Serge Gainsbourg, thirty years ago the death of the last cursed poet

And it is at this point, when it gets dark – we are in June – that this night becomes the night of Serge and Jane, the night when their lives change their course forever. While the human and personal history of two individuals is starting out, in the streets, among the people, the History of great events is raging. We are in 1968, the year of youth, political and social protests. Protesters march in the heart of Paris. The tension is sky high and even the red Porsche of Grimblat, in May, is set on fire in the street during a march of students.

Throughout that period Serge pretends to be completely disinterested in mass movements, with his usual bored and distracted flâneur pose, but in reality he is afraid.

Far from appearing for everyone as a season of freedom and rights, the other side of the coin of 1968 is the unrest, violence and the most hidden fears. Recall that Serge’s parents are Russian Jews who fled the anti-Semitic pogroms and what would become a dictatorship. The gruesome tales heard in childhood are still alive in his memory and the claims of the far left fringes ring for Gainsbourg as a possible prelude to a regime similar to that of the Soviets. Above all, he fears that private property, so painstakingly conquered by his family, will be arbitrarily confiscated. These are confessions that will emerge only many years after the events.

in the meantime in Paris, Serge and Jane are at Chez Régine. The music starts and Jane drags Serge on the floor to dance a slow dance, he hesitates, but he can no longer resist that beauty so full, so pure, so deep in her being attentive and intelligent.. Serge is excited and with his awkward ways moves a feeling of tenderness in Jane.

At just twenty-one, one night, a slightly awkward dance, was enough to make Jane Birkin understand the authentic essence of that man flooded in the soul that he would have loved in an all-encompassing way. A form of very subtle empathy and elective affinity of great rarity. For Serge it is something very strong: the Genius has finally found his Muse, the man has found the love of his life.

At one point, Jane and Serge are forced to make an impromptu escape. In that ’68 of riots it is impossible to leave the room through the main door. Serge and Jane escape from the back where another taxi awaits them. Serge then becomes the host of an unforgettable evening through the Ville Lumière to the sound of the music and adrenaline of that 1968 of revolutions and screaming crowds. They pass from one club to another in a wonderfully grotesque and bubbly path between lookouts, musicians, performers, drag queens and dancers in a riot of colored feathers, rhinestones and smiles. They are the best known nightclubs of Parisian nights, where Serge once made his bones as a pianist, where his father played and where everyone knows him and greets him with affection.

First, he takes Jane to another historic restaurant in the capital, one of her favorite places: the Raspoutine. Outpost of traditional Russian culture in Paris, it stands on the Right bank, in Rue de Bassano. Leaving the restaurant, just before getting back into the nth taxi, Serge gives a large tip to the violinists, commenting “They are whores, like me” and on the sidewalk, in front of the taxi in motion, he sings the sad Waltz in honor of his lady by Sibelius. It is the apotheosis. From there they reach another place, Calvados, where Serge, now serene, has thrown off his mask of dislike, and is finally himself. Here, he begins to play the guitar together with the Mexican musicians who are performing and unpaid joins the famous American pianist Joseph Turner (1907-1991) for an exciting four-hand concert, completely improvised. The night is still young and, after the music of Calvados, Serge takes Jane to the Pigalle district, to Madame Arthur, where an atmosphere of ostrich feathers, sequins and fuchsia bodices welcomes the singer while the disguised soubrettes run to greet him, calling him “Sergio”.

Just before dawn, Serge and Jane find themselves in the vicinity of Les Halles. Serge, a perfect gentleman, orders the taxi driver to take them to the Esmeralda hotel to leave Jane but, with all the momentum and naturalness that only the love they can donate, Jane even surprises herself by yelling “No!”

They are almost nineteen years apart. It matters? On Mondays they arrive hand in hand on the set. Pierre Grimblat, without knowing it, from deus ex machina of the diatribe between the actors of his film, has turned into the Cupid of what will become the mythical couple of France, by far the most photographed and portrayed couple in the history of the twentieth century from which a sentimental, creative, artistic and intellectual partnership will be born still today inexhaustible and, in 1971, a prodigious and fascinating daughter like her parents: Charlotte gainsbourg. Sometimes the existence of great men is crossed by formidable conjunctures, but perhaps one wonders if it was not precisely those conjunctures, inscrutable and unrepeatable, that made some men great.

Gainsbourg. SCANDAL! by Jennifer Radulovic
The only Italian biography of the French rebel genius Serge Gainsbourg
Pageuno editions