1941. Orson Welles signs
Citizen Kane
, an obituary chronicle of a press magnate corrupted by money and power.
More than eighty years later, the first film by the American genius is considered one of the masterpieces of cinema, ranked at the top of the best achievements of all time by the American Film Institute.
This choice establishes an author, but also the journalistic figure as one of the vectors of dramaturgy cherished by fiction.
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Tapie
,
Bernadette
,
D'argent et de sang
… When fiction exceeds reality?
In France, Méliès was interested in the profession as early as
The Dreyfus Affair,
in 1899. Among some notable examples in our theaters, he was succeeded by
A Thousand Billion Dollars
,
The Fourth Power
,
Le Promeneur du Champ-de-Mars
,
L'Enquête
,
Investigation into a State Scandal
,
Illusions Perdues
ou
Vivants
, by Alix Delaporte, who focuses her camera on the team of a prestigious investigative show.
But it is undoubtedly American cinema that most often tells the story of this corporation.
“The country was built on immigration and wanted to create a common history.
Democracy was created inseparably from the mass press.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the drafters of the American Constitution, was also a journalist,” recalls Fabrice Arfi, film buff and co-director of investigations at Mediapart.
The United States in the foreground
“The United States has always had this capacity to digest its recent political and social history in fiction.
History of which the media are witnesses and privileged relays,” adds Philippe Rouyer, co-editor of
Positif.
“In France, major media affairs are considered divisive, sensitive, and therefore risky.
With a few exceptions, we prefer the detective reporter, such as Tintin or Rouletabille, to the whistleblower.
The very nature of our cinema also plays a role.
More psychological, French production favors intimate portraits: we are more likely to tell how the profession influences personal life, and vice versa.
In 2013, in
The Battle of Solferino
, Justine Triet enjoys the setbacks of a TV reporter with her ex and her children while she has to cover the presidential campaign of May 6, 2012. “In the United States, the chronicle intimate is secondary: the investigation and denunciation, the links between politics and the media, the collective epic are of more interest.”
In Hollywood, however, everything started with more lightness: in the era of
screwball comedies
, these crazy comedies from the early 1930s thought of as outlets for poverty during the Great Depression, scandal journalism is an irresistible humorous lever.
Witness
The Front Page,
by Lewis Milestone (1931), or
The Lady on Friday
(1940), by Howard Hawks, with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant.
During and after the war, the picture darkened: the profession became a combat weapon, for worse and for better.
The all-powerful power of ratings
Philippe Rouyer explains: “On the one hand, there is the good journalist, incorruptible, irreproachable: it is
Down the Masks
(1952), with Humphrey Bogart.
And on the other, the unscrupulous and amoral pen in
The Pit of Chimeras
(1951), by Billy Wilder, in which Kirk Douglas exploits the ordeal of a man stuck in a cave.
From
Violence on Park Row
(1952), by Samuel Fuller, to
Network
(1976), by Sidney Lumet, the excesses of the profession or the all-powerful quest for ratings take the ascendancy.
The President's Men,
in 1976, however, changed the situation.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
Washington Post
writers who reveal the Watergate affair and, in fact, push Richard Nixon towards the exit.
The President's Men
(1976), with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, relates the investigation of the journalists who revealed the Watergate affair.
Landmark Media / Alamy Stock Photo
“Alan J. Pakula’s film is the standard measure of the genre,” continues Philippe Rouyer.
He created a model of seriousness and self-sacrifice, a figure of a journalist ready to defy all obstacles and to challenge the top of the State to bring out the truth and defend freedom of expression.
Sacred as a “democratic solution”, the reporter uncovers lies, thwarts plots, sniffs out manipulation, and even provokes major changes in society.
A worthy heir to the cult film,
Spotlight
(2015) traces the
Boston Globe
's investigation into pedophile crimes within the Catholic Church.
She Said
(2022) highlights the tandem of reporters who broke the Weinstein affair in the
New York Times.
“There was never any question of us stopping despite the threats.
We felt responsible towards past, present or future victims.
The only thing that worried us was not being able to publish for lack of sufficient evidence, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey told Madame Figaro.
It is not our job to solve society's problems.
We are here to highlight facts that will lead, or not, to changes.”
She Said
(2022) returns to the investigation of the duo (played by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan) at the origin of the Harvey Weinstein affair.
Universal
A profession glorified by American fiction
Across the Atlantic, we can no longer count the series and feature films which, in the foreground or in the background, feature journalists whose work has moved the lines on major social issues (
Scandal
or
The Morning Show
on the MeToo movement), revealed state secrets and lies (
Three Days of the Condor
) or changed the law, as in
Pentagon Papers
.
Steven Spielberg recounted the legal battle of the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
against the State: the trials led to a new ruling from the Supreme Court in favor of freedom of the press as having to be "at the service of the governed and not of the rulers.”
“In the United States, journalism is seen as a protective counter-power for citizens in the face of abuse,” explains Fabrice Arfi.
In France, since the Ancien Régime, he has been seen more as an accompanist of the powerful, as a member of the king's court or the republican monarchy.
It often gets a bad rap in the eyes of the general public, and this is reflected in fiction.
For example, there has been no film on the exemplary work of newspapers like
L'Express
,
Le Monde
or
Témoignage Chrétien
on torture in Algeria.
No more than films on the Cahuzac affairs or Libyan financing... How many Hollywood productions have already taken it on?
To date, the only film about the
Rainbow Warrior
is… American.
Journalism is a cornerstone of democracy.
Without this counter-power, dictatorship imposes itself
Alix Delaporte
Considering the recent successes of the series
Tapie
and
D'argent et de sang
, or the Netflix documentary on Ingrid Bettencourt (a film is reportedly in the works), the French public nevertheless favors fictions of reality, mixing the intimate, the political and the media.
The journalist's fierce desire for independence, his access to forbidden worlds and secret information, and his ability to shake up the greats of this world are all assets that are quick to captivate the viewer.
And this despite recent changes in the sector, which make their information mission more difficult.
Avoid war hero clichés
This is precisely what appeals to Alix Delaporte, who directed the film
Vivants
.
Formerly a journalist and image reporter (JRI), the director is interested in the team of a prestigious investigative program which fights for the right to inform, to go into the field and to defend subjects which are important to it. to heart, despite the lack of budget, the race for ratings or competition from the Internet which, today, makes each citizen a potential relay of images and information, even if they are false.
“The profession has changed a lot.
In the past, in conflict zones, we went with a cameraman, a fixer and a sound engineer.
Today, we go alone, we do everything, we send our images... when we have the chance to leave: accreditations are more and more difficult to obtain, budgets are reduced drastically and the topics buzzing on the Web are kings, details the director.
What emerges is ambivalent: seasoned reporters are both valued for what they represented but also outdated.
It’s this tipping point that I wanted to tell.”
In
Vivants
, great reporters face the evolution of their profession.
Photo Press
To tell the story of the profession, be careful to also avoid the effects of caricature, specifies Fabrice Arfi.
“We must move away from the image of the lone wolf, the ultra-romanticization, the cowboy side of information without faith or law, or the guy who collects concrete files, nose in the wind, thanks to sources inhabited by an idea of the common good.
Of course it exists, but the reality is often in a gray area: there is neither white knight of journalism, nor black prince who seeks to cut off heads at all costs.
For Alix Delaporte, the forbidden image was that of the jacket with pockets, a symbol of heroism that those first concerned refute.
The director also wanted to treat the post-traumatic syndrome of special envoys in war zones.
“A doctor at the military hospital told me that a journalist who films feels protected by his camera: he considers it, wrongly, as a shield while it prints the images on his retina.
Conversely, a journalist who writes puts more distance through words and intellectualization.
More than the odyssey of a superhero who investigates, I wanted to tell the psychological impact of the profession and the emotional confinement in which we can find ourselves, but without highlighting it with meaningful and soothing dialogues.
The great reporter generally speaks little about his feats of arms…”
Between vocation, ambition and self-sacrifice
To portray investigative journalism, it is the craftsmanship, patience and singularity of the methodologies that must be transcribed on screen, according to Fabrice Arfi, author of the book
D'argent et de sang
, on fraud to the carbon tax (Ed. du Seuil).
“As the
Mechanics of Journalism
podcast on France Culture shows, each story raises different ethical and practical questions.
For me, the film
Spotlight
is an example of accuracy in the representation of the profession.
The reporters in charge of the affair had the intelligence to be wary of reputational effects and to seek information everywhere, including from a lawyer whom Boston's high society despised, or from a president of association of victims who, broken by his own history, was until then taken for a crazy person.
The film shows the strength of journalism but also the traps into which we can fall, the doubts that pass through us, the intimate conflicts that can be activated.
»
“Spotlight” (2015) traces the work of a team from the Boston Globe, which exposed a major pedophilia scandal within the Catholic Church.
Kerry Hayes
Which, on screen, give birth to the worst.
In
Night Call
, a person connected to police frequencies sells desirable images of crime or accident scenes to local channels in order to finally exist in the eyes of society.
In
France,
by Bruno Dumont, the TV presenter played by Léa Seydoux only acts for her own glory.
In the fifth and final season of
The Wire
devoted to the
media
, creator David Simon paints the portrait of an upstart reporter who wins the Pulitzer Prize for a completely invented story.
Conversely, it is the quest for truth, self-sacrifice and the power of vocation that Alix Delaporte underlines in
Vivants
.
“The title of the film evokes the journalist's faith, the adrenaline he seeks and which pushes him to report, despite the difficulties and dangers.
Having worked with them and living with a former major reporter, I found it essential to address, for example, the addiction to the field and the truth.
Today, journalists suffer from not being able to go to Gaza: their DNA pushes them to be and to look where no one can and does not want to go to tell and transmit what is happening, to relay the information.
And this, whether it concerns war zones, financial fraud or socio-political scandals.
The filmmaker concludes: “I wanted to pay tribute to this profession in a mainstream film: we are living in dark times, and it is essential to remember that journalism is a cornerstone of democracy.
Without this counter-power, dictatorship imposes itself.”
Chronicle of the life of a star television journalist (Léa Seydoux), “France” (2021) is also intended to be a satire on the processing of information on screen.
Christophel Collection
Vivants
,
by Alix Delaporte, with Alice Isaaz, Roschdy Zem, Vincent Elbaz, Pascale Arbillot... In theaters February 14.