Saturday 24 July 2010

UK RELEASE OF GAINSBOURG: VIE HÉROIQUE / SERGE GAINSBOURG IN THE UK (GAINSBOURG EN ANGLETERRE)

Gainsbourg: Vie Héroique (under it’s Anglo-Saxon title Gainsbourg) gets its UK cinema release at the end of next week.

The British trailer asks: “You know the music, but do you know the man?”

Pretty funny considering that director Joann Sfar has described the film as a “fairy tale.” This is no straight biopic, but a recasting of the tale that mucks about with chronology and injects fantasy to underline the disconnects and hyper-realities. So, no – you are not going to know the man after seeing the – truly great and often funny/tragic – film.

The film's release does cause some musing on the increasing awareness of Gainsbourg over here. Distributors assume there will be an audience?

A few years ago I wrote this (below) for Les Inrockuptibles on Gainsbourg outside France (click on it and it might go big). Since then, there has been the Barbican Melody Nelson show, last year’s US Light In The Attic reissue of Melody Nelson, and a dribble of other reissues.

The film's release continues the swell: the increasing non-French consciousness of Gainsbourg discussed in the article.

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