Netflix on Wednesday releases a collection primarily based on the lifetime of Bernard Tapie, the controversial and common French enterprise magnate who was jailed in one in all soccer’s largest match-fixing scandals, amid protests from his household.
Tapie, who died in 2021 at 78, was additionally a prolific actor and occasional politician — he even turned a authorities minister — however made his largest mark in French public life as proprietor of the Olympique de Marseille (OM) soccer membership.
He additionally gained prominence within the early Nineties with the acquisition of German sports activities attire agency Adidas, getting it again on strong monetary footing earlier than a sale that blew up right into a monetary scandal that reached the higher echelons of French politics.
The self-made man’s fall was as spectacular as his life, with a number of prison convictions, together with for fixing a Marseille match.
The collection “neither attributes nor deflects blame”, screenwriter and collection co-creator Olivier Demangel instructed AFP, calling it “pure fiction”.
Tapie is performed by French actor Laurent Lafitte, whose image displaying a transparent likeness to his topic has been plastered on French billboards forward of the launch of the seven-episode collection that retraces 30 years of Tapie’s life.
It begins in 1966 along with his first profitable look in a TV expertise present, and ends along with his incarceration for match-fixing in 1997.
“This is the story of a television salesman who wanted to get into television and who ended up incorporating television,” Demangel mentioned.
Tapie himself was hostile to the Netflix venture when the streaming big first floated it three years in the past, based on director Tristan Seguela, who knew Tapie personally.
“He said to me: I’ll stop you right there, the answer is no”, Seguela instructed AFP, saying nonetheless that he ignored Tapie’s objections.
Since then, Tapie’s daughter Sophie has come out towards the present, saying “there is no limit to disrespect”.
His widow, Dominique, instructed the Monaco-Matin newspaper that “I don’t fear this series, I deplore it”.
Seguela mentioned it was a deliberate option to preserve Tapie’s household at arm’s size, to protect “our freedom” in creating the fictional profile.
Demangel mentioned the primary sources for the present had been round 40 books on Tapie and much of press studies, video archives and courtroom paperwork.
“This is our take on this person and his life,” he mentioned.
Among the liberties taken by the creators was the attribution of some scenes when Tapie was city affairs minister to president Francois Mitterrand, after they actually concerned prime minister Pierre Beregovoy.
Actor Lafitte mentioned he was not sure that the collection, which he mentioned was “very French”, would enchantment to worldwide audiences.
“Americans will say: So this is about a guy who starts with nothing and makes it. Big deal,” he laughed.
French-produced exhibits already on Netflix embrace the gentleman detective story “Lupin” with Omar Sy, political thriller “Marseille” starring Gerard Depardieu, and, most not too long ago, “Bardot” which recounts the early lifetime of celebrity actor Brigitte Bardot.
tells the story of the celebrity actor’s youth.
© 2023 AFP