Los Monográficos de Apostrophes: Georges Simenon [DVD]

GEORGES SIMENON - 75 min. Color. 1981

"I would rather be criticized, even hated, for what I am, than be loved or admired for what I am not."

In 1981 Georges Simenon had just lost his daughter, who had committed suicide. Despite this, and following the publication of his Intimate Memoirs, he agreed to have an interview of more than an hour with Bernard Pivot , in which the novelist begins by talking about Marie-Jo, his daughter, and from there, with a brutal sincerity that leaves the viewer breathless, about the rest of his personal life: his relationships (four children, three wives, ten thousand women), his travels, his hobbies, his opinions. Naturally, he also talks about literature, about Maigret's novels and "novel-novels", about the relationship between Simenon's life and his books, about his conception of literature as a craft and as an art. The result is an overwhelming interview, of radically exceptional human intensity.