The turning point of Jane Birkin’s career: “I was regarded as a serious actress”
At the start of Richard Lester’s The Knack…And How To Get It, a young Jane Birkin can be seen standing among a group of young women, including pre-fame Jacqueline Bisset and Charlotte Rampling, who appear mannequin-like, acting as mere objects for our male characters to fawn over. The film taps into the sexual liberation that was occurring as the swinging sixties took hold, although it soon becomes apparent that experiences of this period were starkly different for men and women.
Birkin is one of the only mannequin-like women who is seen in the film again, riding on the back of a motorbike with Ray Brooks’ Tolen, purely existing as one of his many sexual conquests. These kinds of roles helped to get Birkin’s name and face into the British film industry, and over the next few years, she starred in movies like Blow-Up and Wonderwall, playing parts that focused on her beauty rather than giving her anything of substance to say.
The actor became a fashion icon and a symbol of the swinging sixties, but she soon found herself more at home in France, where she met Serge Gainsbourg and became an honorary Parisienne. She starred in French films like La Piscine and Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman, and released music mainly sung in French, including the erotic ‘Je t’aime moi non plus’.
For years, Birkin was given roles that relied on her being beautiful, with these parts typically lacking any depth or complexity. She hardly got the chance to prove herself as a serious actor until the 1980s, when she realised that she was dissatisfied in various ways. She chopped her hair short, stopped wearing ultra-feminine clothing and makeup, and embraced her natural self as she approached 40.
Her journey towards accepting the fact she was getting older is documented beautifully in the Agnes Varda film Jane B par Agnes V, which was followed by Kung Fu Master!, a movie that Birkin wrote as well as starred in, proving her creativity after years of being objectified and idolised as a fashion and beauty icon.
However, a few years before then, she appeared in a film that would help to change the public’s perception of Birkin, allowing her to feel more comfortable and confident in her acting abilities. She was cast in Jacques Doillon’s The Prodigal Daughter, having started a relationship with him the year prior, and for “the first time,” she found that “someone making so-called intellectual films thought of me,” Birkin once recalled.
“Jacques Doillon wasn’t interested in seeing me with my clothes off. He told me: ‘I don’t want you to unbutton your shirt, I want to know what’s happening in your head, and I want you to have a nervous breakdown,’” she added.
The film saw Birkin play a woman who, after divorcing her husband, returns home to her father. When she realises that he is preoccupied with a younger mistress, she finds herself jealous, going as far as attempting to seduce him herself. Transgressive and taboo, The Prodigal Daughter was the most daring piece of work Birkin had appeared in until this point, and it allowed her to play a complex role that was entirely about character rather than her looks.
She had so long been defined by her appearance, so she felt truly liberated by Doillon’s film. Conclusively declaring, “After I had made [The Prodigal Daughter], I was regarded as a serious actress in France.”
