A mea culpa in the face of an injury.
The journalist Laure Adler apologized to the actress Judith Godrèche this Monday, February 12 during the program “C ce soir”, broadcast on France 5. The two women discussed the relationship of influence which governed the relationships between the actress and director Benoît Jacquot when she was only 14 years old.
The actress filed a complaint on February 7 against the now 77-year-old director for “rape of a minor” and an investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor's office.
Guest of the France 5 program this Monday evening, she returned to the facts, but also to an exchange she had with the journalist Laure Adler in 1995. At the time, the latter hosted the literary program “ The Midnight Circle” on France 2. Judith Godrèche, then aged 23, was received there on the occasion of the release of her novel “Point de side”.
A book that echoes his relationship with the director
He describes implicitly the influence suffered by the actress with Benoît Jacquot, hidden under the features of her character: “I wrote this novel just after fleeing the apartment in which I lived with Benoît Jacquot.
I rented a maid’s room and I started writing,” describes the actress.
“This novel quite clearly tells the story of a young girl who leaves a man she has been with since she was 14, who runs away and, in his escape, steals a child.
It was a metaphor.
This child is her when she was little, this childhood that she never experienced,” insists Judith Godrèche.
“You were part, for me, Laure Adler, of a patriarchal system which did not help me at all” Judith Godrèche, actress & director
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— C ce soir (@Ccesoir) February 12, 2024
When she came to the set, the actress was invited to defend her novel, but was also confronted with an extract from the film “The Disenchantment”, which hurt her enormously at the time, she says: “The film had nothing to do with what I wrote.
On the contrary, I escape, I run away, I write and I am told:
You are going back to the box
.
For me, there is something extremely patriarchal in that sentence.
You are pretty, you wrote a book.
Well, we talk about it a little, that’s good.
But now, we are going to show a real moment of cinema, something magnificent
, a word that was not used to talk about my novel.
There is still a whole system of which you were part at that time and in that place which did not help me at all,” she addressed Laure Adler, sitting right next to She.
“I would like to apologize if I ever offended you”
These statements did not fail to provoke a reaction from the journalist who insisted on returning to this interview.
“First, I would like to apologize if I ever offended you,” she began.
And clearly, that day, I offended you.
So I would really like to apologize to you if I hurt your feelings.
If I invited you, it's because I really liked your novel.
I still remember it today,” she defended, recalling the characters in the book, who seem to have had an impact on her.
She finally explained that she had not read this text as “a confession”, rather as “a farewell to childhood”.
Read alsoJudith Godrèche: from an interview in Elle to her complaint for rape against Benoît Jacquot, story of “awareness”
In light of the actress's revelations in recent weeks, Laure Adler explains that at the time she was not aware of the message the actress was trying to convey.
On the contrary, she evokes her “admiration” for Judith Godrèche and having wanted to pay tribute to her interpretation by broadcasting the extract.
At the end of the show, she spoke again to “repronounce a mea culpa”.
“I ignored your suffering.
It’s true that I didn’t understand your suffering (…) You did an explosive act,” she again insisted to the 51-year-old actress.