a dive into the heart of popular Paris in 1789

TV5 MONDE – MONDAY AUGUST 15 AT 3.35 P.M. – DOCU-FICTION

Facing the camera, calmly staring at the lens, Danton (played by Franck Beckmann), Marat (Arnaud Frémont), Robespierre (Thomas Espinera) or Desmoulins (Xavier Lafitte) explain their actions, expose their fears, develop their hopes. This process coupled with hand-held camera action scenes, immersive sequences in the heart of working-class Parisian neighborhoods (filmed in particular in… Dordogne!) and astonishing archive images created using period engravings, coloured, animated and with sound, make this documentary split into two parts (1789-1791 then 1792-1795) a success.

Filming the Revolution as a report? Some will remember the series The Great Battles of the Past, imagined by Daniel Costelle and Henri de Turenne and whose episodes, broadcast on television between 1973 and 1978, alternated interventions by historians, extracts from fiction films and reconstructed scenes. But with this Revolution !signed Hughes Nancy and Jacques Malaterre, under the welcome control, so complex is the period, of the historian Sophie Wahnich, specialist in the French Revolution, the elaborate technical means make it possible to offer a surprising television spectacle.

“From the launch of the project, our ambition was to try to renew the documentary writing dealing with history when filmed archives and photographs were non-existent, underlines Hughes Nancy. To build our fictional characters, we were inspired by historical studies on the real inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint-Marcel at the time. »

Deeply human aspect

This is how, in addition to the appearances of famous people, we follow the adventures of Athanase Lamoureux (Augustin Bonhomme), a young man who knows how to read and write, and Gabrielle Pecheloche (Sabaya Lelouch), a modest washerwoman with a strong character. From the first neighborhood riots, in April 1789, to the execution of Robespierre, in May 1795, Athanase, Gabrielle or Jonas Lebigant (Samuel Dupuy), a worker at the Gobelins factory, are thus closely followed, giving this period revolutionary a profoundly human aspect.

“To give credibility to the narrative process, we had to ‘feel’ the presence of the camera, contrary to what is usually doneexplains the director. We therefore decided that Jacques Malaterre would carry the camera himself and would frame, for the most part on his shoulder, the fictional images as close as possible to the actors. Actors who are generally asked above all not to look at the camera and who, on the contrary, had to play with it, even if it meant calling out to it sometimes. »

Educational, sometimes surprising, Revolution ! puts into perspective themes that are still topical – the place of women in society, social inequalities, political ambitions.

Revolution !docu-fiction by Hughes Nancy and Jacques Malaterre (Fr., 2020, 2 × 57 min).

The world