Camille Lou in "I promise you".
-
JEAN-PHILIPPE BALTEL / AUTHENTIC PROD / TF1
TF1 is launching this Monday,
I promise you
, the French remake of the American hit
This is Us
.
Arte is airing this Thursday
In Therapy
, a French remake of the Israeli series
Be Tipul
.
Two risky and successful bets.
Explanations.
Two risky and successful bets!
TF1 launches this Monday at 9:05 pm
Je te promis,
French remake of the immense critical and public success across the Atlantic,
This is Us
.
For its part, Arte is broadcasting this Thursday at 8:55 pm
In therapy
, a remake of
Be Tipul
signed by the duo Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, available in full on Arte.
TV, an Israeli series already available in fifteen countries, including
In Treatment
, broadcast in the United States on HBO in 2008. Enough to wake up an old debate on the merits of remakes in France.
Remakes have always had bad press in France.
Blame it on André Bazin, pillar of French film criticism of the 1950s. This review from
Cahiers du cinéma
distinguishes the "good" remake, the one produced long after the original work, which modernizes the latter and takes "a real approach aesthetic ”and the“ bad ”remake, transnational, which tries to“ copy ”the original work.
A doxa that resists time
A doxa that resists time.
As soon as the trailer for
I promise you
was unveiled that
This is U
s
fans
, without having seen the French series, shouted “copy and paste”.
When Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache came to present their project
In therapy
to Arte, Olivier Wotling, director of the channel, admits having been reluctant: “At the beginning of our discussions, we at Arte were talking about completely dogmatic positions: we don't make formats, no adaptations, only original creations.
"
André Bazin hides an argument however.
Why would “geographic” cultural transposition be more aesthetically absurd than “temporal” transposition?
Condemning works that take too much liberty, and those stuck to the original, a remake is rarely evaluated for itself, unless the original work is unrecognized.
“All the journalists' questions revolve around this,” explains Aline Panel, the daring producer of I promise you.
Why adapt
This is Us
?
Nobody asked me about
Rita
”, the Danish series which inspired another of his fictions on TF1,
Sam
.
"In therapy" explores the trauma of the attacks with precision
In therapy
, on Arte, obviously takes again the “mechanics”, according to Eric Toledano, of the fiction of Hagai Levi.
Each episode features a real-time session with a psychoanalyst.
In a cozy apartment in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, Doctor Dayan (Frédéric Pierrot) takes turns receiving a surgeon (Mélanie Thierry), a BRI agent (Reda Kateb), a couple in crisis (Pio Marmai and Clémence Poesy) and a fragile teenager (Céleste Brunnquell).
He resumes, after twelve years of hiatus, his own therapy with Esther, his psychiatrist and long-time friend (Carole Bouquet).
“The constraint is to keep going, simply with a face-to-face meeting”, explains Eric Toledano.
The remake is "precisely the day after the attacks on the terraces and the Bataclan", relates Eric Toledano.
By putting her characters on the couch at this precise moment, and even if the Arte series has airs of "déjà vu" with its elders, it forges an intimate relationship with the French viewer.
“We can all identify with this period of the attacks,” comments Reda Kateb.
"" The faults of a character translate the faults of a country ", said Hagai Levi", recalls Eric Toledano.
“We are surprised at the resonance that the character of Reda Kateb [the BRI agent] could find on the position of the police and what it says about society today.
And that of Mélanie Thierry, the surgeon, who talks about how we manage the hospital in France.
And that of Clémence, which recalls what also happened in certain sports in France such as figure skating ”, lists Eric Toledano.
"I promise you" tells the France of the last forty years
I promise you
takes "this hyperbian story told, universal and touching" from
This is Us,
and "embodies it in a totally French context".
The challenge is big.
The international success
This is Us
is “known” in France.
The American series was broadcast on Canal + and M6, where it struggled to attract French viewers.
When Aline Panel contacted the American producers of
This is Us
to adapt the format in France, she was initially refused.
The Americans want to export their series.
A year later, “they called me back because, all over the world, series were starting to export less well, with less success.
Local series, closer to the people, were starting to have enormous success, ”explains Aline Panel.
I promise you
takes up the plot of
This is Us
: telling the story of a family by multiplying the timelines.
It is precisely because
Je te promises
inscribes this intimate story in a French collective history that it says something other than
This is us
.
The birth of the triplets - Maud (Marylou Berry), overweight young woman, Michaël (Guillaume Labbé), Ligue 1 footballer and Mathis (Narcisse Mame), trader and father of a happy family - takes place at the arrival of François Mitterrand and socialists in power: "This dream and this broken promise will partly form the neuroses of our characters", analyzes the producer.
From Pacs to AIDS through abortion,
I promise you
explores the great history of France.
"We are going to treat the Algerian war in equivalent with what the Americans are doing with the Vietnam war", announces the producer.
From advertising for Banga to Zidane's fist thrust through Paninis images,
I promise you
also tells the little story of the French: “Everything that made our daily life in those years”, summarizes Aline Panel.
"The music, omnipresent, refers to the hits that rocked us", adds Hugo Becker, who plays Paul, the patriarch of the Gallo family and the husband of Flo (Camille Lou).
And to develop: "The series talks about the links that exist between the members of the same family, and on what makes us feel integrated or not within a family, through this, we talk about the integration into society.
"
This is Us
thus allows us to reflect on the condition of blacks or obese people in the United States, I promise you questions the place of blacks, racism and grossophobia in France.
Changing the context is clearly not just a matter of changing the scenery.
In therapy
and
I promise you
manage to seize the mechanics and patterns of their brilliant original works to transpose them into a very French setting.
Who was moved to know if
House of Cards
or
Homeland
were remakes when they were released?
Isn't it time to think of the remake as an authentic work of (re) creation?
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Arte