Nanard who sings, Nanard who sells televisions, Nanard who buys Wonder, Nanard who wins the Champions League, Nanard who faces Le Pen and meets Mitterrand, and then Nanard who goes to prison… The life of Bernard Tapie seems to be a succession of TV appearance. Tapie, the Netflix series freely inspired by his life, does not miss these moments and even reproduces them with delightful mimetic fidelity. But, as in business, the most interesting thing in life is the margins.
We thus see Tapie who seduces his partner’s secretary to make her the woman of his life, Tapie who cheats at Monopoly when he plays with his daughter, Tapie who traps an aristocrat after serving him a paella, Tapie who struggles in the judge’s office… In short, a character who puts his lies to the benefit of his truth: he is cut out for success.
“Giving Tapie back its romantic dimension”
Laurent Lafitte embodies Bernard Tapie with this contradiction of not seeking the truth either. And this actor’s approach sums up the desire of a series which, through intimacy, tells the story of a French legend, and of France from the 1970s to 2000.
“My basis of interpretation was what had been infused in me as a spectator of Tapie. I took what I knew about his gestures, his phrasing through his TV appearances, what everyone knows about him. I allowed myself, in my way of playing Tapie, the same freedom as the series. The storyline is 50% truth and 50% fabrication. It’s the same for me, I took 50% of Tapie and 50% of me. »
“We wanted to create an intimate portrait of Bernard Tapie and give him back his romantic dimension,” explains Tristan Séguéla, co-creator of the series. Bernard Tapie had a thousand lives, we had seven episodes. So we made choices, we drew on this incredible journey to tell the story of our Bernard Tapie. »
Neither excuse nor accusation
If it opens on the incarceration of Bernard Tapie in 1996 to retrace, backwards, what led him there, the series seems to forgive his character a lot. Like many French people today. “When we started working on the project ten years ago, Bernard Tapie was still alive and was a much more controversial personality than today,” explains Olivier Demangel, co-creator of the series. Our purpose is not to excuse or accuse, but to attempt an explanation. »
And there again, intimate history intersects with collective history. “We articulated the character’s life with the evolution of the country, because Bernard Tapie, for us, is one of the most incredible incarnations of the second half of the 20th century. » Tapie’s trajectory thus embraces that of the country: all-consuming passion for media coverage and television, omnipresence of the star system, economic crises and technological leapsloss of political bearings… Above all, we follow a man and a country who think that everything is accessible to them – even due – despite the pitfalls, and despite the modesty, of his size for France and his social origins for Tapie.
A certain idea of France, which has ideas
“Even when he is not involved in politics, Tapie’s life is political,” according to Tristan Séguéla. His journey allows for a political fluoroscopy of the time, of the liberalism of those years, of the idea we then had of success, of the idea that France had of itself. »
But if the Tapie trajectory is closely linked to that of France after the oil crisis, the creators of the series also had in mind “the Guatemalan viewer,” they laugh in chorus. Netflix is international. And we hope that our words are too. Because trajectories like this, of a man from the people, a jack of all trades, who succeeds in business to the point of becoming – almost – President of the Republic, and for whom everything collapses one day, there are has in all countries. »
It’s Michel Polnareff’s fault
For Laurent Lafitte, there is a Tapie myth because his trajectory is moving. He was “touched by Tapie’s universal need to provoke admiration in the father’s gaze” and by “his journey as a failed artist. He has a pressing need for notoriety, it gave him the feeling of being alive, of existing more than himself. But I think he would have liked to have this link with the French through the artistic dimension, rather than through business. Moreover, when he has the opportunity to sing again – not because he has become a good singer but because he has become a man who has the power – he sings again. And when he can no longer do business, he becomes an actor. »
It is for this reason that the directors chose to begin their series with the ego injury which, from their point of view, launches Bernard Tapie’s life as an entrepreneur. At the age of 20, the man who then called himself Bernard Tapy beat Michel Polnareff in a radio hook. However, his career ended just after this brief burst of brilliance. “Tapie is a character who was promised success when he was 20, but he didn’t get it,” explains Olivier Demangel. Our series tells how he will go about finding him. Whatever the price. »
“He has the inconsistency of his sincerity”
A liar and charmer, the Tapie of the series pays a high price for his mistakes to serve as an example: a proletarian has no right to escape his condition. The creators of the series assume this Marxist message half-heartedly. “He is a great opportunist with the ambiguity and doubleness of this term,” explains Tristan Séguéla. He remained attached to his proletarian social origins, which he never betrayed and even always claimed. There is an opportunism of sincerity in him. He always thought he was the providential man. At one point it collapsed, because his sincerity was inconsistent, but his fight was noble in intention. »
“Cynicism is not a given character,” believes Olivier Demangel. When he became minister of the city, he sincerely believed that he was going to solve the problem of the suburbs. When he faces Le Pen in a televised debate, there is a huge amount of opportunism, he knows what discussions it will generate in the country and that he will take advantage of this media bubble. But he is also convinced that he can solve the problem of racism in France. »
A shared heritage
It would have been fascinating to hear Bernard Tapie, who died in 2021, comment on this vision of his journey, fictionalized but plausible, romantic but very human. Instead, the series was made without the family’s consent. “It’s a shame but that’s how it is,” regrets Tristan Séguéla. It hasn’t changed anything in our approach, and it doesn’t surprise me that they react like that. Because I can imagine that it’s not pleasant for them. But Bernard Tapie is a myth. It belongs to all French people today. His story belongs to whoever wants to tell it. »