2020: “The Crown” would make too many fuss
Featuring Diana Spencer and UK’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the show’s fourth season The Crown, created by Peter Morgan and devoted to the life of Queen Elizabeth II, relaunches this old debate: where does fiction begin? Was Diana cleaning her sister’s house? Did Diana and Camilla meet for the first time at a restaurant called Ménage à trois? Was Diana rollerblading in Buckingham? But above all, do these questions matter? For the British Secretary of State for Culture, Oliver Dowden, who was worried, in the Daily Mail, as the younger generation of viewers confuse right and wrong, the answer is yes.
2019: “Chernobyl” could tell of cracks
The miniseries Chernobyl, produced by HBO, recounts the accident in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Ukraine), a tragedy which nearly wiped out part of the Soviet Union and partly caused the dismantling of the Communist Empire. As soon as it is released, fact-checkeurs embark on the case: the nuclear physicist, played by Emily Watson, does not actually exist; radiation victims have too bloody faces; the firefighters have never been on the reactor of the plant. Chernobyl marked the last attempt at propaganda by Soviet power, anxious to hide the facts. In the name of this duplicity, the series finds itself absolved of its concessions to fiction.
2018: “American Crime Story”, season 2, annoys the Versaces
Season 2 d’American Crime Story focused on the assassination of fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997 by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. One of the challenges of the series is to recount how Versace and Cunanan crossed paths before the murder, an encounter which took place but whose circumstances were never clarified. Despite the goldsmith’s work of the writers, the Versace family condemns the series as a work of fiction, specifying that the film crew never had access to the family archives and that they advance theses on the private life of one of its unfounded members.
2016: “American Crime Story”, season 1, respects the OJ Simpson affair
The first season ofAmerican Crime Story looked at the trial of OJ Simpson in 1995. The famous American football player was accused of the double homicide of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her lover, Ronald Goldman. Immediately, the American press looked into the question of the veracity of the series, skimming page after page of the reference book on the news item and the trial (The Run of His Life, by Jeffrey Toobin, adapted by the writers). The verdict is undisputed: the series undeniably sticks to the facts.
2015: “Narcos” remains questionable
Series Narcos, starring the hunt for Pablo Escobar and the members of the Medellín cartel, gives rise to multiple debates, concerning the real size of Escobar’s mustache, the behavior of his mother or the name of his favorite football club and the role played by his wife. Fiction or reality, the verdict here remains complicated. If Pablo Escobar was a public figure, he was not a great communicator.
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