Joann Sfar pays homage to an idol in ‘Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life’

While growing up in Nice, France, in the 1970s and ‘80s, Joann Sfar was obsessed with singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. So much so that Sfar eventually penned and illustrated a 451-page adult comic book about the racy, boundary-pushing musician.

“He was the only French singer with an attitude,” Sfar, 40, said by phone from New York recently. “When you turn on TV in France in the 1970s, he was the only guy who would refer to sex and alcohol and the meaningless life, so it was very appealing. He was the guy who makes you feel that it would be cool to be an adult.”

Now Sfar has made a film about his idol, “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life,” based on his comic book; the movie — Sfar’s directorial debut — was released in France last year to accolades and opens in L.A. on Friday.

Though considered one of the most influential singer-composers, Gainsbourg, who died 20 years ago at 62, was also one of the most controversial. His 1969 song “Je T’aime … Moi Non Plus,” which he sang with his future wife, Jane Birkin, caused a furor because of its sexually explicit lyrics and simulated sound of a female orgasm.

He caused another sensation in 1978 when he recorded a reggae version of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise” for which he received death threats from French veterans who fought in the Algerian war of independence and who objected to some of the lyrics. He even recorded a song with his actress-singer daughter, Charlotte, titled “Lemon Incest.” During the 1980s he would show up on stage and at other events drunk, belligerent and profane.

Sfar has described his film as a “fairy tale,” which may explain why the Gainsbourg estate allowed him to make the movie. Gainsbourg’s family had turned down all requests for a biopic because they didn’t want his outrageous behavior of the 1980s and early ‘90s to be depicted on screen.

“I called it a fairy tale to please them,” said Sfar. “I am not sure it’s a fairy tale.”

He based his film on Gainsbourg’s comments in interviews and his writings. “I basically wrote the script out of his sentences. I never used any material that would come from his friends or family,” Sfar said. “I only used his stories. I didn’t invent a word. It’s like meeting that old drunk in the nightclub and he tells you about his life: It would not be a fairy tale; it would be a fantasy of an old, drunk man.”

Originally, Sfar wanted Charlotte to play her father in the film. Sfar said he wouldn’t have used any makeup to transform daughter into father, save for dressing her in a tuxedo. “I trust the audience to have imagination,” he said.

“We had been working six months on the project, and then Charlotte woke up and said it was too painful and she didn’t want to be involved in the project anymore,” Sfar said. “In my perception, the film was over the day she didn’t want to play her father.”

But then he met Eric Elmosnino, a 47-year-old theater and film actor who has appeared in movies since 1985, including the acclaimed 2009 “The Father of My Children.” Elmosnino did all of his own singing in the film, Sfar said, “because all the French people they know Gainsbourg recordings by heart, so if we had his recordings in the film, they would have left the story at every musical moment.”

For his uncanny interpretation of Gainsbourg, Elmosnino took home the Cesar Award for actor. (He also won the acting award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York.)

Sfar said there are many differences between his comic book and the movie. “The main difference is that the comic book is 200 pages longer [than the screenplay] and it’s definitely pornographic. Drawing provides an abstraction, which allows me a lot of extreme depictions. There is a lot more sex in my drawings,” he said. “I am so respectful of my actors I don’t want them to do something that would be embarrassing. So maybe the movie is more tender than the comic book.”

Gainsbourg was Jewish, and Sfar did include in his film a drawing of anti-Semitic propaganda that comes to life for the singer during World War II and follows him around as a constant reminder of his background. The film also includes “The Mug” (played by Doug Jones of “Hellboy”), a tall, skinny, rodent-type man who becomes Gainsbourg’s subversive alter ego as an adult.

Gainsbourg “thought that not only wasn’t he handsome, he was a kind of monster,” explained Sfar. “When he did his first recordings in the 1960s, it was way after World War II, there were newspaper articles that compared him to a monkey. When he began, the audience perception in France was that he was a rat or a spider.”

susan.king@latimes.com