cover / Going Sober / Over and

14  ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg: Les Oxalis’ (music video) (dir. Charlotte Gainsbourg, 2017, Concord Music Publishing)

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Out’. The song is an ode to Barry. ‘Les Oxalis’ recounts a visit to Barry’s grave; but if the subject matter is sombre, the music is upbeat, recalling Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Chatterton’, a song about suicide set to a funk beat, an obvious intertext for ‘Les Oxalis’. Von Trier has a strong visual presence in ‘Les Oxalis’. The static shots of the stroll through the cemetery are reminiscent of the monumental prologue sequence of Melancholia, made up of haunting, single-shot, digitally composited images that distort space and time. As Kristen Whissel, writing on Melancholia, remarks: ‘The live-action elements of five of these shots were filmed with a high-speed Phantom camera that dilates time and distills a brief moment of action into extreme slow motion’ (175–6). This dilation of time gives the sequence an otherworldly feel. Likewise, the sequence of single-shot images which comprises the first part of the music video for ‘Les Oxalis’ has an ethereal, uncanny quality. The stark, almost metallic quality of the black-and-white slow-motion shots also call to mind the opening of Antichrist. The location, the use of black and white and the cinematographic technique are complemented by visual, auditory and figurative references to shadows. Gainsbourg literally films shadows: shadows cast by headstones, sepulchres, trees and even her own shadow on the pavement. The lyrics, too, speak of shadows: ‘Je cherche ton ombre’ (I am searching for your shadow). The shadow for which Gainsbourg is searching is at once something cast by a living thing, the indication of a presence, but also a ‘shade’ in the classical sense, a ghost returned from Hades to walk briefly again among the living. Indeed, both senses are captured in the French ombre. Shadows are a recurrent theme in commentaries on Gainsbourg and her work, particularly her music. Indeed, critics often speak of Gainsbourg being eclipsed by the shadow of her famous parents. Jeremy Allen remarks how on Rest she has ‘stepped further out of the long, eclipsing shadow of her folks’; Jake Boyer refers to ‘the long shadow cast by her father’; and Zemler remarks that as ‘a musical artist, Gainsbourg has often lived under the shadow

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of her father Serge’s success’. Of her decision to write lyrics in French for the first time for Rest, Gainsbourg herself remarked: ‘In the shadow of my father, writing in French was something I never dared to do’ (qtd. in Minsker). The key transition in ‘Les Oxalis’ takes Gainsbourg out of the cemetery where she had been only a shadow cast on the ground and places her in that site where there are no shadows: the desert. The sequence was most likely shot at the famous sand dune in Pilat, France, but the images are intended to evoke the desert rather than the beach. With this transition Gainsbourg leaves the space of the dead, stepping out of the shadows of her past to emerge fully formed in colour and movement against the vibrant landscape of sand and sky. The image of Gainsbourg seated on the dune recalls, perhaps deliberately, a well-known line from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: ‘I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams’ (78). However, the most obvious reference point for this desert sequence is Albert Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, unsurprising, given the context in which the song was written. As part of a larger discussion around despair and suicide, Camus famously evokes ‘waterless deserts where thought reaches its confines’ (4). It is a critical moment in which the individual rejects despair and suicide and moves towards the affirmation of life in the form of art. For Camus, the individual who emerges transformed from these deserts is the artist. After receiving the Victoire de l’artiste interprète féminine de l’année for Rest, Gainsbourg said in her acceptance speech that the album – which appears to be all about death – is also about life: ‘Moi, je suis vivante’ (I am alive).

Conclusion

In ‘Lemon Incest’ Serge Gainsbourg describes his then twelveyear-old daughter as an ‘exquise esquisse’ (an exquisite sketch) and remarks that she is ‘naïve comme une toile du nierdoi sseaurou’ (unstudied like a canvas by the naive artist Henri Rousseau).1 The pictorial analogy is apposite: the initial phase of Gainsbourg’s career can be read as a sketch made to assist in the making of a more finished picture. The outline of her persona would be filled out over the next two to three decades, in the process making her both a mobile and enduring star. Her film career, consisting of nearly sixty film roles across different genres and mainstream and indie cinema, has taken her to diverse filming locations throughout the world. Her mobility is also a feature of her transmedia stardom, which crosses film, music and fashion and circulates globally. This mobility renders Gainsbourg by turns a French, Franco-British and transnational star. Her transnational and transmedia stardom demonstrate how her star persona operates within complex circuits of texts, publicity and discourse across media platforms. Furthermore, her decades-long film career and ongoing reputation as a serious actress, successful recording artist, global style icon, muchloved fille de in France and indie icon in the Anglophone world is testament to her endurance. Perhaps the most defining feature

‘nierdoi sseaurou’ is verlan, a form of French slang, for Douanier Rousseau.

1 

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of Gainsbourg’s star persona is contradiction or paradox, most notably the apparent incongruity between the polite shyness of her off-screen image and her bold on-screen performances. As Yvan Attal remarked: ‘C’est un paradoxe de donner tant de soi avec une telle pudeur’ (qtd. in Grassin and Loustalot 59) (It’s a paradox to give so much of oneself with such reserve). For most of her career Gainsbourg was associated with the image of the eternal adolescent, something that is only just beginning to change with recent roles in films like Norman, Dark Crimes (dir. Alexandros Avranas, 2016), The Snowman (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2017), La Promesse de l’aube (dir. Eric Barbier, 2017), Les fantômes d’Ismaël, I Think We’re Alone Now (dir. Mike Makowsky, 2018) and her latest collaboration with Attal, Mon chien stupide (2019). In these roles there is a discernible shift not so much in Gainsbourg’s performance style (La Promesse de l’aube is an exception) but in her physical appearance: on the set of Les fantômes d’Ismaël, Gainsbourg remarked to director Desplechin: ‘Je vais jouer la vieille fille? (qtd. in Diatkine) (So I play the old girl now?). For an actress who was once described as not ‘physically a chameleon’ (Chrisafis 10), Gainsbourg’s recent roles reveal a gradually changing physicality associated with ageing. Austin argues that ageing is problematic for the female star: ‘A female star is always under threat of ageing. … It is, of course, much more usual for film actresses to feel they have to perpetuate a frozen image of youth and beauty, either by retiring from the cinema or by relying on makeup and lighting to maintain their appearance’ (31–2). According to LaSalle, however, this situation is slightly different in France than what it is in Hollywood: ‘In France, an actress can work steadily from her teens through old age – she can start out in stories of youthful rebellion and end up, fifty years later, a screen matriarch’ (9). Gainsbourg previously expressed her fear of ageing and did not rule out cosmetic surgery as a solution to the problem of fewer and fewer film roles (Cole; So). However, more recently she has had a change of heart, citing the fact that the older actresses she admires have not had surgery (Verley and Defouilloy 153). In 2017

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Gainsbourg addressed the way magazine images of female stars, including herself, are airbrushed and retouched to hide visible signs of ageing: ‘It’s like, ‘Give me back my age! I do have wrinkles! I don’t look like a 20-year-old’ (qtd. in Feinstein). However, Gainsbourg does admit that youth has endless appeal, particularly in the field of cinema: ‘Cinema is made for beautiful people, you can’t pretend that beauty and age have no importance in this job. … You can feel the decline when you hit 40. I had an agent who said, “It’s the beginning of the end”’ (qtd. in Feinstein). In La Promesse de l’aube Gainsbourg plays Nina Kacew, a Russian Jew and the mother of acclaimed French novelist Romain Gary, a role which required her to age from thirty to sixty during the course of the film: ‘It was such a relief that I didn’t have to worry about my looks … It was so liberating to not care about if you slept enough, or if you looked 30 or 40. People were working on my face to make me look older, uglier, fatter, it was fun’ (qtd. in Feinstein). The freedom of no longer having to worry about her looks perhaps also accounts for her freer performance style. To date, it is the performance that most radically departs from what might be considered Gainsbourg’s typical style, which is often described as ‘playing herself’. In La Promesse de l’aube, Gainsbourg’s performance borders on the excessive: gestures and facial expressions are exaggerated to the point of burlesque, although she retains her ability to play dark humour. Most striking is her physical transformation: her androgynous, willowy frame, youthful face, long hair and distinct posture are replaced with heavy breasts, swollen ankles, stooped posture, uneven gait, greying hair and a wrinkled face. Framing is used to emphasise Gainsbourg’s nose, a signifier in the film of her character’s Jewishness, a latent aspect of her persona first used in Norman, in which she plays an Israeli lawyer. It is a part of Gainsbourg’s heritage not usually put into play in her film roles and one which comes down her father’s side: ‘I realized that aging had made me look like my father and not at all like my mother … My father with a skirt! … The part was so close to my background … and my grandmother, that it made it really beautiful’ (qtd. in Feinstein). While not Jewish in the eyes of the

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law, Gainsbourg nonetheless considers herself Jewish and claims she first really became interested in the Russian-Jewish side of her family when her paternal grandmother died (Bellengier 43). Indeed, Gainsbourg’s grandmother provided inspiration for her role in La Promesse de l’aube: ‘J’ai appris le polonais pour ce film dans lequel je joue en français, mais avec cet accent à couper au couteau. Un accent qui ressemblait tellement à celui de ma grandmère paternelle! La force de cette femme me renvoyait à elle’ (qtd. in Bellengier 328) (I learned Polish for this film in which I act in French, but with this heavy accent. An accent that very much resembles that of my paternal grandmother! The strength of this woman took me back to her). In a certain sense, Gainsbourg’s Jewishness deconstructs the bicultural heritage for which she has become famous: it is the third term in her cultural identity and is something that may come to play a more prominent part in her future roles. According to Shingler, because of the ‘ineffable and polysemic nature of stardom, the full extent of any star’s significance can never be authoritatively defined’ (185). Consequently, ‘any truly significant film star requires more than one study to be devoted to them, enabling their qualities, personas and work to be mapped and remapped, and then remapped again’ (Shingler 185). The approach this book has taken, which might best be called critical chronology, is open not only to addition but also to refutation. The moments in Gainsbourg’s career identified here as significant may not be so for everyone. In part this book is an attempt to understand and conceptualise Gainsbourg’s star persona by establishing critical moments in her film, music and fashion careers and biography, by examining key aspects of her performance style and by establishing the essential motifs of her star image. At times, this book approaches hagiography, with its obvious avoidance of criticism in the negative sense. Criticising Gainsbourg’s work was never the intention of this book; rather, it seeks to provide an explanation of how Gainsbourg has developed, in her own quiet way, into one of the most important global stars of our time.

Filmography

3 Cœurs, Benoît Jacquot, 2014 21 Grams, Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2003 Les 400 coups, François Truffaut, 1959 À bout de souffle, Jean-Luc Godard, 1960 Amoureuse, Jacques Doillon, 1992 Anna Oz, Eric Rochant, 1996 Antichrist, Lars von Trier, 2009 Aux yeux du monde, Eric Rochant, 1991 Le Ballon Rouge, Albert Lamorisse, 1956 Le Boucher, Claude Chabrol, 1970 La Bûche, Danièle Thompson, 2000 The Cement Garden, Andrew Birkin, 1993 La chamade, Alain Cavalier, 1967 Charlotte for Ever, Serge Gainsbourg, 1986 City of Your Final Destination, James Ivory, 2009 Confession of a Child of the Century, Sylvie Verheyde, 2012 Contagion, Steven Soderbergh, 2011 Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard, 2006 Dancer in the Dark, Lars von Trier, 2000 Dark Crimes, Alexandros Avranas, 2016 Design for Living, Ernst Lubitsch, 1933 Do Not Disturb, Yvan Attal, 2012 Dogville, Lars von Trier, 2003 L’Effrontée, Claude Miller, 1986 Et Dieu créa la femme, Roger Vadim, 1956 Every Thing Will Be Fine, Wim Wenders, 2015

Filmography

Les fantômes d’Ismaël, Arnaud Desplechin, 2017 Félix et Lola, Patrice Leconte, 2000 Funny Face, Stanley Donen, 1956 Grosse fatigue, Michel Blanc, 1994 The Heiress, William Wylder, 1949 Holy Motors, Leos Carax, 2012 I Got a Woman, Yvan Attal, 1997 Il sole anche di notte, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1990 Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d’enfants, Yvan Attal, 2004 Ils sont partout, Yvan Attal, 2016 I’m Not There, Todd Haynes, 2007 The Immigrant, James Gray, 2013 Incompresa, Asia Argento, 2014 Independence Day: Resurgence, Roland Emmerich, 2016 Intouchables, Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2011 I Think We’re Alone Now, Mike Makowsky, 2018 Jacky au Royaume des filles, Riad Sattouf, 2014 Jane B par Agnès V, Agnès Varda, 1988 Jane Eyre, Franco Zeffirelli, 1996 Un jour Pina a demandé, Chantal Akerman, 1983 Jules et Jim, François Truffaut, 1962 The Kid, Charles Chaplin, 1921 Kung-Fu Master, Agnès Varda, 1988 Lemming, Dominik Moll, 2006 Lolita, Stanley Kubrick, 1962 Love, etc., Marion Vernoux, 1996 Love in the Afternoon, Billy Wilder, 1957 Lux Æterna, Gaspar Noé, 2019 Made in U.S.A., Jean-Luc Godard, 1966 Ma femme est une actrice, Yvan Attal, 2001 Melancholia, Lars von Trier, 2011 Merci la vie, Bertrand Blier, 1991 Meshes in the Afternoon, Maya Deren, 1943 Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen, 2011 Les Misérables, Josée Dayan, 2000 Mon chien stupide, Yvan Attal, 2019

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174Filmography

Moulin Rouge!, Baz Luhrmann, 2001 Norman, Joseph Cedar, 2016 Nuovomondo/The Golden Door, Emanuele Crialese, 2006 Nuremberg, Yves Simoneau, 2000 Nymphomaniac Volumes I & II, Lars von Trier, 2013 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Jacques Demy, 1964 Paroles et musique, Élie Chouraqui, 1984 Passionnément, Bruno Nuytten, 2000 Persécution, Patrice Chéreau, 2009 Persona, Ingmar Bergman, 1966 La Petite voleuse, Claude Miller, 1988 Prête-moi ta main, Eric Lartigau, 2006 La Promesse de l’aube, Eric Barbier, 2017 Le Quai des brumes, Marcel Carné, 1938 Sabrina, Billy Wilder, 1954 Samba, Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2014 Sans toit ni loi, Agnès Varda, 1985 The Science of Sleep/La science des rêves, Michel Gondry, 2006 Son épouse, Michel Spinosa, 2014 The Snowman, Tomas Alfredson, 2017 Suspicion, David Bailey, 2000 Tirez sur le pianist, François Truffaut, 1960 The Tree, Julie Bertuccelli, 2010 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick, 2011 L’un reste, l’autre part, Claude Berri, 2005 Une femme est une femme, Jean-Luc Godard, 1961 La vie en rose, Olivier Dahan, 2007 A Woman of Paris, Charles Chaplin, 1923

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Index

Attal, Yvan 3, 8, 44, 58, 59, 69, 80, 82, 91, 112, 127 Ma femme est une actrice 59, 60–2, 66–9 Barbier, Éric La Promesse de l’aube 170–1 Bardot, Brigitte 8, 31 Barry, Kate 1, 126, 162, 163 Barthes, Roland 34, 160–1 Bertuccelli, Julie The Tree 30, 110, 113–16 bilingualism 10, 47, 120–1, 130–2 Birkin, Andrew The Cement Garden 45–51 Birkin, Jane 1, 3, 9, 15, 16, 37, 44, 48, 73, 154, 157 bobo 62–6, 88 Cannes Film Festival 2, 20, 92, 97, 102, 134, 135, 136–44 Chouraqui, Élie Paroles et musique 3, 17 commodity stardom 14, 146, 152 Cotillard, Marion 124, 55–6

cult stardom 83–90 Deleuze, Gilles 104, 106, 107, 108 Desplechin, Arnaud Les fantômes d’Ismaël 155–6 Doillon, Jacques Amoureuse 44, 45 Dyer, Richard 4, 10, 11, 13, 16, 29, 58, 145 Emmerich, Roland Independence Day: Resurgence 122–3, 127–32 fille de status 4–5, 17, 44, 59, 78, 116, 126, 168 Freud, Sigmund 103, 108, 110–11 Gainsbourg, Serge 1, 3, 9, 15, 16, 44, 157 Charlotte for Ever 35–43, 96–7, 107 ‘Charlotte for Ever’ 39 Melody Nelson 37, 95

204Index

Ghesquière, Nicolas 71, 134, 137, 140, 145

Rampling, Charlotte 74, 81–2, 124–5

Hepburn, Audrey 31 Hollywood 5, 6, 124–6

Sy, Omar 116–20

incest motif 37–8, 42, 45, 49, 95 Jacquot, Benoît 3 Cœurs 34–6 jolie laide 56, 70–2 Kubrick, Stanley Lolita 49 Léaud, Jean-Pierre 26–9 masochism 92, 100–9 Miller, Claude L’Effrontée 1, 7, 18–28, 34–5, 53, 96, 107 La Petite voleuse 7, 21–8, 53, 107 Moll, Dominik Lemming 81–2 Morin, Edgar 4, 58, 60, 134, 142, 143, 144 Nakache, Olivier and Éric Toledano Samba 116–22 Parisienne 6, 10, 13, 61, 62, 64–6 performance style 29–35

transmedia 10–11, 133–67 transnational 10–11, 47, 78–80, 92–4, 111–12, 123–31 Varda, Agnès Jane B par Agnès B 43–4 Kung-Fu Master 43–4 Vernoux, Marion Love etc. 58 Vincendeau, Ginette 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 25, 38, 88, 118, 123, 124, 130, 131 voice 30, 33–4, 47–8, 120–1, 130–2, 160–1 Von Trier, Lars 91–109, 138–9, 162, 166 Antichrist 2, 34, 92, 93, 96, 100, 101, 108, 137–8 Melancholia 91, 93, 100, 104–6, 109, 138–9 Nymphomaniac 91, 93–4, 96, 100–5, 108, 109 Wenders, Wim Every Thing Will Be Fine 30–1, 94 Zeffirelli, Franco Jane Eyre 7, 10, 53–8