Ça vous étonne / Mais c'est comme ça

November 22, 2009 12:56 AM

5bis rue du Verneuilis the home of Serge Gainsbourg in Paris. This short film peels off the layers of graffiti left on the wall there.
posted by creeky (12 comments total)

Holy Crap. This is excellent.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:06 AM on November 22, 2009

3D Graffiti Technica and Graffiti Research Lab.
posted by netbros at 1:27 AM on November 22, 2009

This is really neat. I had never heard of Gainsbourg until I was writing a blog post a few weeks ago about one of Chopin's études and the various adaptations of it, and discovered the bizarre "Lemon Incest," where he's accompanied by his then 12-year-old daughter. He seems like he probably would've been the kind of guy who would've approved of his home being used for community art, though.
posted by Kosh at 7:48 AM on November 22, 2009

Excellent find!
posted by kaseijin at 8:28 AM on November 22, 2009

If you're new to Gainsbourg, you should definitely search out a bit more. For example, this video where a very drunk Gainsbourg makes an amazing pass at Whitney Houston. Or this song, Requiem pour un con.
posted by handee at 8:54 AM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

That Whitney Houston clip is one of my all-time favorites.
posted by kaseijin at 9:58 AM on November 22, 2009

wow, fantastic! thanks for posting this...
posted by jammy at 10:13 AM on November 22, 2009

Incidentally, the inside of the house has remained the same since the day he died -- his daughter turned it into a museum.

She also says about the graffiti: Charlotte went to the Rue de Verneuil house one day and all the graffiti had been covered over with "disgusting yellow" paint. She thought it had been done by the police, but they told her the neighbors thought it was "filthy" and they had organized this cover-up, at night. "But the great thing was a week later," she says, "it was all covered with graffiti again."

Thanks for posting!
posted by pfafflin at 2:13 PM on November 22, 2009

Thanks, I hadn't seen this and I'm a huge fan. That was Joann Sfar, the artist who directed the biopic of Serge due out this spring. I wonder how that graffiti will figure into the movie?
posted by Locative at 7:16 PM on November 22, 2009

Thanks, cool post. I can imagine the good burghers of the 7th arr. (probably the poshest in the city) getting their knickers royally twisted over this. Which was pretty much Serge's gig.
posted by Wolof at 10:40 PM on November 22, 2009

Really cool, thanks.
posted by PHINC at 8:16 AM on November 23, 2009

In America Serge is that French guy who did those weird sex songs.

In France he is commonly regarded as a Gallic fusion of Dylan and Lennon, with some Shakespeare thrown in.
posted by ovvl at 9:15 PM on November 23, 2009