It was at a time when, on television sets, guests could speak at length without being interrupted by the host, when moments of silence paradoxically revealed themselves as telling to better perceive the reality of the speakers' thoughts.
On September 28, 1984, Bernard Pivot dedicated one of his
Apostrophes
to Marguerite Duras. This confessional interview marks the unexpected success of
L'Amant
, 100,000 copies of which were sold in four weeks.
“You deserve the Prix Goncourt
,” exclaims Pivot, referring to the Academy that he will later preside over. Two months later, she will obtain this supreme reward. The novelist, until then read by an elite, will thus achieve the status of popular author.
Also read: Three reasons to read or reread… The Lover, by Marguerite Duras
Madelen invites you to discover or rediscover this head to head between Pivot and Duras. It joins many others that she has regularly given on television. In their time, they did not trigger the slightest movement of passionate support or hostility. It is obvious that his words spoken today would create a buzz, or trigger a host of comments, debates and insults on social networks.
In 1964, in
Lecture pour tous
, a pioneer of literary programs on the small screen, she bluntly confided to Pierre Dumayet her dependence on alcohol. She adds that she suffered a lot while writing
The Abolition of Sentiment,
the book which she then promoted. For the first time in her life, she didn't have a single drink throughout her writing. To evoke this lack, she declares:
“I was afraid of writing anything”
. His interlocutor listens to him without blinking and without adding the slightest comment. It is obvious that in 2024, this sentence, taken out of context, would delight Internet users looking for scandals.
Supremacy of men over women
And what would today's feminists say if they listened to comments made by the novelist in 1965, during
Dim Dam Dom
. Defending the supremacy of man over woman, because he remains young longer, she then ensures that motherhood is the only possible chance of development for a sex that is said to be weak. Above all, don't talk to him about the emancipation of women! If it became a reality, it would cause him to lose the virtues that make up his qualities and his charm. On the other hand, two years before the events of May 68, she advocated a liberation of morals of which young people would be the first beneficiaries. Faced with students who wonder about the opportunity for a revolution, she responds:
“start by letting your hair grow, the rest will come naturally!”
The confessional interviews with a billionaire around the theme of money, or with Lolo Pigalle, a young stripper, or his comments about a bourgeoisie who, in his eyes, has nothing in his head would, for sure, explode the ratings for confession shows if they took place today. Accepting her contradictions, the communist that she was in her young years would not hesitate, later, to denounce the USSR and confide her heartbreak in the face of what she considered to be
"the greatest hope and the greatest failure". of the century"
. Finally, at the beginning of the 1970s, she alienated part of the small world of cinema by denouncing adaptations of novels for the screen as an epidemic capable of killing literature. Which did not prevent him, in front of the cameras, from then answering a journalist's question,
“so why do you agree to transfer the rights to your books to producers? »
,
“Because it’s the only way to make money!”