Salomon Malka is a journalist and writer. Last published work:
Dieu, la République and Macron
(Cerf).
How did Robert Hossein develop a passion for the figure of Moses?
I had promised myself to report this testimony, and I do so with great sadness, and also the joy of having known this man, and of having shared a few working meetings with him around a project that he held dear and by which confusedly, without ever saying it, he wanted to complete his work and put an end to it in the form of an apotheosis.
Read also:
Robert Hossein, from the young dark first to the disproportionate frescoes
It was nine years ago, at this very time of the year, during the months of November and December 2011. I do not know how the contact was made between us and how he came to ask me to work with him on a synopsis devoted to the life of Moses.
I haven't remembered it.
I was naturally very impressed.
The man who had directed Jesus, John Paul II, Danton and Robespierre, Jean Valjean…, whose name was associated with popular theater and the great live performance, wanted to attack a character at the height of his excessiveness .
And he wanted to do it his way, obviously.
We saw each other on several occasions, either at the bar of a hotel where he used to live, or at his home, around the Place de l'Etoile in Paris.
Having taken care to review “
The Ten Commandments
” by Cécil B. de Mille (I will tell another time about my childhood memories linked to this film, watched in fragmented images, from the balcony of my house located in front of the cinema “
L 'Arc
' in Casablanca, childhood memories shared with the late Claude-Jean Philippe), I got down to the task and gave Robert Hossein the start of a synopsis.
Will he have the strength to go to the end?
I believe he has it at the time.
He really wants to.
We would see
Twelve paintings telling the story of Moses with a title of which I was not a little proud but which did not have the good fortune to arouse great enthusiasm: “
Here I am!
".
He would have preferred "
The man who spread the seas
".
It was even the scene that he was constantly turning in his head and which had definitely anchored him to the project.
He had come one morning all excited, proclaiming: "That's it
, I have it, I have the man we need
."
But what?
What is it about?
"
I tell you that I have it, I have the one who will succeed in spreading the seas!
".
The scene took place, rue Galilee, in his office.
Ghislaine was never far away, always within earshot (Ghislaine, daughter of Justes who was attached to the subject and wanted to add her own touch).
Him, fresh, talkative, passionate and focused as always.
It comes directly from Evian.
Le Chatelet?
The Sports Palace?
The Palais des Congrès?
He had to imagine a place before even talking about the content.
2011?
2013?
(he says I993 and Ghislaine corrects him), it is first of all what preoccupies him above all things.
To read also:
When Robert Hossein told John Paul II, "a wounded, deep, painful man"
He seizes my synopsis, warns that it should not be too philosophical or too literary (he knows my tropisms).
He picks up the sheets, pecks, perceives the flaws.
No, we must not evoke Balaam's donkey, it will distract from the central subject.
Will he have the strength to go to the end?
I believe he has it at the time.
He really wants to.
We would see.
He will give me the texts of his “
Jesus
” and “
Ben-Hur
”, produced with Alain Decaux, so that I can be inspired by them.
I risk telling him, jokingly, that after Jesus and Moses, he will be good to be asked for a "
Mohammed
".
He replies that there is neither chance nor risk, Islam refusing to give the Prophet a representation.
He was also going to heal the end.
It was important the end, the death of Moses.
And for what fault?
A venial fault, a fault of inadvertence, of incomprehension.
A minor fault for which he probably did not expect such punishment.
Moses leads his people into the wilderness.
The passage of the Red Sea has already been completed.
A good part of the road has been covered.
It was his last project.
Has he given up?
I never knew very well.
It remained dotted.
It was there somewhere in his head
Miriam has just died and the people arrive at Kadech, in the desert of Sin.
The people are thirsty and there is no more water.
Moses rolls his eyes.
God commands him to take his staff - it is in the text expressly - and to go speak to the Rock.
Which he doesn't just do.
He is going to strike the Rock with his staff and make the water gush abundantly.
Here is the fault in everything and for everything, having joined the act to the word.
To have operated his staff at the same time as he spoke to the Rock.
Have put together a spectacular setting to impress the crowd.
Robert Hossein loves this end very much, even more than the kiss of God and the retreat into the mountain in a corner unknown to men.
She is for him and he will take care of her.
He will add scale, gestures, pageantry, grandeur.
He will find and reconstitute this rock which, under the effect of a magic stick, will cause clear water to spring up like rock water.
To read also:
Robert Hossein, star of the cinema by the grace of Angélique
It was his last project.
Has he given up?
I never knew very well.
It remained dotted.
It was there somewhere in his head.
This Moses, whom he imagined colorfully, will have been one of the unfulfilled desires that will surely have helped him to stand up for a few more years.
Unless he left us with this regret, having found the man who was going to part the seas with his arms, and not enough arms to finance his last dream.
Hello to you, Mr Robert Hossein!
The conversation was interrupted, but among your admirers, many and fervent, there will perhaps be those who will want to prolong this dream which was yours and which remained unfinished.