A 125 million dollar advertising spot. With Masters of the Air, currently broadcast in France on Apple TV and My Canal, the American army continues to tell its epic story through historical fiction. The series, produced by masters of the genre – Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, also behind Band of Brothers – recounts the exploits of the US 8th Air Force during World War II. The team did not skimp on means (like patriotic accents), making Masters of the Air an entertaining series although very first degree.
The production strives to reconstruct a true story, not without taking some liberties: the courage of the soldiers matched only by their impeccable plastic. Every soldier is heroic, intelligent – and could be on a magazine cover. This is the lot of fiction: making history accessible sometimes comes at the cost of distancing yourself from reality. Take Henry VIII in The Tudors : he is young, thin, sexy. An image that goes against classic representations. “The aim of the series is to make him a “rock star” and therefore to make him respond to contemporary beauty standards, explains Marjolaine Boutet, professor of English studies at Sorbonne Paris Nord University, specialist in television series. The challenge is to create an interpretation of historical reality. It is on the meaning of this representation, more than on the details of the reconstruction, that it seems interesting to me to dwell on.”
“To appear authentic, fictions refer to clichés”
By putting faces to names, historical series give substance to a certain vision of the past. Nothing new here: “Painting already made it possible to meet our need for representation: we all have in mind the image of Christ with long blond hair, which is impossible,” explains François Jost, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, semiologist and director of the journal Television. Our collective representations thus influence the imagination of the series. “To appear authentic, fiction must refer to clichés which do not always conform to the latest advances in history as a science,” continues Marjolaine Boutet. For viewers to quickly identify him, Vercingétorix must have a mustache and the Vikings, long and partially shaved hair.”
Where the university thesis only provides sourced elements, fiction must respond to the needs of the scenario: by imagining dialogues, a way of walking, a color of hair. So many creations that have an impact on our historical reading. “The danger would be not to take a step back and forget that it is only fiction, warns François Jost. As long as we are able to document the period, it is interesting. But how many only know Mozart from the film? [NDLR : Amadeus, de Milos Forman] ? It’s insufficient to take a critical look.” These works also sometimes annoy in high places. At the release of season 4 of The Crown, series about the British royal family, Oliver Dowden, then Secretary of State for Culture of the United Kingdom, asked Netflix to remind in the preamble that the series was indeed a fiction, not a documentary. A request refused by the platform.
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