It's rough going:
There seemed to be nothing he could come up with that she would baulk at.... Demonstrating La Décadanse, Gainsbourg’s attempt at instituting a dance craze that involved the male lead grasping his female partner’s breasts. Being photographed naked and chained to a radiator for Lui magazine, complete with accompanying text by Gainsbourg describing her as his “little hermaphrodite”. Starring in the 1976 film that shared Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus’ title, which explored the doomed relationship between a boyish girl and a homosexual trucker, involved a great deal of anal sex, and effectively scuppered Birkin’s acting career for the next couple of years. Singing the astonishing Vie Mort et Résurrection d’un Amour Passion, a 1978 song that seemed to lay their crumbling relationship bare in the starkest terms imaginable: “We are fucked … I told you ‘kill me, kill me if you’re a man’, but you’re just a mug, because you never could.”
If you want to comment, please do it without using the word "handbag."
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26 comments:
Her career was knackered after it got scuppered.
of the Many boomer "stars" that i've NEVER heard of..
It is one thing to sink and another to bob quickly back up to the surface. So long Jane, and thanks for all the fun. It seems that despite all the ill-considered treatment, she was the straw that stirred the drink for more than a few moments.
It had to be such a strange and exposed way to see and be seen by the rest of the world, and Gainsbourg was surely not a man of this time but of that transgressive time. To me, she always seemed smart and tough, rather than innocent tbh. Astrud Gilberto seemed as innocent as she sounded. Not Birkin. After all, who was using whom? Everybody?
I could be wrong, but it seems she understood that from go. Being an icon is not for everybody.
Can I use the word purse?
“You can look at my bank book, but I’ll never let you feel my purse” - Bessie Smith
“You can look at my bank book, but I’ll never let you feel my purse” - Bessie Smith
Well, yeah it's rough going. It's the Guardian.
I'll they never showered under the supper, in a rainstorm, when the evaporators were broken on a Navy ship.
It was Charlotte Forever, it was never Jane Forever.
Jane didn't seem to give a shit about Serge and their then 13 year old daughter making that movie, or maybe she was just too stoned to figure it out.
Charlotte survived her parents, apparently, so good for her. She can now say she buried both of them. (Perhaps in a cement garden.)
If there were ever a perfect place for the "Oh no! Anyway..." meme, this has to be it.
I used "scuppered" in a comment somewhere(?) this weekend, and the spellchecker flagged it, as it does here.
Serge Gainsbourg and Harvey Weinstein: compare and contrast.
Left a permanent mark on pop music: damning with faint praise?
Looks like, for the moment, the correct line is Jane B as "untutored" but talented co-conspiring feminist heroine. How long before she joins the pantheon of victims when Serge G gets recast as toxically masculine devil incarnate? Of course, that would require feminists to revise the old "narrative" of 60s emancipation. As long as the generation that went through it is alive and holds on to its illusions, that may have to wait. Or is the Guardian subtly signaling revisionism?
Who?
Sounds like she was a "...strong, independent woman." Her death is OnlyFans loss.
“Scuttled”;seems a better choice than “scuppered”, but apparently both are kosher.
"Ha***ag." I had to look it up in Urban Dictionary. I'm sure I'm not alone. Streisand Effect much...
1. She was in Blowup.
2. She looked great in a miniskirt.
3. She was a famous face when English models ruled the scene.
4. She invented the Birkin Bag. (You know you want one.)
It is enough for fame.
It has no larger meaning.
RIP
Ever see a blind man cross the road
Trying to make the other side?
Ever seen a young girl kiss a toad
Trying to make herself a bride?
So what becomes of you, my love?
When they have finally stripped you of
The satchels and the gladrags
That your poor old granddad
Had to sweat to buy you, baby
Out of curiosity, I looked her up. Her name is unknown to me. Attractive young woman- very much a Carly Simon vibe.
"Starring in the 1976 film that shared Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus’ title, which explored the doomed relationship between a boyish girl and a homosexual trucker, involved a great deal of anal sex, and effectively scuppered Birkin’s acting career"
I guess they should have used the "bonus hole" and all would have been well.
“it’s rough going” seems like a good description of her chaotic life. Not exactly a role model for anyone looking for stability and a meaningful long term relationship.
Birkin had many dozen acting credits and a score or so albums. Joyce Carol Oates would be impressed, I guess.
Is 'balk at' one of those phrases spelled differently in UK English than American English? Apparently so?
(Looks it up. Yep)
I did not know that.
'Scuppered' is a good word.
Tp 'scupper' someone is to thwart them. While a scupper is a drain on the deck of a ship or boat the leads directly overboard. Which I suspect is the origin. A nice nautical word.
IIRC, the scuppers were drain holes cut in the bulwarks of ships to allow water on the weather decks to drain overboard. And if water is coming up through the scuppers you are truly done for. Either description for a career is not good.
Scuttling is when you deliberately sink your ship. Again, not good and done when the alternative is worse or (more rarely) like trying to block an enemy channel.
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