A flamboyant man who was as soon as a gross sales clerk, singer, actor, sports activities impresario, enterprise mogul and authorities minister, Bernard Tapie led a rollercoaster life wilder than most fictional characters depicted in popular culture, even these created by Martin Scorsese.
No marvel that it took a decade for Tristan Seguela and Olivier Demangel to create and pen “Tapie,” a Netflix unique sequence charting the swaggering man’s epic rise, from his blue-collar origins to his wonderful days as a rich businessman and president of considered one of France’s greatest soccer golf equipment, Olympique de Marseille. The restricted sequence tells intimate elements of his life, together with his relationship with family members and enterprise companions, in addition to a few of his setbacks and authorized issues. Tapie died in 2021.
The first two episodes of “Tapie” world premiered at Canneseries TV competition and have been warmly obtained with a standing ovation. Based on the expertise concerned and shiny manufacturing values, “Tapie” in all probability marks considered one of Netflix’s greatest investments for a French unique sequence. It’s not the simpler challenge both, contemplating Tapie’s controversial profile and the truth that hardly anybody exterior of France has ever heard him. But the present’s greatest promoting level is the truth that it tells an actual and colourful rags-to-riches story, and there’s a world viewers for that.
The sequence’ attraction lies, amongst different issues, within the dedicated efficiency of Laurent Lafitte, an actor skilled on the Comédie Française, who performs the title function with the panache, aplomb and irrepressible allure that characterised Tapie.
In an interview with Variety, Lafitte stated the concept for the challenge got here a decade prior when he was starring in Seguela’s first movie, “16 ans ou Presque.” “I used to be in my dressing room with a wig on and Tristan instructed me, ‘it’s humorous, you appear like Bernard Tapie!’ and I instructed him, ‘Yes, and he’s a personality I might like to play,’ and he answered ‘It’s a narrative I might love to inform” — and we by no means forgot this concept all these years,” stated Lafitte.
The actor described Tapie as a personality that would have been created by Alexandre Dumas, and one which triggered ambivalent emotions in individuals, ranging “from attraction to repulsion and fascination and typically even hatred.” “I really feel that he embodied contradictions which might be very French with an ambition that was very Anglo-Saxon; he was the primary French tycoon, an actual self-made man who had this rage inside him and wished to show his title right into a model,” stated Lafitte, who added that he was additionally considering Tapie’s creative frustrations and his thirst for recognition.
One of challenges for his function was to convey Tapie’s humanity even after we see him deceiving others to get what he desires. Lafitte pulled it off “with out falling right into a caricature” or “staying in character,” he stated. “It’s not a efficiency the place we don’t acknowledge the actor in any respect. I wished this to be my model of Tapie so I needed to discover a stability when it comes to the resemblance, gesture, method of talking and voice,” he continued.
Demangel and Seguela, who directed the sequence, stated a few of the references for “Tapie” was Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Raging Bull.”
“‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ impressed us loads when it comes to the tone of dialogue, the development of the narration, and the tempo. We additionally watched ‘Raging Bull’ many instances after we began writing,” stated Demangel, who co-wrote the sequence with Seguela. “There was some ‘Raging Bull’ in Tapie and in the way in which he would bounce again on the ring, pushed by each his megalomania and his ardour. He falls 100 instances, and he will get again up each time,” Demangel continued.
Seguela stated Tapie was a “very French incarnation of the American dream” who “surfed on the wave of the American self-made males like Trump who have been showcasing themselves on TV within the 1980’s.” But in France, this kind of angle ruffled feathers even when it sparked some fascination, he argued.
“At the tip of the Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties, as France was coming into a recession, seeing a man who was coming from nowhere and stated you may make it when you believed in your self impressed lots of people to launch their very own companies,” stated Demangel.
The pair did some “actual investigative work,” and skim “numerous biographies, articles and all kinds of publications and we made discoveries,” Seguela defined. “Tapie was a legend and what we did was take a deep dive into this legend which we was formidably documented, at the least as a lot as Johnny Hallyday,” Seguela stated, citing the spectacular variety of references discovered inside the database of the National Institute of Audiovisual (INA). “In the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, Tapie was omnipresent within the media panorama,” added Demangel.
Ultimately, Seguela stated the concept was to attract a portrayal that will be naked of ethical concerns. “We wished to ship an intimate portrayal of the character and attempt to perceive what drove him deep inside,” stated Seguela, whose father Jacques Séguéla was a detailed pal of Tapie’s and who admired him when he was an adolescent as a result of he owned Adidas and the Olympique de Marseille.
Tapie had a “visceral attachment to his roots his entire life (…) whereas many individuals who climb the social ladder have a tendency to show their backs on their native language or their origins, however that wasn’t him,” Seguela stated.
“Tapie” was produced by Bruno Nahon at Unité. The stellar ensemble solid consists of Josephine Japy, who performs Tapie’s long-time partner Dominique, together with with Camille Chamoux, Fabrice Luchini, Hakim Jemili and Antoine Reinartz. The key crew consists of cinematographers Hichame Alaouie (“Mothers’ Instinct”) and Romain Carcanade (“The Swarm”).
