Antoine de Caunes makes his movies on Canal +: "My parents taught me not to take myself seriously"

His parents, so to speak, created television!

Son of Georges de Caunes, journalist and adventurer who presented the first news, and of Jacqueline Joubert, actress, announcer, then producer, Antoine de Caunes appeared for the first time on the screen at 4 years old.

So he naturally desacralized television to chart his own course there.

And her children have done the same: Emma (45) is also an actress, director and host;

Louis (35), director and photographer;

and, if it is too early to know the future of the third, Louis (14), his granddaughter, Nina (20), is moving, after a few roles, towards artistic direction.

Without forgetting his wife, Daphné Roulier, journalist on LCP.

A family affair, then, where curiosity reigns and irreverence is essential.

TV MAGAZINE.

- You are a 70-year-old white male still doing TV in 2023…

Antoine de CAUNES.- I'm not quite 70 years old yet (he'll be on December 1st, editor's note), I can afford this kind of coquetry.

I never asked myself the question in those terms.

Nor in terms of age.

If anyone has to ask it, it's not me.

This way of approaching existence is too reasonable.

Of all your activities, which one defines you best?

Writing.

Between TV shows, movies or books, I need to rely on a script, to have a determined written framework.

Unlike Édouard Baer, ​​I am very bad at improv.

I write all day, I take notes, I undo, I redo.

You started out in photojournalism.

Was it obvious for you to follow in your parents' footsteps?

No, both had dissuaded me from doing TV.

They had the chance to be the first, with a virgin playground, the possibility of trying all the exercises.

Then television became institutionalized, it lost its freshness.

I inherited from my father the taste for journalism and the curiosity, the desire to play, in every sense of the word, the role of mediator, of go-between.

Wasn't your parents' pattern overwhelming?

No.

Television was a new phenomenon in their time, but it remained anecdotal.

They had an extraordinary celebrity, but with few people, and they weren't fooled anyway.

I myself was unaware of their status.

I saw them on the small screen, there was no demarcation between TV and home, it was natural.

So I started out in photography, I worked with a former journalist from "Cinq Columns à la Une", who was opening a television department at the Sygma agency.

I remained an assistant, then I submitted a musical program project with the director Claude Ventura, in a lost box on Sunday at midday.

I found myself in front of the camera by default, because there was no one to present it.

“Chorus” was born.

Did your parents also pass on their taste for freedom to you?

Yes, my mother was blacklisted for more than a year after supporting the events of May 68. She also had problems when she was in charge of the youth section of Antenne 2, because she had taken the defense of Cabu, who worked in Dorothée's team and had dared to caricature Jacques Martin.

She was a woman of temperament, a feminist before her time too!

I grew up raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother.

This environment was crucial.

Beyond the term freedom, I would speak of irreverence.

Zitrone was my father's turkish head.

They taught me not to take myself seriously.

I was brought up with the idea that children stay in their place.

I reproduced this pattern a little, still under cover of the famous modesty, but my children jostled me.

Anthony of Caunes

Did we talk about everything at your place?

No way !

My parents were very modest, they grew up with a certain morality: keeping their misfortunes to themselves, remaining dignified.

My mother was very English, everything that happened below the belt did not concern us.

As for my father, he recorded a disc on the mystery of birth to explain it to children, but he never spoke to me about it.

I was also brought up with the idea that children stay in their place.

I reproduced this pattern a little, still under cover of the famous modesty, but my children jostled me.

What kind of father are you?

I don't consider myself a very good father.

First because I had Emma very young.

Then Louis, ten years later, but at a time in my life when I was still looking for my place in the world, with a profession where the boundaries are porous between work and private life.

I was not there enough, but we get along wonderfully well, we managed to put everything back together.

In the end, you all gravitate in the same environment, from generation to generation...

It goes back to my maternal grandfather, Léon, actor, then theater director, to my granddaughter, who is interested in artistic direction.

The women in my life too.

There is a certain family determinism, moreover we live in a universe which remains very pleasant.

These are open trades.

We talk to each other a lot about our work, the opinion of my children matters to me, and I try to remain objective and critical of them.

Emma de Caunes directed her father Antoine in the series

Alessandro Clemenza.

What did you keep from “Nowhere Else”?

A great friendship with José Garcia, the memory of Philippe Gildas, a unique man, who was sincerely interested in people… It was an enchanting parenthesis.

I was there from the start, in 1984, and, much like my parents, I participated in the creation of a channel.

She offered an alternative.

We could try new things, like start a talk show and have fun there.

Canal+ now looks more like a platform.

But I can still do exactly what I want there,

Anthony of Caunes

Did this spirit survive?

The era has changed so much, it is impossible to compare.

Canal+ now looks more like a platform.

But I can still do exactly what I want there, like my old friends from “Groland”.

I see what Mouloud Achour, the new generation of comedians, like Jonathan Cohen, very marked Canal +, is trying…

The Césars

I don't know what it will give.

Times have changed, and so have TV consumption patterns.

People are no longer willing to sit in front of their desks for three hours watching a profession celebrate itself.

Without reducing the number of Caesars or tributes, the problem of tempo is insoluble.

I fought for this for years.

In vain.

I would go so far as to say that a TV on in a house is an invasive object, it sucks you in.

Anthony of Caunes

What is your view on the post-Weinstein film industry – of which your daughter, Emma, ​​was a victim – and on #MeToo?

There is always a pendulum swing in those moments, from one extreme to the other, but things will stabilize, become balanced again.

I'm a big believer – barring overwhelming clues – of the presumption of innocence, especially today, when you can make and break someone's reputation in twenty-four hours, it's frightening.

It's all the more complicated since, in our profession, seduction is essential.

You say you don't watch TV anymore...

I've never looked at it much, it's not a posture, it doesn't fascinate me.

No doubt because of my parents, it very quickly lost its charm, its mystery.

I have always been a huge reader, a big consumer of cinema, of music.

I would go so far as to say that a TV on in a house is an invasive object, it sucks you in.

What could have earned you the rank of Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit?

I participated in the reintroduction of draft horse breeds, the Percheron and the Cob, in Calvados.

But, during the last Césars, in my dressing room, I was surprised to be named Officer of Arts and Letters by Roselyne Bachelot.

I am therefore doubly decorated!

Honor to genre cinema on Canal +

Antoine de Caunes launches on January 24, on Canal+, a new collection devoted to cinema, “Genre, genres”.

Theme of the first issue, “Zombies”, on the occasion of the broadcast of the film Coupez!, by Michel Hazanavicius.

In February, he will devote a section to the western, during the launch of the Django series, with Jacques Audiard as guest.

Before tackling science fiction or musicals, one of his cute sins.

If he puts the program "Profession" on stand-by after having explored many professions, he would love to shoot an issue of "La Gaule d'Antoine" in French-speaking Africa.

Finally, he is working, with his sidekick José Garcia, on writing a series, again for the channel.

The idea?

Playing with their characters and their image transposed within the framework of a fiction.