Le Stade
, a film immersed in the heart of the Toulouse stadium, reigning French and European champion, will be released in cinemas on Wednesday;
a rare incursion of rugby into dark rooms despite the certain
“cinematic qualities”
of this sport.
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They are undoubtedly more likely to lift the World Cup one day than an Oscar, but Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack have ensured in recent weeks in the media and on the red carpets of the previews the "promo" of the film on their club.
It was originally to be a sports documentary series in the spirit of those currently a hit on streaming platforms, such as Netflix's
Drive to survive
on the world of Formula 1.
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The historic 2020-2021 season for Toulouse rugby players, authors of the European Cup – championship double, prompted the production team to try the cinema experience instead.
“Things imposed themselves a bit on their own
,” co-director Eric Hannezo told AFP.
“Since they accomplished something exceptional, we tried to work on an exceptional goal: to go to theaters”
.
"I am convinced that sport must and will meet the cinema"
, adds the manager of the production company Black Dynamite, for whom "
rugby has only cinematographic qualities"
.
A certain
"snobbery"
Its combative dimension, its values and its dramaturgy seem to make the discipline a good support for the seventh art.
Relatively few films have yet been dedicated to him.
Clint Eastwood's famous
Invictus
on South Africa's victory at the 1995 World Cup, erected as a symbol of reconciliation after apartheid, the old comedy
Aller France!
(1964) on supporters of the Blues traveling to England for the Five Nations Tournament.
Julien Camy has identified about thirty of them, including rugby league (
The Price of a Man
in particular in 1963), compiling with his father Gérard the fine work
Sport and cinema.
“The United States, the biggest purveyor of sports films, is not a country of rugby”
, says the author.
“The sports that have been filmed the most are those widely practiced in the United States, such as American football, baseball or boxing”.
“Commercially, sports films do not work very well in France”
, adds this filmmaker and journalist, pointing to
“a certain reluctance”
and a certain
“snobbism”
among French producers vis-à-vis sport.
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An opinion shared by the former Racing player, turned director, Philippe Guillard, even if his first film,
Le Fils à Jo
, anchored in the world of rugby, was successful in theaters in 2011 with more than 1 .2 million admissions.
“If you want to make a rugby film about the success story of a neighborhood kid who ends up scrum-half for the France team and wins the World Cup final against the All Blacks, you have to be Clint Eastwood and have 100 or 150 million.
I had 5 million for “Le Fils à Jo”
, reminds AFP the former top player.
Budget constraints
These budgetary constraints do not help to overcome the main pitfall: to make the game scenes of a technical sport credible, the complexity of the rules of which often escapes the general public.
“We immediately see a guy who knows how to make a pass or not, his position in the scrum …”
, deciphers the 1990 French champion.
“We can't cheat on that, we have to take real rugby players.
In
“
Invictus
”
, rugby is played by guys from Fédérale 3 who have nothing to do with Jonah Lomu and company”
.
This forces the directors to
"take different angles"
, further away from the game, to deal with rugby, like Sacha Wolff and his
Mercenary
(2016) on a young Wallisian player faced with uprooting after coming to try his luck in mainland France.
Read alsoSacha Wolff: “The sports film does not generally work”
This human aspect will be at the heart of the new film on rugby that Philippe Guillard is preparing for the World Cup next year in France:
"I'm happy to find my DNA,"
he says.
It will be the story of refugees who discover, in the French South-West, another type of war: that of steeples around an oval balloon.
Neither Dupont nor Ntamack will appear in the credits this time.