De Gainsbourg à Birkin

Gainsbourg: The Sound of the Latin
By Lea Celik Sommerseth Shaw

My friend David Rubin and I were in contact with Joe Dallesandro some years ago regarding a film project on Jane Birkin. I wrote a script tailored for her and him, after years of correspondence with Joe Dallesandro and a lifetime of listening to Serge Gainsbourg, and I had David who knew them both well, Joe through the circles of cinema, and I with my film studies background and a brief encounter with Bergman, always had Gainsbourg’s records playing. To me, his music is the very personification of the Latin. Gainsbourg was never about straight melody, he was syncopation, surprise, the hesitation before the downbeat. To me, he was jazz without needing to call himself jazz. Every chord change in his work carried a wink, a sigh, or a provocation.

Filming Birkin was my second attempt to the cinema world after being in contact with my neighbour in Gothenburg, Freddie Wadling, whom I had also intended to film. At the time, he was recording with Sophie Zelmani, and we struggled to find a production company. Earlier, I had been in contact with Bergman during his preparations for Mary Queen of Scots. I then went to Cyprus for holiday before moving to London and taking classes at Birkbeck, Brick Lane.

Through the years, despite not speaking French, I always listened to Gainsbourg. I must admit I first discovered him as a teenager, subscribing to Italian Vogue, and I never understood the fuss about Birkin, but I knew then it was all about Gainsbourg.

Jazz is a conversation, and if the Latin could be a personification, Gainsbourg would embody it without uttering a single language. He mixed chanson with reggae, pop with orchestration, provocation with tenderness. He left silences in which you could sense the rhythm of your heartbeat, then broke them, just like a heartbreak, with a lyric that could melt or wound.

My own jazz recording attempts during turbulent years were, in truth, homages to Gainsbourg. Every note was a question he had already asked: How far can music go before it becomes too honest for the world to bear? Jane was not just Gainsbourg’s muse; she was the keeper of his flame. Throughout her career, she carried forward his legacy — not defined by a single song or era, but by her ability to fuse intimacy and poetry into something that could pierce the soul.

To me, Gainsbourg is the essence of what I thought France to be, just like Baudelaire. In truth, Gainsbourg is more France than I ever found France itself to be. France, as I have experienced, is a very cold place, and this negative opinion is not something I chose, but it was imposed upon me through the relentless hostilities I have endured for years, now, traumas that will never heal. Every day, I can only carry on with the aim of moving on, I am so bad at forgiving that I never do. I avoid France in France, while battling at International levels to get my kid, so we can move on, everyday

I barely listen to music nowadays, if I ever listen to Gainsbourg and Birkin, I return to a time I no longer compare to the present. Gainsbourg was the warmth of the Latin soul, with the sensuality, melancholy, rebellion. I remember my discussions with my neighbour Adrienne Pauly and my frequent encounters with Benjamin Biolay, Étienne Daho, all devoted to Gainsbourg and Birkin, during the years commuting between London and Paris to expand my independent Brick Lane projects.

In Saint Germain Des Pres, I would often find myself in the world of the Mastroianni's and remembering Anita, whom I met many years ago in Lund, a critic of Marcello and Fellini. My kid and I would remain sarcastic, as we always were, listening to Weekend à Rome when we were commuting to our Saint Germain Des Pres neighbourhoods, which I dedicated my book “Marcello di Fellini.”

One day, I was sitting at Mabillon, distressed by what I am going through, and they began playing Sous le soleil exactement. For a moment, when I heard Gainsbourg voice everything was fine, at least until the song lasted. And every time Birkin had a Gainsbourg release, it was just like that: everything felt almost fine, for a moment.

Lea Celik Sommerseth Shaw

Saint Germain Des Prés, 13 August 2025