Stromae at 20 Hours, a TV moment dissected by Anne-Claire Coudray

• Sunday, Stromae's interview at the

  20 Hours

  of TF1 ended with a TV moment: the artist answered a question from Anne-Claire Coudray by singing one of her new songs,

  L'Enfer

  , in which he talks about his "suicidal thoughts".

• This sequence was a wish of the Belgian artist.

  “He wanted us to stay in the grammar of the newspaper while going into his world.

  We had to find the balance together, ” Yoann Saillon, artistic director of the TF1 group

  , told

  20 Minutes .

• “We both felt at the end a kind of relief and the feeling of having lived a true moment.

  It's rare, says

  20 Minutes

  Anne-Claire Coudray.

  Frankly, it has never happened to me to have an interview so sincere, so real, so impactful.

  "

A moment of TV which immediately stands out as one of the strong images of 2022. Stromae was the guest of the

of TF1 on Sunday. For several minutes, he quietly answered questions from Anne-Claire Coudray. Nothing more normal. Then the journalist asked him about his discomfort: “In your songs, you also talk a lot about loneliness. Did the music help you free yourself from it? There was a brief silence, musical notes sounded… and the Belgian artist began to sing. He performed a shortened version of

, a song from his new album to be released in March, in which he talks about his "suicidal thoughts".

A sequence shot and the staging thus burst into the highly codified framework of the television news.

Result: an unusual moment followed live by 7.2 million people, viewed for more than 5 million times online and which sparked an avalanche of reactions on social networks.

The day after this sequence,

contacted Anne-Claire Coudray, Yoann Saillon, the artistic director of the TF1 group, and the semiologist Virginie Spiès to dissect this piece of pop culture.

Preparation: "You shouldn't do a variety show"

Stromae accepted at the beginning of December the request for an interview from the editorial staff of TF1's “20 Hours” and expressed his wish to offer something special. “The theoretical idea was that he would perform his new title in the interview. He wanted us to stay in the grammar of the newspaper while going into his universe. We had to find a balance together, ”explains Yoann Saillon, the artistic director of the TF1 group. “I think he didn't want this streak to be a classic promotion streak. He knew that he was going to be asked questions about his seven year absence, about his need to withdraw, about the discomfort he spoke about in interviews. He knows that's the question we most want to ask him and it's the one he least wants to answer, because it's so intimate.He wanted to do it his way and I respect that. A classic response would never have been as strong as what we experienced yesterday [Sunday] evening, ”says Anne-Claire Coudray. “We know that Stromae has ways - it's not negative when I say that - to stage his words. He remains himself, in an artistic approach which is his, which is particular and works very well, ”notes the semiologist Virginie Spies. The sequence took more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.A classic response would never have been as strong as what we experienced yesterday [Sunday] evening, ”says Anne-Claire Coudray. “We know that Stromae has ways - it's not negative when I say that - to stage his words. He remains himself, in an artistic approach which is his, which is particular and works very well, ”notes semiologist Virginie Spies. The sequence required more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.A classic response would never have been as strong as what we experienced yesterday [Sunday] evening, ”says Anne-Claire Coudray. “We know that Stromae has ways - it's not negative when I say that - to stage his words. He remains himself, in an artistic approach which is his, which is particular and works very well, ”notes semiologist Virginie Spies. The sequence required more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.“We know that Stromae has ways - it's not negative when I say that - to stage his words. He remains himself, in an artistic approach which is his, which is particular and works very well, ”notes semiologist Virginie Spies. The sequence required more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.“We know that Stromae has ways - it's not negative when I say that - to stage his words. He remains himself, in an artistic approach which is his, which is particular and works very well, ”notes the semiologist Virginie Spies. The sequence took more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.The sequence took more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.The sequence took more than three weeks “intense reflections, exchanges, work with Stromae and his entourage, resumes Yoann Saillan. It was not necessary either to make a variety show, it remains the newspaper, it remains statutory - that's what he was looking for - while having roughness and his own universe.

Break the codes of the JT: "We can not do just anything on the set"

“Our questioning was to include this in a newscast which is almost sacred in terms of its perimeter and its codes. You can't just do anything on the shelf of a newspaper. It is a very solemn institution, and Stromae justly wanted sobriety. It was a personal moment, it was not just an artistic moment. Our expectations and expectations converged in a very natural way, so we quickly came to an agreement, ”assures Anne-Claire Coudray. “What's been amazing and new is not so much that there is a song at the end of a newscast. That happens, especially in the last part of Delahousse's “8:30 pm Sunday”, on France 2. But it's rarer on TF1, recalls Viriginie Spies. The newspaper is par excellence the place of truth, of reality and therefore of authenticity. The,Anne-Claire Coudray does an interview in the classic outlines, and, while, to the last question, we expect a classic response from Stromae, suddenly there is a response on the order of fiction, or in any case the staging. In semiology, we often ask ourselves: "What could there be instead?" There, quite simply, Stromae would have stood up and sang. That's all. And the impact wouldn't have been so strong.And the impact wouldn't have been so strong.And the impact wouldn't have been so strong.

The concept of the sequence shot: "We were looking for authenticity"

"During the preparatory phase, we shot several proposals, including a sequence shot where the frame tightens on him to go in the strength of his gaze, slips Yoann Saillon.

It is: "I look at Anne-Claire Coudray and all of a sudden, bam, I look at the camera, I look at the viewer, I grab him and take him for two and forty minutes in my bubble and in my story."

His story is very strong, very hard, it takes us through the seven years he lived and he returns at the end to catch Anne-Claire's gaze, as if we were emerging from this parenthesis.

As the song progresses, the Parisian panorama in the background darkens.

“The 360 ​​° view of Paris is one of the aesthetic codes of the

.

We went into the universe of Stromae while respecting our DNA.

We wanted to show this life which is suspended and suspended, even which stops in the fresco behind, with this light which cuts through the artist so that we can see a dark part and a luminous part.

We were not looking for sophistication but for authenticity.

He needed that to tap into his emotion.

We see it on the air, there is something going on.

"

The shoot: "I was like a little girl, fascinated"

If Anne-Claire Coudray agreed with Stromae on the question that would trigger the song, she did not communicate the others to the interview beforehand. “He knew I was obviously going to ask him about the album, but he immediately said he didn't want to have the specific questions. He didn't want to be spontaneous. He was coming for a moment of sincerity. That's the word that came to me at the end of the interview, when I thanked him. The interview was recorded on Saturday afternoon, under live conditions. “We did not cut out because that would necessarily have cut the strength of the interview, its impetus, its dynamics. It would have lost its authenticity, ”emphasizes Anne-Claire Coudray. While Stromae is singing, the reporter does not appear in the picture. “I was frozen. I tried not to movehardly to breathe because I was afraid to disturb him in this moment, so intense. I was like a little girl, fascinated by what was going on, ”she says.

The after: "It's the best moment of my interviewing career"

“We both felt at the end a kind of relief and the feeling of having lived a true moment. It's rare, says Anne-Claire Coudray. We are in an environment, a television set where everything is, between quotation marks, "artificial", we do not have a lot of time. Frankly, it has never happened to me to have an interview so sincere, so true, so impactful. For me, this is the best moment of my interviewing career, that's for sure. “When it was broadcast on Sunday evening, the sequence immediately aroused reactions overwhelmingly enthusiastic and admiring. "We expected it to be an incredible sequence but as I was not born with social networks, it always fascinates me to see this surge of messages, which is dizzying",entrusts the presenter of the “20 Heures” of the weekend of the first channel.

Mixing genres: "To stage is not to betray reality"

In the midst of rave reactions, some critics, pointing to the mixture of genres between information and entertainment (we are talking

, contraction of the English terms "information" and "entertainement") have emerged.

“TF1 has left the traditional codes of television.

We are in the real and, suddenly, we are told: "staging!".

That's what's weird, ”says VIrginie Spies.

For Anne-Claire Coudray, "this is not a subject": "Frankly, the critics on

…, She sweeps. We weren't in that at all on Sunday night. We were in a moment of truth, which has its place in a television news. "" The staging, in France, is seen as something negative. However, directing is not betraying reality, insists Yoann Saillon. This is the famous

that Americans know well. We are not in a thing of discrediting, on the contrary, it is a tool which allowed Stromae to answer a sensitive question to which he would perhaps not have answered otherwise. The staging, there is every day in the newspaper, for example, when we produce the launches of Anne-Claire, there are skins on the screens, logos… The staging is something that accompanied. This allowed the viewer to be more immersed and cohesive with Stromae compared to what he felt. "" There is nothing to condemn in the sense that there is no deception: there is surprise, via the fact of being out of the boxes of traditional news, continues the semiologist. Even if, usually, we are only in the real and not in such a proven staging,there is always a staging, there is no lie. It's a great media stunt both from TF1 and from Stromae. "

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