He is special, Raphaël Mezrahi, a comedian apart who has forged a place of his own in the middle by dint of absurd and offbeat videos.
We know him of course for his unforgettable interviews in the skin of Hugues Delatte, his blundering journalist, but also for his "Night of depression" which he organizes every year.
With his nonchalance and his air of not touching it, the boy is also a connoisseur of audiovisual and its history.
And for a long time.
“I am a real child of TV”
Crazy about images and sound, a passion transmitted by his father, he collects and collects, keeps thousands of tapes, reels and cassettes of all formats.
"I'm a real child of TV and the media, it's my passion, I keep everything," he slips.
There are his own, from tapes, in particular his interviews, many of which are unpublished, which he offers in dribs and drabs.
He will present a few magical minutes, from those of Jean-Claude Van Damme, on the Bobino stage, this Monday evening, where he will play "Remind me Tuesday at 4 p.m." as part of the 7th Paris Comedy Festival (from June 15 to 30, 2022).
He still has images shot with a camcorder, behind the scenes of television broadcasts from Antenne 2 or TF1, of the "Dummies" of Canal + for example, and then those he collects.
“No one ever calls me, but I have a catalog of incredible stuff,” he smiles.
In addition to his thousands of television archive tapes, Raphaël Mezrahi has his own tapes, including interviews, many of which are unpublished, which he offers in dribs and drabs.
LP/Jean-Baptiste Quentin
A passage in the oven to kill mold
This is how he one day collected hundreds of Beta recordings of shows, from 1988 to 1996, from the Performance d'acteur festival in Cannes, one of the first French-speaking humor festivals.
“There is the first show of Dany Boon, Popeck, Yolande Moreau, the first steps of Élie Kakou, nuggets, he enthuses when they are brought to him.
I take one, I put it in the Beta magneto, it blows up.
The tapes were covered in mold.
»
He stores them in his house near Troyes, in Aube, and moves on to something else… Until the health crisis.
“I had nothing to do, I had these strips for two years, I was looking for how to kill these moulds.
»
A passage in the oven at 60 °C linear, that is to say at equivalent heat everywhere, makes it possible to clean the strips infested with mould.
LP/Jean-Baptiste Quentin
He calls chemists, biologists, goes in search of a solution and ends up learning that a passage in the oven at 60 ° C linear, that is to say at equivalent heat everywhere, can rid the strips of fungi who glue them.
“Only, this kind of oven does not exist.
»
Browsing on the Internet, entering the keywords "oven", "mold", "magnetic tapes" in all directions, he nevertheless came across the Direct Multimedia Center, the company of Sylvain Dietrich, a former electronics engineer in the close to that of Mezrahi.
Ali Baba's Cave by Sylvain Dietrich
These two understand each other.
It is at his place that we go that day, in a zone of activity of Limours (Essonne), in what is similar to a cave of Ali Baba of audiovisual and communication.
Past the first space overflowing with piles of books and magazines — which Sylvain digitizes — we enter the beating heart of the place, two rooms with walls covered with all kinds of devices, some 200 machines, video recorders, readers, screens, everything to view and duplicate sounds and images.
At Sylvain Dietrich, boss of the Direct Multimedia Center, some 200 machines, video recorders, players, screens ... LP / Jean-Baptiste Quentin
Sylvain owns the famous oven that Mezrahi needs.
He tinkered with it for an individual who absolutely wanted to save a VHS.
"It's an old oven for drying lab test tubes, I changed the processor and I programmed it", he explains to us in front of the beast which is running at full speed.
A digital screen indicates 60°C in red.
“It's a hot air system, you don't need magnetic fields, which would damage the tapes.
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So far it has restored eight shows
Inside, recordings belonging to Raphaël.
Virginie Lemoine, Roumanoff, Sylvie Joly… They will stay there for ten days.
"It's the right length, but I groped a lot at the start, putting them three hours, then three more, I ended up finding that ten days was impeccable," he says.
After putting them in the oven, he unrolls these tapes using a DIY machine, again, and a razor blade if necessary, before rewinding them, while wiping them, then digitizing them.
“Sylvain's work ends more or less there, notes Mezrahi.
Then, Jimmy Hayat, a magician of color, takes over and repairs with the graphic palette all the defects of the bands.
And there are!
He does this sometimes frame by frame, it can take him a month per tape.
“And to show us a before / after of Dany Boon’s show, of which he intends to broadcast extracts this Monday evening.
It's quite stunning.
So far, he has restored eight shows.
Read alsoDive into the audiovisual treasures of the INA, memory of the PAF
“I'm the counterpart of Serge Bromberg, who saved Méliès' films with Lobster Films;
I do the same with what is on magnetic tape, “smiles the comedian.
Comedy viewers will be able to enjoy it in full, the restored shows will be broadcast at the start of the school year on the Canal + group channel in a weekly collection called “Les Trésors de Raphaël Mezrahi”.
A distribution that allows him to finance other restorations.
“It's heritage, all that, you have to go fast because it's getting lost, it's a race against time.
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"Remind me on Tuesday at 4 p.m."
, Monday June 20 at 8 p.m. in Bobino (Paris XIV), from 19 to 45 euros.
Website of the Paris Comedy Festival
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