Singer and actress, Jane Birkin died this Sunday at the age of 76. She had been nominated for three Césars for “La Pirate” (1984), “La Femme de ma vie” (1986) and “La Belle Noiseuse” (1991).
The immense Jane Birkin is no more. According to information obtained by Le Parisien, the 76-year-old singer was found dead at her home on Sunday. Recently, she had canceled concerts for health reasons, saying in a statement in May: “I’ve always been a great optimist, and realize that I still need a little time to be able again on stage and with you.”
Daughter of actress Judy Campbell and a Commander of the Royal Navy, Jane Birkin took her first steps in the theater at the age of 17 in a play by Graham Greene, then in a musical, Passion flower hotel, on which she met her first companion, the composer John Barry.
She appeared on screen in 1965, alongside two other debutantes, Charlotte Rampling and Jacqueline Bisset, in a landmark Swingin’ London film, The Knack… or how to get it, Palme d’Or at Cannes. A reward that will also get her next film, Antonioni’s Blow-up, in which she caused a scandal by appearing naked.
Meeting with Serge Gainsbourg
Arriving in France in 1968, Jane Birkin successfully passed the trials for the film Slogan. Her partner is the one who will become her Pygmalion and with whom she will form one of the most popular couples in France in the 1970s, Serge Gainsbourg, who will allow her to pursue a career as a singer at the same time.
DANIEL ANGELI / BESTIMAGE Birkin/Gainsbourg
The public is quickly seduced by the ingenuous Englishwoman who walks her fantasy and her accent in successful comedies like La Mustarde goes to my nose by Claude Zidi. In 1975, she found more complex roles in Seven Dead by Order and Je t’aime, moi non plus, Gainsbourg’s daring first film, which disconcerted the spectators.
Filming with the New Wave
In 1980, Birkin, separated from the Cabbage-Headed Man, lived with Jacques Doillon, who had her appear in three films – including La Pirate, a harsh work that shook the Croisette in 1984 – and opened the doors of the cinema to her. author. “Suddenly, I had to give everything of me whereas, until then, nobody had asked me to give everything”she confided in 1992 to the Unbreakable.
Filmmakers as demanding as Rivette (L’Amour par terre, La Belle Noiseuse), Varda (Jane B. by Agnès V. / Kung Fu Master), or Tavernier (Daddy Nostalgie), reveal a moving and inventive actress. The 80s, a rich decade, saw her face the stage, both at the theater and in concert.
MPP / Bestimage
With Emmanuelle Béart in “La Belle Noiseuse”
Between French and English, songs and films, popular cinema and radical works, Jane Birkin occupies a special place in the cultural landscape, but from the 90s, she became rarer on the screens. However, we will remember Noir as the memory of Mocky, and a participation in We know the song. In the 2000s, she returned to the burlesque register of her debut through the comedies Reines d’un jour, Mariees mais pas trop or Thelma, Louise and Chantal.
In 2009, Jacques Rivette, filmmaker faithful to his actresses, offers him a beautiful melancholy and mysterious role in 36 views of Pic Saint-Loup. Four years later, she made an incursion into the melancholy and intimate universe of Hong Sang-Soo, a South Korean filmmaker often compared to Rohmer, in Haewon and the Men.
Director
Passed behind the camera from the beginning of the 90s with two short films and the TV movie Oh pardon! you were sleeping…, in 2007 she directed Boxes, a feature film with autobiographical accents presented at the Cannes Film Festival. She continued to shine in song at the end of the 2010s, notably with Birkin/Gainsbourg: the symphonywhere she takes up the songs of her former companion, and Oh ! Sorry you were sleeping…in collaboration with Etienne Daho.
In 2022, when she had been absent from the big screen for many years, she returned to the front of the stage, moreover in front of her daughter’s camera, in the documentary Jane by Charlotte, which takes an intimate and modest look. on filial love.