Book. Radio is an art that lacks literature. Also the publication by the Presses universitaire de Rennes (PUR), three years later Night microphones. History of night radio in France, 1945-2012by Marine Beccarelli, du Desire for beautiful radio today (PUR, 2024) is particularly welcome. Welcome, even essential, at a time when the threat of a merger of public broadcasting looms and where the word “podcast” seems to have become a brand or a sesame – in any case, a hell of a catch-all.
At the risk of breaking down open doors, radio is a passion and a profession, as this collective work directed by Eliane Beaufils, Christophe Deleu and Pierre-Marie Héron shows so well. We cannot in fact put on the same level a conversation podcast held by an influencer and the work of an author, a director, a sound recordist, a foley artist, an editor (in short , of a team), who think about how to give voice to others and the world.
Let us make it clear from the outset that it is not a question here of regretting a past which is no more – especially since the digital turn has allowed radio, an art until then dramatically amnesiac, to become a stock art. , and no longer just flow. Let us also point out that this work focuses on so-called “creative” radio, which is not that of journalism programs of a specifically informative type.
The taste of sound
Divided into two parts, the work focuses first on radio fiction, which, as recalled, finds its origin in the decision of Radio France, in 1992, at the initiative of Alain Trutat (1922 -2006), to rename the “drama” department of France Culture into the “fiction” department.
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Among the many contributions, let us note the fascinating interview conducted by Christophe Deleu, professor of information and communication sciences at the University of Strabourg, with the screenwriter and director Mariannick Bellot, but also the text by Christophe Rault, founder with Silvain Gire of Arte Radio, in 2002, who pays tribute to those who passed on to him the taste and work of sound – notably Yann Paranthoën (1935-2005) and the one who was a little more than his companion, Claude Giovannetti.
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