“Goldman”: Canal +’s new season drama
In 2005, the release of a biography devoted to the activist Pierre Goldman rekindled interest in this atypical figure of the French extreme left. Canal + is devoting an evening to him at the end of August, with a fiction film and a documentary.
Let’s take a brief look at the career of the singer’s half-brother. Pierre Goldman is a mythical figure in the protest movement of the 60s and 70s. A rebel and visceral anti-fascist, he joined the guerrilla movement in Latin America. On his return to France, he led an extremely troubled life, which eventually led to delinquency. Accused of murdering two pharmacists in 1969, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after a botched trial in 1974. Following a huge publicity campaign, he was retried in 1976 and acquitted. Three years later, he was murdered in the street by a far-right group called “Honneur de la Police”. Pierre Goldman, on the other hand, has always been a rebel. Son of Jewish resistance heroes, guerrilla fighter himself, intellectual, writer, author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Souvenirs obscurs d’un juif polonais né en France. Militant, gangster, lover of Caribbean and Latino music, Pierre Goldman loves action above all, and rejects theoretical discussions.
Samuel Benchetrit, who plays the activist, fits the character perfectly, first and foremost physically. Goldman was elegant, so is Benchetrit. But Benchetrit’s interpretation of the doubts and quest for identity of this “Polish Jew born in France”, as Goldman defined himself, is extremely accurate. The film revisits the trial, a moment of introspection for Pierre Goldman. Hats off to Olivier Claverie, who plays an excellent Me Kiejman. Director Christophe Blanc has produced a polished film with excellent lighting and a first-rate cast. Canal +’s “original creation” unit, in association with Capa Drama, once again demonstrates the quality of its production and its ability to highlight sometimes sensitive subjects.
After the drama, the evening continues with Spécial Investigation at 10:30pm, devoted to the assassination of the revolutionary activist on September 20, 1979, in Paris.
Michel Despratx has gathered unpublished testimony and investigated the other members of the commando, in an attempt to trace the presumed masterminds of the murder.
Thirty years after the event, one of the alleged members of the killing squad recounted for the first time on camera how and why he agreed to take part in the physical elimination of this figure of the French far left.
On Monday August 29, CANAL+ will broadcast the drama Goldman at 8:50 pm, followed by the investigation Spécial investigation which will focus on his murder.
Julien Tissot
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Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
