French TV tried to make 100 literary masterpieces cool. They made 39. It slapped anyway.
60 minSeason 1 • Episode 17
Latest'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll. This program explores Wonderland from every angle: iconic scenes in which Brigitte Fossey portrays a mischievous Alice, readings by Claude Rich, and analyses of the 'delirious metaphysics' of this great literary classic. Lewis Carroll's universe never ceases to amaze!
Les Cent Livres des Hommes (ORTF, 1969-1973) was a series of literary programs created by Claude Santelli and Françoise Verny, and produced notably by Santelli, Jean Archimbaud, and Serge Moati. Planned for one hundred episodes but completed at thirty-nine, the series aimed to introduce great literary works, 'chefs-d’œuvre', to a younger audience through a mix of dramatization, reading, and documentary techniques. It marked a transfer of cultural legitimacy from writers and critics to a generation of television producers, offering a new model of educational and creative literary broadcasting - 'télévision d’auteur'.
Direction
Santelli's experimental hybrid of drama, doc, and straight-up reading.
Production
ORTF letting creatives run wild with public money. Unthinkable now.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The series embodied a brief golden age when French public television treated audiences as capable of intellectual engagement. ORTF's dissolution in 1974 killed this model entirely.
Serge Moati, one of the producers, later became a prominent political journalist—carrying the series' DNA of intellectual broadcaster into news media.
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