This Sunday, July 16, Jane Birkin died at the age of 76. The artist established a “strange relationship” with her daughter that Charlotte Gainsbourg had tried to explore in the cinema.
“We are so close and at the same time so distant”. In 2021, Charlotte Gainsbourg returned to her relationship with her mother, Jane Birkin.
A relationship that she described as “strange” when releasing “Jane by Charlotte”, a documentary presented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival to show “the fun, the madness, the real personality” of the Franco-British singer.
“An excuse to get closer to her”
“We are very close and at the same time so distant and so shy, explained Charlotte Gainsbourg then, as recalled by the Huffpost. That’s what I wanted to explore. It was a kind of excuse to get closer to her, to look at her, to take the time.”
“The beauty of this film is precisely the mothers and daughters, estimated Jane Birkin when the film was released. Mothers, we think they are there forever or that we will always have a chance to say what we wanted to say to them…”
Alongside her half-sister, Lou Doillon, Charlotte Gainsbourg reacted on Monday to the death of Jane Birkin by evoking a “fierce battle” against the disease which lasted 16 years.
“For a few days, she had been walking again, was motivated to reschedule her Olympia and had decided to regain her independence. This first evening alone will have been the last. She had decided it.” Proof that despite the hardships and at 76 years old Jane Birkin was far from having given up on her life as an artist.