Is ‘Seberg’ on Amazon Based on a True Story?

American film audiences might not consider Jean Seberg a household name, but for French audiences in the ’60s, she was right up there with Audrey Hepburn. Thankfully, for the younger generation of American viewers, you can now familiarize yourself with the real story of Jean Seberg by watching Seberg on Amazon Prime, starring Kristin Stewart as the actress best known for Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless.

Seberg was directed by Benedict Andrews, written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, and first premiered at Venice Film Festival last August, followed by a theatrical run in December. Now, as of Friday, Seberg—an Amazon Studios film—is finally streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The story follows Seberg’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement in the late ’60s—namely, her involvement and funding of the Black Panther Party in the United States. Unknown to Seberg, this prompted the FBI to track, bug, and harass her, eventually launching a devastating smear campaign to discredit her. According to her husband Romain Gary (played by Yvan Attal in the film), this targeted surveillance and harassment contributed to her depression and death, and in the movie, that’s certainly what we see play out. But of course, movies are movies. So what is the true story of Jean Seberg?

Is Seberg on Amazon based on a true story?

Yes. Seberg is based on the true story of actor and activist Jean Seberg.

Who is Jean Seberg, Kristen Stewart’s character in Seberg?

Jean Seberg was an American actor and activist who was born in Iowa but spent most of her career in France, acting in French films. She is best known for her performance in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless—which cemented her role as a key figure in French New Wave cinema forever—but she appeared in many more films, including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, The Mouse That Roared, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, Paint Your Wagon, Airport, Macho Callahan, and Gang War in Naples.

Did the FBI track Jean Seberg and the Black Panthers? What is the Seberg true story?

As you see in Seberg, the FBI’s then-secret counter-intelligence program, COINTELPRO, made Jean Seberg a target of its covert and illegal surveillance aimed at infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting American political organizations. The FBI initially became interested in Seberg both because she donated money to the Black Panther Party, and because she was having an affair with one of its married members, Hakim Jamal (played by Anthony Mackie), who was a cousin of Malcolm X.

There is proof of this. Seberg’s FBI file has been made available under the freedom of information act, and though it was heavily redacted writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse used those files to verify many suspected details of the FBI’s surveillance, according to Seberg’s friends and family, which included stalking, break-ins, wiretapping, and intimidation techniques.

In 1979, the FBI admitted to planting false stories about Seberg’s pregnancy, which claimed the baby belonged not to her husband, Romain Gary, but to a member of the Black Panther Party. That story was reported by The Los Angeles Times and Newsweek.

Following the FBI smear campaign that Seberg’s baby belonged to him, Seberg went into premature labor and gave birth to a daughter, Nina Hart Gary, who died two days later. As is mentioned in the film, following that, Seberg and her husband Romain Gary sued Newsweek for libel and defamation, which resulted in them winning $20,000 in damages from the magazine and other publications.

What did Jean Seberg die of? How did Jean Seberg die?

Jean Seberg’s died at the age of 40, and her death was ruled a probable suicide by police.

Seberg disappeared on the night of August 30, 1979. She was found dead in a car nine days later, wrapped in blankets, along with a bottle of sleeping pills, a water bottle and a goodbye note from Seberg addressed to her son. According to her son, she had attempted suicide a month prior to her death. Seberg’s husband, Romain Gary, said that the FBI and the planted media story led to Seberg’s deteriorating mental health.

How accurate is Seberg on Amazon Prime?

Every movie based on a true story stretches the truth to make things more cinematic, and that’s certainly the case in Seberg. But while most of the characters and details in Seberg are either true or, at least, educated speculation based on what was available from biographies or FBI files, the one detail that is completely fictional is Jack O’Connell’s character, aka the sympathetic FBI agent named Jack.

In an interview with LRM online, director Benedict Andrews explained, “That side of the movie is a speculative version of the Jack character. It is entirely fictional, drawing upon those sources I mentioned. We invented him because the film should look at both sides of that surveillance. The movie is a dance between those two perspectives until they finally meet at the end of the movie. There was permission to invent that side of things by drawing on the real documents.”

The director also added that details of everyone’s lives—Seberg, Romain Gary (Yvan Attal), and Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie)—were left out, to condense the story into a 102-minute film.

Watch Seberg on Amazon Prime Video