For two years,
Laeticia Hallyday had been
nurturing the desire to make a documentary about
Johnny
.
In order to draw the portrait of the man who shared her life for 22 years and to tell their story, she chose to trust Victor Robert, the teams of 10.7 Productions and especially the director William Karel whose work she knew.
The latter, who, from the beginning, followed the singer's career implicitly, accepted with pleasure to take up this challenge.
For this, he watched hundreds of hours of films and personal videos entrusted to him by Laeticia with confidence, without even having watched them beforehand.
He looks back on this adventure.
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TV MAGAZINE. - Why did you agree to make this film?
William KAREL.
-
I accepted right away because I think Johnny Hallyday was an exceptional singer and the idea of starting with family films interested me.
At the same time, Annie Ernaux had made
The Super 8 Years
with her own personal films.
Laeticia entrusted us with 700 hours of images without sorting them or having reviewed them.
She trusted us completely.
We spent the first three months watching them seven hours a day!
When she saw the movie, she didn't ask for a single image or word change.
What was your link with Johnny Hallyday?
I had seen one of his concerts in Tunisia when he was 19 and I was 21. Then I stayed six months to do the making of the film
Conseil de famille
by Costa Gavras in which he played the main role.
So I saw him every day.
Then I was Maurice Pialat's photographer.
At one point, the latter no longer wanted Jacques Dutronc to play Van Gogh, so we did some tests with Johnny Hallyday.
It didn't work out but it was great fun.
So I met him several times and I knew him.
Finally, 25 years ago, I directed the documentary
Parfum de fans
for France 3. I think he was an incredible artist but also a simple, friendly person who never
Read alsoLaeticia Hallyday: "Johnny will never stop being there, he is eternal"
You had a lot of hours of images, how did you make your choice?
The goal was for Laeticia to tell her truth.
We therefore focus on their 22 years together.
When Laeticia and Johnny meet, he is already 52 years old and has a 40-year career behind him.
We talk very little about the concerts, apart from the one in Las Vegas where he thinks his career is over, his big comeback at the Stade de France and the last tour of the Vieilles Canailles.
We also took away his film career.
Finally, everything that followed his death did not concern us either.
It's just a portrait of her telling him.
"We see through these personal images, the simplicity of Johnny, his shyness"
William Karel
What was the quality of the images you discovered?
So there are moving images, which are sometimes all over the place, like when Johnny goes to a concert at his daughter Jade's kindergarten.
But that's what was interesting and touching: they are really amateur films.
We see through these personal images, the simplicity of Johnny, his shyness.
We discover him on vacation, with his friends, with his children.
In short, we see it live on a daily basis.
Laeticia testifies throughout the documentary. How did the interviews go?
We did two interviews with her.
The first took place in Johnny's office in Marnes-la-Coquette where he spent a lot of time.
Nothing had moved: there was still a cigarette butt in the ashtray… Laeticia had never entered it again so it was a shock for her.
She was very emotional during the interview.
Sometimes we cut the camera because she was in tears, especially at the end.
Everyone knows how the story ended tragically and, throughout the film, it seems that she too hopes that he will get out of it... We also collected the testimonies of his producer Jean- Claude Camus and his friend of twenty years Daniel Rondeau.
Johnny and Laeticia Hallyday Personal collection
David and Laura are quickly mentioned, are they aware of this film?
They were informed of the existence of the documentary.
Laura and David are present at a point in the film when Johnny talks about his desire to adopt children because he regrets not having seen his two eldest grow up.
It was heartbreaking for him.
Read alsoJohnny by Laeticia: we watched the documentary on the Hallyday couple soon to be broadcast on M6
The film has several archive footage of Johnny's interviews, where did you find them?
It was important that Johnny was in the movie from time to time.
On certain subjects, we cross their testimony thanks to archive images.
90% of them come from a Canal+ documentary broadcast ten years ago and which lasts 4.5 hours. We also found an interesting interview he had given to Mireille Dumas.
Laeticia Hallyday does not hesitate to address the dark sides of her husband…
Contrary to what one might think, this is not at all a complacent portrait of Johnny.
Laeticia discusses the whole period when he sank into cocaine, talks about the alcohol that devastates him and his very many infidelities.
She speaks frankly about all these subjects.