Friday 5 January 2007
Michel DRUCKER / Free With The TV / 78
By David Pitt, Friday 5 January 2007 - 18:11 :: Ugly
Here we have a French journalist and TV Host who consistently ranks high in popularity polls. As a journalist he started his career in 1965 as the ORTF sports reporter. As a host he is invariably polite to his guests, which is sort of refreshing nowadays. In march, 2004 Jacques Chirac awarded him the Légion d’honneur and he has the requisite puppet on Le Guignols (along with everybody else who is anybody else). To be honest I quite like the man, but I found it a little self-serving when both the hosts of The 100 Greatest French Ever TV Show made their own list. Certainly he shows some wit when he claims that others say of him that he has been on so many shows, stations and networks “that he comes free with the TV.”
Original appearance Oct 5, 2005, © 2005 / Michel DRUCKER / 1942- / TV, host of program, presenter / ugly / F / 78 / CIP 378, OO 06, RD 05, YP 30/2-5
Way way way east of Colorado lies Lutetia, a little island fortress in a river. Actually that is just what the Romans called it when it was more like Dodge City than New York City. Now it more closely resembles the latter in spirit and energy but it is still further east. Spring forward a couple of thousand years and some of the architecture still retains a little Roman influence. Roman, Medieval, Classical, Contemporary and everything in between. It is the architecture and the art, the cuisine and the culture, the bakeries and the bistros, the rues, streets avenues and boulevards that make Lutetia, now more commonly known as Paris, magnificent. And it is that beauty that I wish to portray from the viewpoint of a cowboy in Paris.
Be careful where you are stepping when crossing the courtyard in front of Notre-Dame. Nothing marks the marker. There, flat on the ground, perhaps 20-25 yards from the entrance, is a small bronze milestone. Point Zero. The present incarnation was placed there in 1924, but the original one in 1769. Everything, at least in France, is measured from that point. Truly, meter by kilometer. As every Parisian knows Notre-Dame is the center of the Ile de la Cité, which is the middle of Paris. Everyone knows that Paris is the core of France, which is the heart of Europe. Of course Europe is the hub of the world, which is the nucleus of the universe. Copernicus was wrong, but what could he know, he was in Poland.
It’s the story of an agile rabbit and a black cat in a laundry boat – all floating beneath a hill with a sacred heart. It’s a twisted tale of twisted streets leading up a butte and overlooking the sweeping panoramas of Paris. It’s high art and low debauchery. The names Vincent Van Gogh and Georges Seurat – Picasso, Renoir, Corot, Cézanne and Modigliani – flow by and echo in Place Pigalle and the Moulin Rouge. Don Quixote could have tilted away at windmills or danced the cancan here. Now more modest art is practiced for tourist hordes in the Place du Tertre where once the legends dallied. Above it all, on the ground where Saint Denis is said to have found his martyrdom at Roman hands, the Benedictines and Jesuits played out some of their long history. All are arteries and aorta of the beating heart that is Montmartre.
This one is old. Really old. It dates from at least a 6th century basilica, though perhaps not completely continuous. The Clunaics rebuilt it on the foundation and to the plan of the original church between 1165-1220. There was a major rebuilding in 1651. Through much of it’s history it was connected to St-Séverin and then Hôtel Dieu, but since 1889 it has been associated with the Melkite order of the Greek Catholic Church. During and after the revolution it was a salt warehouse. It is a charming little church with, right outside, the oldest gnarled false acacia tree in Paris (1620). It is almost in the shadow of Notre Dame and I probably would never have found it were I not visiting my favorite bookstore Shakespeare & Company. In Paris it often pays to look and see what is right next door.
He was the kind of man I tend to dislike but many people hate to love. They just can’t help it. It is all just too deliciously sordid. Compare Don Rickles or, even closer, Howard Stern. Serge Gainsbourg “was the dirty mouth of French pop.” He mastered the art of self-promotion and scandal, and was “marginal yet marketable; every indie rocker’s dream --- or scheme.” His early life fed his cynicism, fatalism and dark humor. He became the darling of the Left Bank with his wordy and worldly lyrics in which he deliberately tried to offend prudes (like me), and got himself often characterized as a misogynist. Still Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin loved him. Mostly he loved puns and especially sexual double meanings, as France Gall found out to her horror with his sordidly innocent ‘Les Sucettes’ about a little girl who loved lollipops. He went lower and lower to get higher and higher and prove that opposites aren’t.
It started in 1957. He heard ‘Lovin You’ by Elvis, he loved it, and has been loving it ever since. Johnny Hallyday became and is the only authentic French rock star. For him, for sure, Rock’n’Roll was here to stay. He has sold somewhere between 80 and 100 million records (varying accounts), had 18 platinum albums, and attracted some 17 million spectators to his concerts. Also, similar to Elvis, he has been in 25 films since 1962, usually as a singer but on occasion in an action flick. Most of them have been less than memorable, but one got some critical acclaim, The Man on the Train (2002), which even won an award at the Venice International Film Festival. Interestingly that one did quite well in the US, but poorly in France. He has been a race car driver, still rides motorcycles and lived in Beverly Hills from 1975-1985. While he is beginning to look a little long of tooth, French male entertainment stars seldom retire (or at least not for long), so I expect he will rock on ad infinitum.
She was a frail small figure with a resonant and heartbreaking voice that reflected the sorrows of life with a talent and passion that has never been matched. Edith Piaf (Edith Giovanna Gassion) came from a badly broken home and lost her two year old daughter to meningitis. As is often the case superb talent was forged in misery. Her nickname The Little Sparrow (La Môme Piaf) was given to her by Louis Leplée the owner of a well known cabaret Le Gerny’s on the Champs Elysées. He heard her singing on the street one day and immediately installed her in his nightclub. She was an instant hit and the world gained a voice that may never be equaled. She helped launch Charles Aznavour, and was a friend of Maurice Chevalier and Yves Montand. Her death from cancer came on the same day as the death of her very old friend Jean Cocteau. Three of those four men made the list for this series but they all ranked below her. Her voice still soars every time you hear ‘La Vie En Rose.’