A decade after the terrorist attacks of January 2015, several tribute ceremonies took place this Tuesday, January 7, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, François Bayrou, François Hollande and even Anne Hidalgo. On January 7, 2015, Charlie Hebdo was hit by an attack. Twelve people, including 8 members of the editorial staff, lost their lives in the attack perpetrated by the Chérie brothers and Said Kouachi. Bernard Maris, an economic journalist, dies of a bullet in the temple while defending “Soumission,” the latest novel by Michel Houellebecq, during the weekly editorial conference of Charlie Hebdo.
He led several lives at once
In January 2016, Public Senate broadcast a two-part documentary, produced by Day for Night and directed by his latest partner, Hélène Fresnel, and her colleague, Hélène Risser. Its name: “In search of Bernard Maris”. It tells of the singularity of a man who was inspired by psychoanalysis to think about capitalism and found that literature tells the world better than the experts in his discipline.
Bernard Maris led several lives at the same time: economist, member of the anti-globalization association Attac, but also of the General Council of the Bank of France, university professor, journalist at Charlie Hebdo, politician, columnist for France-Inter, actor , essayist, novelist… Hélène Fresnel and Hélène Risser strive to show that its different facets gave rise to the originality of his thinking and fueled his creativity.
They spoke with those who knew him, worked with him, loved him and sometimes criticized him. For example, we meet the writer Emmanuel Carrère, the director of Charlie Hebdo Riss, the former president of the Senate Jean-Pierre Bel, the journalists Philippe Labarde and Patricia Martin, the psychoanalyst Henri Sztulman and the poet and ambassador of Palestine Elias Sanbar. Excerpts from films in which he participated and which he appreciated, and interviews he gave are also shown on the image.
A film in four chapters
The documentary is presented in the form of a double narration. Hélène Risser is conducting a remote investigation and Hélène Fresnel, her partner since 2012, is interested in intimate matters. It is structured around four chapters, based on archives and illustrations imagined by Catherine Meurisse, friend of Bernard Maris and former cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo.
The first is called: “January 7 and after…”. It relates the events which preceded the attack with a return to the Notre-Dame de Roqueville chapel, in Montgiscard (Haute-Garonne), where the funeral ceremony took place. “Both of us now!” : Parisian life and the politics of thought” is the second chapter. He returns to the construction of his economic and political reflection. From his gradual departure from Toulouse and arrival in Paris where Bernard Maris briefly launched into politics among the environmentalists, before declaring himself disappointed by the left, despite his political family, in a critical book.
Then, “Bernard Maris and Uncle Bernard: Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde? » looks at the apparent contradictions, the links with psychoanalysis, the complexity of man and the intellectual. The last chapter is called “Des Zarzauxlettres”. This starts from Bernard Maris's passion for Charlie Hebdo to explore his progressive opening towards the arts and literature before exploring the question of intellectual heritage, transmission and filiation.
