Our review of "Johnny by Laeticia", a documentary anything but rock'n'roll

With access to hundreds of hours of unpublished archives provided by Laeticia Hallyday, this documentary should have been extraordinary.

Instead, it's not so much “Johnny by Laeticia” as “Laeticia by Laeticia”.

Throughout this film by William Karel, the rocker's wife is in everyone's plans.

For the comments, it is still she who reads them in voiceover and multiplies the anecdotes in front of the camera.

When we attend a photo session, it is not that of Johnny Hallyday with a great photographer such as André Rau, but that of his wife for the magazine

.

The rocker's first television with Line Renaud, the fans' trip to Las Vegas, the tribute on the Champs-Élysées… A third of the film is based on images seen and reviewed a hundred times.

The last twenty minutes show a Johnny Hallyday at the gates of death.

And no medical detail is spared us, at the risk of sinking into voyeurism.

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Small arrangements with history are also frequent.

The rocker's fiancée claims to have discovered that she was going to marry Johnny in

.

This is to forget the contract sealing their union signed at the notary by Johnny and his future young wife ten days before the publication of the magazine… What about the years of tax exile in Switzerland?

Gummed.

It is certainly not essential, but it shows the lack of rigor of this documentary.

It nevertheless includes successful sequences, like the one where Johnny explains to one of his daughters, Jade, his passion for Elvis and Georges Brassens.

These scenes show what this film could and should have been.

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The passages on his work in the studio and his tours with Jean-Claude Camus are just as interesting.

The relationship of the singer with his authors, musicians, producers, specialists in sets, special effects or light is a matter of gold.

Too bad it is here, once again, under-exploited.