SERGE'S STIMULATING SLOGAN
As satisfying as any guilty pleasure, Slogan is
known primarily as the film that brought together Serge Gainsbourg and Jane
Birkin between the sheets, both on and off the screen. Yet it’s also a comic
and bittersweet examination of the darker side of desire. Cinema Retro takes a
look at the Cult Epics DVD release of this overlooked classic.
By Dean Brierly
“There is a trilogy in my life,†Serge Gainsbourg once said.
“An equilateral triangle, shall we say, of Gitanes, alcoholism and girls.â€
Of course, Gainsbourg wasn’t the first artist to embrace
such a decadent dolce vita, but few have done so with the style and
commitment of the French singer-songwriter, poet and provocateur. Fewer still
have exploited it to such evocative effect in their art. Gainsbourg wore his
hedonism on his well-tailored sleeve, and liked nothing better than upsetting
mainstream sensibilities through his outrageous lifestyle and his sexually
charged, often-scandalous lyrics. The explicit description of an erotic
encounter in his 1969 song “Je t’aime…moi non plus†even earned him a public
rebuke from the Vatican, doubtless much to his delight. But Gainsbourg’s lyrics
had depth as well as shock value. Shot through with equal parts cynicism and
romanticism, they proclaimed him the 20th century’s Baudelaire.
Gainsbourg also indulged his creativity in visual terms. He
made pioneering music videos, directed several movies, and acted in nearly 50
film and television productions. He first appeared in front of the camera in
low-budget potboilers (including the sword and sandal epic Samson) that
consistently failed to exploit his unique louche persona. In 1969, however, the
phenomenon that was Serge Gainsbourg finally achieved appropriate celluloid
representation in the film Slogan, a fascinating romantic
drama-cum-advertising satire. Gainsbourg called it “the first film where a
director finally had me act as myself, just as I am.â€
It could hardly have been otherwise, as the film’s narrative
prophetically mirrored events in the performer’s real life. Gainsbourg plays
Serge Fabergé, a director of hip advertising films who, at 40 years of age, is
in the grip of a midlife crisis. While attending an awards festival in Venice, he begins an adulterous affair with a
free-spirited English girl named Evelyne (played by England’s free-spirited Jane
Birkin) in a vain attempt to recapture his youth. Behind the scenes, Slogan
was the vehicle through which Gainsbourg and Birkin met and embarked upon one
of the most celebrated love affairs of the seventies. Birkin had already
achieved her own measure of notoriety as a sixties wild child: She was one of
the models who cavort naked with David Hemmings in the film Blow-Up, and
was married to James Bond composer John Barry from 1965-68. She would remain
Gainsbourg’s lover, muse and creative partner until leaving him in 1980.
Ironically, the two did not initially strike sparks, and
Birkin was put off by Gainsbourg’s indifference and arrogance. An evening out
in Paris to
break the ice ended with the two in bed, but with Gainsbourg too drunk to
consummate their new union. Nonetheless, the couple soon became inseparable.
Their off-screen passion is almost palpably rendered in Slogan, in which
they make a memorable, if unconventional, screen couple, with Birkin’s naive
yet smoldering sexuality matched against Gainsbourg’s narcissistic, deadpan
cool. Director Pierre Grimblat, who also wrote the screenplay, effectively
captures the physical hunger of the lovers in a series of brief, evocative
vignettes—a naked Evelyne striding seductively towards Fabergé, who lies
expectantly in bed; Fabergé’s hand unzipping Evelyne’s top as she throws her
head back in ecstasy; an amorous embrace in front of a roaring fire.
Yet the characters' smugness and self-absorption make
it hard to empathize with them. Fabergé is entirely indifferent to the effect
his philandering has upon his wife. His excuse—“I hate choosing because I hate
making sacrificesâ€â€”sums up the selfishness at the core of his character. He
also boasts a nice line in cruelty. After leaving his wife, he throws a party
for their mutual friends at which he introduces Evelyne as “my little
home-breaker,†taking delight in scandalizing his guests and embarrassing his
inamorata. Evelyne is no saint, either. Fundamentally shallow and manipulative,
she’s not above threatening suicide to exact greater commitment from Fabergé.
She’s entirely a slave to her whims and desires, pursuing her pleasure with
nary a thought for the lovers who trail despondently in her wake.
The film’s only sympathetic character is Fabergé’s
long-suffering wife Françoise, played with brittle strength by Andréa Parisy.
Françoise understands her man all too well: “You look young, but you’re not
young. I remind you of that, so you get another opinion.†Accustomed to Serge’s
infidelities, she patiently waits for him to become bored with his latest
conquest and return to the safe harbor of marriage and family. Only when it’s
apparent that he’s committed to chasing his sexual fantasy to the end of the
licentious night does she reluctantly begin divorce proceedings.
Grimblat wisely imbues the trite storyline with plenty of
style, resorting to unexpected camera angles and movements; fast- and
slow-motion effects; and rapid, elliptical editing. Although filmed in 1968, Slogan
plays very much like an early sixties French New Wave film, thanks to its
emphasis on nonstop visual and aural surprise. With its glossy cinematography,
primary colors and modernistic decors, it also closely resembles Fabergé’s
television commercials, which Grimblat inserts at regular intervals. (And which
also function as wicked send-ups of the advertising industry.) There are a
couple of hugely entertaining ads featuring a virile young stud engaging in
Bond-like adventures before slathering on “Scar†aftershave and ravishing a
compliant nubile. Even better is one in which a young beauty reclines naked
outdoors while being whipped by a pair of kilt-wearing Scotsmen and
breathlessly intoning: “If your complexion needs whipping into shape, find the
freshness of a braw Scottish lassie with Skin Scotch!â€
The film is studded with similar frissons, but ultimately,
its biggest assets are its charismatic stars. The magnetism of Gainsbourg and
Birkin, not to mention the vicarious fascination of watching their affair
unfold onscreen, helps to compensate for the film’s rather detached emotional
center. Birkin wasn’t yet fully developed as an actress (and in fact often
comes across as rather shrill and whiny), but gets by on her unabashed
enthusiasm and ethereal, coltish charm. Whether munching cherries from a tree
or tumbling into the sack, Birkin manages to channel the innocence of the
sixties while prefiguring the decadence of the seventies. For his part,
Gainsbourg simply had to be Gainsbourg: macking on every young female in sight,
smoking an endless chain of Gitanes, flaunting his sartorial elegance, and
infusing each line of dialog with his ineffable, decadent cool. So strong and
idiosyncratic was his personality that any analysis of his acting is beside the
point. When he’s on the screen, it’s hard to look anywhere else, even when
Birkin is in a state of dishabille (a frequent and agreeable occurrence).
Gainsbourg would appear in many more films before his death in 1991, but never
as evocatively as in Slogan. Throw in a throbbing Gainsbourg-penned
soundtrack, frank depictions of sexual hunger and insecurity, and an adult
sophistication regarding love and adultery, and you have one of the sixties’
most potent expressions of amour fou.
[Slogan is available on DVD from Cult Epics: www.cultepics.com]
CLICK HERE FOR THE VANITY FAIR ARTICLE THE SECRET WORLD OF SERGE GAINSBOURG