Deneuve - Gainsbourg

from “Historie de Melody Nelson” 1971 TV special.

At fifty six, seven, eight, it doesn’t matter,
X street, if you knock on the door,
First one knock, then three others, they let you in
Alone and sometimes even accompanied.

A servant, without speaking to you, leads you,
Stairs, hallways with no end follow each other
Decorated with baroque bronzes and gilded angels
With Aphrodites and Salomés.

If it’s free, say you want forty four,
It’s the room they call here `The Cleopatra’
Whose bed’s rococo columns,
Are negros, carrying torches.

Among these naked slaves carved from ebony,
Who will be the silent witnesses to this scene,
While above the mirror reflects us,
Slowly I embrace Melody

Fernando Eichenberg

Caricatura de Claude Lévi-Strauss,
um dos franceses que serão lembrados em 2008

Este início de 2008 sinaliza alguns personagens que serão relembrados ao longo do ano na França por obra de datas comemorativas. O primeiro deles é a filósofa e escritora Simone Beauvoir, ícone do feminismo mundial, cujo centenário de nascimento foi celebrado no último 9 de janeiro. E, como é do gosto dos franceses, não sem alguma polêmica. A controvérsia foi lançada pela capa do semanário de esquerda Le Nouvel Observateur, que estampou em uma foto de página inteira a companheira do filósofo Jean-Paul Sartre de costas, em pé, diante do lavabo, completamente nua, emoldurada pelo título “Simone de Beauvoir - A Escandalosa”. A imagem foi feita em 1952 por Art Shay, íntimo amigo do escritor Nelson Algren, na casa deste, o “amante americano” da filósofa, em Chicago.

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In 1968 Gainsbourg had written “Je t’aime, moi non plus”, an explicitly erotic song which he had recorded with Brigitte Bardot. After the pair’s relationship had ended, Bardot begged Gainsbourg not to release the recording as a single and Gainsbourg, the perfect gentleman, respected her wishes. However, in 1969 Jane recorded the notorious song as a duet with Gainsbourg and it appeared on the pair’s joint album “Jane Birkin Serge Gainsbourg”.

When “Je t’aime moi non plus” was released as a single later that year it caused an absolute scandal. Indeed, Gainsbourg’s erotic lyrics and Jane’s passionate whispering totally outraged public opinion. The international press attacked the song’s “lewd” message, radios banned it from their playlists and the Vatican went so far as to issue a statement condemning the immoral nature of the song. In short, “Je t’aime moi non plus” benefited from a huge amount of free publicity and rocketed straight to the top of the charts, selling around a million copies in the space of just a few months. Needless to say, Gainsbourg and Birkin became the most scandalous couple of the year and their relationship became the subject of intense media scrutiny.