Ronald Reagan, la mémoire effacée

Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood actor, Governor of California and then President of the United States for eight years. He ended his life out of the public eye, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which he had himself announced to the American people in a letter that became famous. A man who had embodied a nation's memory watched his own fade away: that is the fate this film recounts.

An unusual production

I co-directed this 52-minute documentary with Jeremy Marc, for France 2. It was produced by Alain Delon and Cyril Viguier and presented in Paris at an evening screening in June 2004, the very month the former president died. Paris Match reported on the event.

I had known the United States for a long time. I had interviewed Richard Nixon in my Agence France-Presse days, covered Georges Pompidou's official visit for television in 1970, and spent the summer of 1976 in Hollywood for TF1's evening news, in the very studios where Reagan had had his first career.

What stays with me

Working on this portrait, I discovered in Reagan, as I said that evening, a man who had faith in his country. His policies can be debated. That cannot be taken away from him. For a journalist who has spent his life watching those who govern, it is a rarer quality than one might think.