I admit that when my colleague Jean Siag spoke to me on Tuesday about this project of “testament interviews” that France Beaudoin will produce with around fifty Quebec personalities, I was doubtful.
Imagine the scene: while your makeup is being applied, you mentally prepare yourself to give the interview that you know will air after your death. Hello cocktail of emotions!
As Robert Charlebois would say, you don’t want to miss your shot and go “out”!
What a curious concept, I thought at first. Who will agree to offer a final interview when he still has plans and rejects the idea of death? You are at home reading a good novel or learning a play, the phone rings and you are asked to give an interview that will be seen and heard after your death.
We are far from the journalist of 7 days who asks you where you are going to spend your vacation.
I knew the formula for the fun posthumous interview. Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) produces a series entitled The interview with the death that kills: a posthumous interview with…, where personalities like Serge Gainsbourg or Georges Brassens are falsely interviewed by a contemporary journalist using archive images, using skillful editing.
There is also Thierry Ardisson who pushes things further with Hotel of timea show where he presents interviews with dead personalities like Dalida, Coluche or Jean Gabin, who are brought back to life in front of the camera thanks to technological prowess.
The formula of the Quebec series, entitled Before leaving, is clearly different. This is the legacy interview, the one that will swallow up all the others.
It’s the one that will make the audience’s heart sink, because we will know that the person interviewed knew it would be the last.
The more I thought about this idea, the more I told myself that it’s not bad after all. When you think about it, this concept is of its time, because it is part of a new trend, in a freer and healthier way of considering death. I’m sure we couldn’t have done this 10 years ago, but today we could.
We now live with the reality of medical assistance in dying and personalized funeral ceremonies where we compete in originality to honor the memory of the deceased. We can also see in these commemorations testimonies that the deceased recorded on video before dying. If unknown people do it, why not personalities who have shaped our history?
Two days before his death, David Bowie released the record Blackstarwhich was preceded by the release of the video Lazarus where we see him lock himself in a cupboard, a sort of symbol of the coffin. This unique artist made his death a work of art.
We sign the staging of our own death, we settle its smallest details in front of the notary, this concept of interview or testimony is only the logical continuation of this relationship with the “big departure”.
The other thing I was thinking about is the content of the remarks that the guests will make in front of the two interviewers, Danielle Ouimet and Gildor Roy. It’s one thing to talk about your new novel or your next film, it’s another to tell your life story knowing that our words will seal our thoughts forever.
Will some people think of striking sentences that will be relayed by the media? We know well that when a personality dies in Quebec, radio and television stations will inevitably draw from the archives words that have a testamentary resonance such as “I had a good life and I have no regrets!” I’m not afraid of death! If I had to start my career again, I wouldn’t change a thing! »
I was surprised to read that it was difficult to find a channel agreeing to present these interviews, the broadcast of which obviously cannot be scheduled in advance. This demonstrates the lack of flexibility of TVs.
It is therefore Télé-Québec which will broadcast these interviews which benefit from a budget of 2.7 million. Let’s hope we don’t show this at 11 p.m.! A distribution on the website of Bibliothèques et Archives nationaux du Québec (BAnQ) is also planned.
In the press release, it is specified that the aim of these interviews is “to preserve the memory of these people and to transmit the cultural heritage that they leave us”. I would add that it will also be an opportunity for those interviewed to have the last word on their journey.
Remember Pierre Bourgault who was shown in 2000 the “cold meat” report about him produced by Radio-Canada and intended to be broadcast after his death. The segment, initially blocked from broadcast, was later shown. Bourgault had noted a few errors which we hastened to correct.
Will the personalities who agree to take part in this unusual exercise want to set the record straight on certain things? Make a revelation previously kept secret? Will they dare to put tongues in purgatory and finally reveal their true thoughts?
You will understand that it is difficult for me to say that I can’t wait to discover the result, because that would mean…
Until then, personalities can continue to do good old interviews with journalists. On this subject, something bothers me… We regularly make interview requests and receive a refusal. We are sometimes told: “I have told this story a thousand times” or “I have told everything about myself”.
Those who will grant a final interview as part ofBefore leaving will have even more time to answer that.