After several calls and emails from the two north Atlantic edges, to its magazine, to colleagues, to several branches of the world platform Netflix, which broadcasts its documentary on the feminicide in July 2003, in Vilnius, in Lithuania, of the actress Marie Trintignant by Bertrand Cantat, it is “north of Detroit, Michigan” that journalist Anne-Sophie Jahn was joined for the interview.
Detroit, therefore. It is also by a malignant coincidence, the name of the rock group formed by Bertrand Cantat in 2013, after his release from prison and the end of his mythical group, Noir Désir. A new training album was published in December, with the help of socio -financing, no record company wishing to associate with the sulphurous artist and his colleagues. The little that remained of its reputation was sprayed on a planetary scale by the three -part proposal entitled From Rockstar to killer. The Cantat case.
Mme Jahn returned two weeks to France last month for the promotion of this documentary, which quickly found itself at the top of the list of views of more than a dozen countries. It was also the wish by associating with the globalized American platform.
“We didn’t want to be elitist,” explains the magazine’s journalist The pointspecialized in covering pop music. The goal was to reach the greatest number everywhere, not to address already convinced people who already have an opinion. This story can interest everyone: it is universal. »»
Mme Jahn receives messages from Türkiye, Germany, Italy or Argentina. “Really from all over the world,” she said, “people who recognize themselves in this story that affects sexism, feminicides, many realities that are not only French. »»
How many victims
The work exposes the different understanding of the drama. The singer and actress Lio, friend of Marie Trintignant, appears there without moral flaws, like the musician Richard Kolinka, father of one of the children of the victim: they saw just about the crime and the criminal from the start and maintained their indignation. Relatives of Cantat, including Pascal Nègre, ex-president of Universal Music France, and Dominique Revert, director of tour, continue to distinguish the artist’s killer.
Des reporters, dont Mme Jahn herself, gradually became aware of the feminicide and omerta around Cantat. “There are only fools who do not change their mind,” she sums up. There are many characters who evolve and open their eyes to the reality of what happened. The heart of the documentary is to try to tell the facts. »»
The last episode relays the testimony of a hospital employee who saw a medical file on an assault suffered by the musician’s wife, Krisztina Rády, before the feminicide of Marie Trintignant. Mme Rády committed suicide in 2010. In Vilnius, at trial, then in the French media, the musician and his relatives (including Mme Rády) managed to fond of justice and the public to impose the idea of a “passionate crime” rather than a feminicide, including hiding that he had been violent with his wife and perhaps with ex.
“How many women cantat has violence?” request mme Jahn. There are tracks, names stand out. I spoke with a woman who did not want to testify, neither admit nor deny what happened. There are still a lot of gray areas to lighten. You still have to remember that it is very, very difficult for the victims to speak because it is not to their advantage. The stigma is very strong. They do not want their identity to be summed up with that of the woman who was struck by Bertrand Cantat. »»
The condemned for “murder committed in the event of an indefinite indirect intention” refused to participate in the book Black desire by mme Jahn, published in 2023. His intimate circle still refused to testify to the camera.
Depardieu and the others
The filmed presentation clearly brings out a kind of premium at the spotlight. Sociologist Nathalie Heinich has already observed that artists are in a way the aristocrats of democratic society. We often pass them their escapades, and even their assaults.
The music man Serge Gainsbourg has already harassed live women on television. When the actor Gérard Depardieu began to get stuck in scandals and denunciations, even the French president, Emmanuel Macron, defended him by denouncing a “manhunt” of a “immense actor” who “makes France proud. “He then said that he” never defended an attacker in the face of victims “.
“We see it in other similar cases: we put the artists on a pedestal, and it’s a little disgusting, comments Mme Jahn. This is particularly true in France, but I have the impression that this is less the case in North America. When I started investigating Bertrand Cantat, I spoke to colleagues around me or in the music world and I was said: “Ah, but yes, but yes, everyone knew”. As for Gérard Depardieu. Everyone knew, but in private in dinners, in the inter-self. In public nobody says anything. »»
The journalist also points out that Bertrand Cantat was in complete contradiction by making political morality (on the left) to all of France while behaving in Salaud in private. “It’s very hypocritical. There is Bertrand Cantat who spits on the media all day, except when it comes to praising when he gives interviews to magazine Inrockuptibles. There is a form of double standard. »»
But now, the global reception of his excellent work From Rockstar to killer shows that mentalities change. Right now, fiction Adolescence On a feminicide committed by a 13 -year -old teenager makes even more noise worldwide.
“I have a little biased look, but I recognized so much in Adolescenceso many unacceptable behaviors, an evil root which is quite common in fact, says Anne-Sophie Jahn. A girl in a college or Marie Trintignant can be treated with sluts. It really tells the same story. »»
From Rockstar to killer. The Cantat case is available on Netflix.
