There are television shows that we never forget, decades after they have ended. This is the case with “Apostrophes”. This program, produced and hosted by Bernard Pivot, who died this Monday, May 6, was broadcast on Antenne 2, between January 1975 and June 1990.
Every Friday evening, four or five authors gathered to discuss a subject. This cultural program brought together an average of three to five million viewers. Another time, when people smoked and drank without restraint on television, and where Gabriel Matzneff’s relationships with minors made people laugh.
But “Apostrophes” is also and above all cult sequences and legendary encounters. Facing Bernard Pivot, some of the giants of the 20th century sat down to discuss the work they had just published, such as Marguerite Duras, the boxer Mohamed Ali or the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A look back at ten moments that have become television legends.
- 1975: Alexander Solzhenitsyn for the first time on French television
Nearly 50 years ago, on April 11, 1975, Bernard Pivot received the dissident Russian writer for his first speech since his expulsion from the Soviet Union. A moment for history. The author tells, in Russian and in simultaneous translation, that he learned his books written in detention “by heart”, and says about the influence of prison on his writing.
To a question asked by Jean Daniel, director of “Le Nouvel Observateur”, on the impact of industrial production on the state of mind of the Russian people, Alexander Solzhenitsyn evokes his “sorrow”. He explains to him that through his work, he has tried to show that even deprived of material goods and the hope of living, men can experience an immense spiritual impulse.
- 1978: Charles Bukowski dead drunk
Three years after the Russian Nabokov, who asked for whiskey to be poured into his teapot, Bernard Pivot received another notorious alcohol lover, the American author Charles Bukowski. The latter will leave the set completely drunk, taken by his collaborators, before the end of the show. François Cavanna will even try to silence the author: “Bukowski, I’m going to punch you in the face!” », to which Bernard Pivot will add: “Shut up…”. The sequence has become cult.
- 1984: the secrets of Marguerite Duras
For the release of her latest novel “L’amant”, Marguerite Duras answers Bernard Pivot’s questions about the unexpected popular success of “L’amant”: 100,000 copies sold in four weeks. She talks about her meeting at 15 with a Chinese billionaire lover, her childhood and her alcoholism which led her to hospital and detoxification.
- 1990: the truths of Denise Bombardier facing Gabriel Matzneff
Gabriel Matzneff is invited to come and talk about his book “My decomposed loves”, where he recounts his romantic relationships with teenage girls. The writer is presented by the host as a real sex education teacher. On set, he does not hide his attraction to minors, which provokes a reaction from the Canadian author Denise Bombardier.
“If there is a real sex education teacher, it’s Gabriel Matzneff, he willingly gives lessons,” says Bernard Pivot, playfully, introducing the author whom he also describes as a “collector of kitties “. “Mr. Matzneff seems pitiful to me,” replies Denise Bombardier, the only one on the set to worry about the writer’s minor conquests and judging that he would have had “to answer to the courts” if he did not have “a literary aura”. “There are limits even to literature,” she still declares.
This sequence went viral with the release, at the end of 2019, of the book “Le Consentement” by Vanessa Springora.
- 1986: the Gainsbourg-Béart clash
Serge Gainsbourg, slumped in front of a piano, perhaps tipsy, perhaps not, says: “Du champ’, du brut’, du vamp’, du put'” and explains that “these are the words which convey the idea and not the idea which conveys the words.
Guy Béart does not agree. Gainsbourg, without even turning his head, blurted out: “What did the badger say there?” “. Béart tries to speak, the author of “Melody Nelson” says: “Shut up”. “I sense that there is a little contention between you,” said Pivot. ” But no ! », breathes Gainsbourg. ” Absolutely not ! I do not know him “. Which is entirely false.
Bernard Pivot will have bad memories of this episode: “Guy Béart had been attacked, he had to react and the show did not put him to his advantage. » “What was hurtful about badger, that was the way of saying it. A nastiness emerged,” noted Béart for his part.
