“Apostrophes”, which Bernard Pivot hosted 724 times on Antenne 2 from 1975 to 1990 (before continuing with “Bouillon de culture” until 2001), experienced many anthological moments as well as great controversies.
Matzneff against Bombardier
There were dozens of surprising or heated debates. During one of the most notable, in 1990, the Quebec novelist Denise Bombardier opposed Gabriel Matzneff, whose writings advocated sexual relations with children and adolescents.
“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 set to worry about the writer’s minor conquests and judging that he would have been “accountable 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, about her underage relationship with Gabriel Matzneff, leading Bernard Pivot to make amends on Twitter.
”In the 70s and 80s, literature came before morality; today, morality comes before literature. Morally, this is progress. We are more or less the intellectual and moral products of a country and, above all, of an era,” he wrote to his almost million subscribers.
As long as we are drunk
In 1975, the Russian Vladimir Nabokov was the exceptional guest of “Apostrophes”. Bernard Pivot asks him several times: “A little more tea, Mr. Nabokov?” In fact, the author of “Lolita” had asked that whiskey be poured into the teapot.
Three years later, Charles Bukowski drinks three bottles of Sancerre before the start of the show and during his interview. On the air, the author of “Diary of a Disgusting Old Man”, completely drunk, makes incoherent remarks. The journalist and writer François Cavanna says to him: “Shut up, Bukowski!”, who leans towards the novelist Catherine Paysan to caress her knee. “That’s the pompom!”, she writes. Bukowski fidgets in his chair. Someone comes to support him so he can leave the set. Sales of American novels are exploding.
Gainsbourg and the “badger”
In 1986, Serge Gainsbourg, slumped in front of a piano, perhaps tipsy, perhaps not, said: “Du champ’, du brut’, du vamp’, du put’” and explained 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, blurts out: “What did the badger say there?” Béart tries to speak, the author of “Melody Nelson” says: “Shut up”. “I sense there is a little contention between you,” Pivot said. “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’ was the way it was said. A nastiness emerged,” noted Béart for his part.
Kingpin dictator?
In 1982, Régis Debray accused Bernard Pivot of exercising “a dictatorship on the book market” before the Writers’ Union in Montreal.
Response from the host: “I do not accept that this terrible word dictatorship qualifies what is only the free choice of viewers and reading enthusiasts. It is not good for a philosopher, left-wing intellectual and advisor to the Elysée, to believe that audiences are soft things and easily influenced.”
At this time, suffering from weariness, Bernard Pivot considered stopping his show. But Pierre Desgraupes, the boss of Antenne 2, told him that if he stopped, it would be said that he had given in to power, with Debray advising President François Mitterrand on cultural affairs. Pivot therefore continues for another eight years.
