“I don’t understand why my film was stolen”: was the idea for La Zizanie really stolen from Jean-Pierre Mocky?

Sunday April 23, 2023 at 9:10 p.m., C8 diffuse Discord. Claude Zidi’s film, released in 1978, would it have been copied from a script written a few years earlier by Jean-Pierre Mocky? In any case, this is what the director will say when he files a complaint for plagiarism in court. Tele-Leisure explains to you.

“One evening, I received a phone call from Louis de Funès. He had just seen La Grande Lessive on television. He said to me: ‘Mocky, I absolutely want to make a film with you. Do you have a subject? Come to the castle’ “. In an interview given to Allocinated on March 29, 2011, director Jean-Pierre Mocky remembers this misadventure after entrusting the actor with The big mop (1966) the screenplay for his film The Boucan. In the 70s, he would have proposed to Louis de Funès to play the husband ofAnnie Girardot on the screen. “It was in August. I returned to Paris, he sent me tapes, I sent him the scenes as I went”, explains the director. But, “on August 15, the producer said to me: ‘Mr. Mocky, we are no longer making the film'”.

“And there begins the great plagiarism trial”

From there, the situation takes a funny turn. “Some time later, I meet Pierre Mondy. He told me he had to do a film with Annie Girardot, but he doesn’t do it anymore because she is shooting another one with de Funès. He tells me that it’s the story of a woman who fights against her husband, against noise”. Quickly, Jean-Pierre Mocky realizes that it is his idea. “I don’t understand why my film was stolen from me. Pascal Jardin claims that it was he who wrote the screenplay”he is astonished in front of the journalist ofAllocinated. And for good reason, the frame of La Zizanie (1978) by Claude Zidi, broadcast Sunday April 23, 2023 at 9:10 p.m. on C8looks like the one imagined by Jean-Pierre Mocky. “And there begins the big plagiarism trial. We enter into a huge case which ended with a discreetly compensated payment. The case ended with the money I won and I made other movies”, says the director. He will return to this affront on several occasions.

“The alleged infringement is not manifestly incontrovertible”

In the columns of TV Star, in 2014, we can read: “According to Mocky, the 50-page synopsis of Le Boucan, ‘first cousin of La Grande Lessive’ had been filed for two years when he spoke to de Funès about it”. But after a few weeks, he can no longer reach the actor and concludes that he will have to do without him. When he hears the news of the filming of Discord, he files a complaint against Claude Zidi and the producer Christian Fechnerthen tries to ban the broadcast of the film. An archive of Monde dating from 1978 reconsiders the court’s decision. “The Paris Civil Court, ruling collectively in summary proceedings under the chairmanship of Mrs. Simone Rozès, rendered a judgment on Tuesday March 21 ordering the release of the seizure of the film La Zizanie ordered on March 16 by the Court of Appeal at the request of Ms. Jean-Pierre Mocky The judges declared that the comparison of the film and the screenplay written by Mr Mocky under the title Le Boucan ‘shows some similarities’ but they considered that ‘the alleged infringement is not manifestly indisputable and is not sufficiently characterized as it is’. At the time, it was a question, to settle the case, of a “sum of 250,000 francs” left “in the hands of the barrister of lawyers, who is appointed sequestrator”…