“Brassens is often thought to be a silent bear, but he liked to talk about himself.” In his documentary Brassens par Brassens , broadcast Friday evening on France 3, Philippe Kholy pays tribute to one of the biggest names in French song. And for this, he gave the floor to the singer himself.

“The portrait of a man is essentially in his voice. The voice is the soul, much more than the look or the face”, explains Phillipe Kohly at the microphone of Europe 1, in Culture-Media. The director, who had already dedicated films to Jacques Brel, Jean Ferrat and Edith Piaf, this time brings together a series of archives hitherto unknown, following public appearances, and interviews with Brassens. “He has a warm voice, in a cold world,” smiles the director.

“My songs have to sound like they’re spoken”

A moving voice, and sometimes surprising words. “My songs must seem to be spoken, that those who hear me think that I cannot sing, that I make easy little music. It must not only by means of musical artifices, I divert attention from the text, ”explains Georges Brassens, for example, an accomplished musician.

“Brassens is full of personal contradictions: he also said that what counted at the beginning is the music. And he just liked the music, those of Tino Rossi for example, that his mother sang”, specifies Philippe Kohly.