“I had to not forget anyoneexplains Gaëlle Ghesquière. You had to go very fast and you had to be light. I only had two cameras – one for wide shots and one for tight shots.” The photographer, who says she trusts her instincts rather than technique, imagined her evening at work by projecting the script in her head (“as if I were making a storyboard”). She immortalized the moment, her explosion of joy, her moments of tension and her moments of withdrawal – on stage, backstage, in smiles and in high aerobatics. A luxury surboom in honor of this TV show which, in 1993, took off with Bernard Lavilliers, “crazy enough to accept”explains Nagui who also cites Florent Pagny, Pascal Obispo, Zazie and Amina, the first to have sung live at Taratata.
When you launched “Taratata” in 1993, there were no live shows and no more rock on TV. What does that say about the times?
At the time, there were four variety shows per week on TF1: Drucker on Monday, Foucault on Wednesday, Sabatier on Friday and Sébastien on Saturday. Four on TF1, none on La 2. Until June 1992, when Étienne Mougeotte (then channel director at TF1, Editor’s note) freak out and stop everything. The start of the 1992 school year took place without any more entertainment broadcasts, and with Gérard Pullicino, we said to ourselves that there was a window, something to do. We offer Marie-France Brière (variety director of France 2, Editor’s note) a show but without playback or Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier, a show only with live. She doesn't believe it that much, but she had seen a bio show on Michael Jackson that we had produced, and she trusts us.
Did you have a model for dreaming “Taratata”?
No, but I assume my education on TV which was done by watching Guy Lux, Michel Drucker, the Carpentier shows, the interviews with Yves Mourousi who questioned the President of the Republic sitting on a desk, but also Chorus, The children of rockChistophe Dechavanne. I grew up with all that. Afterwards, you have to be who you are, you must not try to imitate.
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The show strikes people's minds with its innovative scenography. Was it a desire to change the codes?
The main thing was to perform live. Pullicino's fantastic idea is to imagine a system where the musicians place themselves in a circle, as they do in rehearsal studios – each looks at each other to see what chord the other is going to make. But when I ask him where he places the audience, he answers: “Around”. And when I ask him where he places the cameras, he answers: “Around”. During production, this gives exchanges of glances between the musicians and more distance between the artists and the public.
Camera movements, lights, framing, image grain gave a visual identity to the show. We can say that there is a “Taratata” brand…
With a team of tinkerers and Géo Trouvetou who had fun creating quite different things which gave a new lease of life to music filmed on TV. The lighting creations of Jean-Philippe Bourdon, the choices of Patrice Cramer, the sound engineer, Pullicino's idea of moving to 24 images per second, knowing that television is 25 images per second, which gives the the impression that the image is broadcast as if it were covered with film. There were times when the channel sent me the program back and told me that there was a problem – too much light, black and white… To relieve the technical manager of the broadcast, I had to write a note to say that we agreed on this image quality.
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Can we manage this laboratory of sound and image as easily with David Bowie as with a young, unknown singer?
In any case, that's what's needed. But the artists are more open than we imagine… When Mr. Pokora sang guitar-voice “Hallelujah”, Alicia Keys – Alicia Keys all the same! – did not leave the set, she stayed behind the cameras to listen to him and applaud him. The only difference between a star and an unknown person is their entourage and the way they are spoken to. There are anonymous people who arrive with an extremely pretentious entourage, and there are stars who arrive with an extremely nice entourage. For our part, we treat all artists on an equal footing.
In thirty years, the music industry and the media landscape have changed. Is it more difficult to produce “Taratata” today?
It's more difficult to invite certain personalities because they need television less. They have the means to film whatever they want and broadcast it on their own YouTube channel. I think it will take me a while to get Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, but I'm not giving up… As long as Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Oasis, Lenny Kravitz come, there will always be this thing of ” I was told it would be nice to come to your place.”
Is this show the masterpiece of your career?
Does that mean it's over? Who tells you I won't do better? In any case, it has to be my most beautiful love story.
