“It’s gut-wrenching”, “moving”, “I’m like a crazy person”: the first visitors entered Serge Gainsbourg’s legendary lair on Wednesday, at 5 bis rue de Verneuil in Paris, 32 years after his disappearance .
The first to emerge from the half-hour visit, with the voice of Charlotte Gainsbourg as an audio guide, has misty eyes and difficulty finding his words. “It’s very moving,” breathes Jérôme Bassin, resident of the Paris region, 40 years old. He evokes “the room” where the artist was found dead in 1991. And speaks of a “smell”, that of cold cigarette butts in the living room ashtray, between a packet of Gitanes and a Zippo lighter. Following the wishes of Charlotte Gainsbourg, who fought for the opening of this place to the public, nothing has changed for 32 years.
“We’re entering a time machine,” said José Sarica, 46, more verbose. Pin’s of the face of Jane Birkin – who resided here from the end of the 1960s to 1980 – on the reverse of the jacket, this Marseillais took a week’s vacation to visit and “pay homage” to the author of La javanaise. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he confides. “I’m upset, I cried, well I cry easily, but when we arrive in front of the bedroom, the place of Serge Gainsbourg’s end, it hits the guts,” he continues. He salutes the words of Charlotte Gainsbourg recorded for the audio guide, this guardian of the temple managing to be “so modest and at the same time to deliver so much intimacy”. As he passed the bathroom, he also “imagined Jane Birkin washing her hair, with her daughters Kate (the fruit of a first union) and Charlotte”. And added: “It’s like I was 10 years old again, when I dreamed of becoming Charlotte’s friend.”
Also read: Serge Gainsbourg, rue de Verneuil: his life, his home
Yann Boucaud, from Charente-Maritime, 48 years old, is delighted to have been able to “enter the daily life” of the Gainsbourg family, when Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin “returned from the club” at a time when Kate and Charlotte “were woke up”.
Charlotte gives “really great anecdotes,” rejoices this man wearing a Blur group t-shirt. Above all, he remembers “the living room where he received everyone, where there is a whole collection of police badges and handcuffs”, with which the artist toasted at the end of the night. He too was marked by “the room, where he died”, and by the way in which “Charlotte recounts mourning”. “There is a lot of worn furniture, we feel the presence of Serge Gainsbourg,” he insists.
Barbara Zjafe, a 51-year-old Parisian, had an appointment for the visit at 1:30 p.m., but was there from 7:30 a.m. “I’m like crazy, it’s a very important day in my life, my daughter’s name is Charlotte-Jane.” In his hand, wrapped like a bouquet of flowers, there is a little cabbage, homage to “The man with the head of cabbage”, nickname of the artist and title of one of his legendary albums. On his forearm, the tattoo of Serge Gainsbourg’s profile.
Florent, 40 years old, resident of the Paris region, has a ticket for October 6. “But I wanted to be there this morning for the opening to the first visitors.” For those who are just discovering the opening of the place, you will have to wait: it is full until the end of 2023. Some 100,000 visitors per year are expected.
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