Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rising Star Of French Cinema And Music
Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg
Charlotte Gainsbourg is one of France’s most famous young actresses. Charlotte Gainsbourg. Born to British Actress / Singer Jane Birkin and French actor / singer Serge Gainsbourg, she is the niece of Screenwriter Andrew Birkin who wrote and directed her in the film The Cement Garden. Her career is the stuff of what might be approaching legend in French and World Cinema. She has acted with some of the best in acting and has won many awards in such roles as Cesar Award for L’effrontee for “Most Promising Actress”. Famous as much for being a child actress as well as adult star, she won Best Supporting Actress award in 2000 for La Buche. In 2009 she won the award for Best Actress in the film Antichrist at the Cannes Film Festival. In recent years she starred in The City Of Your Final Destination with Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney. In the biopic of Bob Dylan I’m not there, she played Claire, also singing a cover of Just like a woman for the film’s soundtrack. She has sung a number of songs for several of her films. And renowned for sometimes almost whispering those words, with a wonderful sense of intimacy to it. Listen to the lyrics in the video below...
It seems that music is truly in her blood, and she has had some musical success from a young age. She sung with her father Serge Gainsbourg in Lemon Incest in 1984, and had a successful debut album Charlotte for Ever, produced by her father Serge. She guest featured in Madonna’s album Music on the rack “What it feels like for a girl”. Her second album was a collaboration with the French Group AIR, and songwriters from Divine Comedy and Jarvis Cocker to result in “5.55”, a curious blend of pop and electronic and personal ballad with clever Anglo-French lyrics and great cross-over appeal to the masses who are tired of the Pop Radio-friendly pap that tends to dominate too much airspace these days. The song “Everything That I cannot See” stands out as particularly good, as does “5.55” itself and “The Songs That We Sing”. On release in France this was a best selling album, and release in The UK was received with mixed reviews. Time has now weighed in her favour and the album has gained success.
Gainsbourg is not fazed by the reaction to her music, or her choices and changes in either direction or style. She is hard to pin down sometimes, but – like her acting, she has enduring appeal. She knows a good tune and though having written a lot of her own music, knows that it needs quality musicians and producers to mould it into a lasting form. She has become a true artist of the silver screen and of the iTunes music download, it seems! But what I adore about this great french actress is her ability to diversify and move successfully into other areas. In some of her songs she is almost whispering the words, and it seems to make it more intimate somehow. And more chique!
Nymphomaniac
Charlotte's father, Serge Gainsbourg's music tends to figure as an influence in her music, and curiously also factors into Air’s music as an influence. We can only look forward to her future music collaborations, having already collaborated with the artist Beck, from the USA. Some of the influences explored in the film Antichrist will feature somewhere in it. Her most recent movie and most daring to date is Nymphomaniac, co-starring Shia LaBeouf. The film is a dark story of eroticism and passion and has already been released to both acclaim and controversy.
It seems that no matter what she does, Gainsbourg has a bright future in both cinema and music, since she is a starlet who is not afraid to challenge audiences and make people think. Most of all we are always impressed at how she seems to constantly re-invent herself for cinema and her audience.
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