The eternal Serge Gainsbourg—the jug-eared Gallic crooner who has a good claim on being the twentieth century’s oddest heartthrob—rises again today, when a new biopic opens in New York. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is director Joann Sfar’s tribute to the late, great troubadour, who wrote frank songs of love and sex (”Soixante-Neuf, Année Erotique,” “Je T’Aime—Moi, Non Plus,” “Les Sucettes,” and more) and seduced (and duetted with) many of France’s most gorgeous women, including Brigitte Bardot, Anna Karina, and the namesake of the Hermès Birkin, Jane Birkin. These days, Gainsbourg is better remembered for his amours, his antics (see his notorious TV appearance from the eighties alongside a young Whitney Houston , which is not quite safe for work), and for his gorgeous, fashion-favorite daughter Charlotte than for his music, which is a shame. Style-worlders may make haste to the theater to see Gainsbourg (which won its star, Eric Elmosnino, a Best Actor trophy at the Tribeca Film Festival) to catch Laetitia Casta as Bardot, but top it off with a visit to the iTunes store for the man’s own work. My recommendation? Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg, their duets album from (when else?) 1969.
—Matthew Schneier
Photo: Courtesy of One World Films
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