Suicide of her daughter and desire for Adjani: the whole truth about Jane Birkin in her diary

The second and last part of Birkin’s diary, “Postscript”, was published in Russian, where she speaks directly and honestly about her life after her breakup with Serge Gainsbourg. The first part, “Journal d’un singe”, was released at the end of 2019.

The beauty of these diaries is that Jane doesn’t play around and try to be better than she is: a very rare franchise in these times and the absence of Photoshop! When her eldest daughter, Kate, committed suicide, Jane closed the diary she had kept since she was eleven and never wrote another line in it.

What do we learn about Jane Birkin from her candid story?

“On Sunday, I looked in my wardrobe and saw that my beautiful plum-coloured jacket, my only Saint Laurent, was out of place. I must say, all my beautiful cashmere items, my sweater favorite black, a dress made especially for me by Saint Laurent, two bathing suits, still in the packaging, bought from Repetto in the hope that I’ll lose weight – the list is far from complete – gone! Sunday I had my share of thefts, loans, bad grades, lies – everything this year has been filled with – and like a madman rushed to Kate. I only remember that I shouted: “Thief!” – and then I fainted. I thought that they were going to take me to a mental hospital, I had terrible vertigo! I climbed the wall like crazy, it was dark in my eyes, such a historian had never happened to me before I remember Kate looked at me in surprise, as if looking at an extrate rrest from another planet, then she started to move away from me in horror, like a completely alien person.

“I don’t remember anything. I only remember that I had a funny conversation with Isabelle Adjani, she was just charming, we laughed at a story with gynecologists. To tell the truth, we made all the girls laugh. people present at the festival; on the occasion of such a great success, I drank white wine after I had finished a bottle or two of red. I think two good glasses of vodka with orange juice completed my downfall, I deliberately took them behind Jacques’s back, we drank with Ajdani, my accomplice. And then – fog until morning! Well yes! But not a drop more, otherwise heading for Sainte-Anne! I know that it’s unreasonable, that it’s more extreme, but I’ve got it all or nothing, as the song says, and as far as the smoke is concerned, it’s either four packs or not a single puff. I can’t control myself, I can’t be reasonable. I’m too weak for a drink or two.”

“Jacques (director Jacques Douillon, husband of Jane Birkin after breaking up with Serge Gainsbourg – editor’s note), why aren’t you afraid that I will leave you? Why are you so sure of me? You sleep peacefully. And I mentally close my suitcases. Serge is like my country, I have a dizzying desire to return there to find peace, to die there. In the end, I understand that life without him or without you would have had the same end. So I saw my Serge again, my England, his paternal gestures, I heard his calm voice – and yet he was sometimes so aggressive, so arrogant – I saw my peaceful man – perhaps because he is happy and I’m not here, And that’s why you lost sleep? Previously, a feeling of shame, a feeling of guilt for the suffering inflicted on him, did not let me sleep, but now I envy his calm, his serenity. Yes, I’m not lying to myself: I envy his condition and I envy Bamba who took my place.

“I like beautiful women, but they make me feel my own misery. A kind of Adjani or Kinski – oh, how colorless, tasteless and talentless I feel, I’m so afraid that Jacques or Chéreau will want to “other actresses, let them get tired of me, let Jacques leave with Kinski, and I’m stupid in front of his beauty. I feel like a sock, putting on a nice leg, but I’m going to make a hole, and they’ll replace me, I’m replaceable. I don’t love myself and I can’t get over it. In short, no talent, no skill, but, my God, what diligence!

“I sent a fax to my mother: ‘In the tank that was taking us to Sarajevo, I met a person, it seems that I like him, it’s incredible, he was one of the militants of the 68th, very brave, he has a house, don’t you believe me, next to the Bonaparte beach, he’s a writer, I’d rather tell you all this myself, but I can’t help it, you tell him I would love to, I just want you to know.

Olivier Rolin is one of those authors who particularly marked me, his descriptions in The Invention of Humanity, the book I read during our meeting, and Port Soudan, Tigre de Papier, Météorologue, he should have receive all the awards.. .. And in life he is funny, hot-tempered and incredibly arrogant, I will always love him, maybe he was even my last love.

“I stopped keeping a diary on December 11, 2013 when my daughter Kate passed away. I was unable to continue, as if I no longer had the right to express my thoughts in the state of this fog that left me covered. I lost confidence in myself as a mother. I left the arena. She, remaining English, was my accomplice, sometimes my compass, sometimes my adversary.

How do you keep a diary after that? My poor girls, I have not been your help. Marlowe said to me, “You were talking to us, but you were somewhere else in your head.” It was pretty much like that. I felt like I was living another parallel life. The rug is torn from under my feet. I got sick, why not…”

Author: Anastasia Khanina