Abstract
As a popular television genre, docudrama must be analysed within the wider context of television broadcasting in France. The current five main operators can be divided into two main state-owned channels (France 2, France 3), two privately owned TV operator (TF1 and M6), one Franco-German channel (Arte) and one premium pay TV channel that offers un-encrypted programmes during off-peak hours: Canal+. These channels are the most widely available and the programmes that they broadcast are representative of what is viewed and expected by French viewers. TF1 and M6 are popular channels, France 2, and France 3 are informative and educational channels, while Canal+ is a premium pay television network dedicated to the promotion of sport and cinema. Finally Arte, a Franco-German TV network, describes itself as the European cultural channel.
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- 1.
- 2.
In 1964the second state-owned channel was created and 1967 saw the broadcast of the first colour programmes. The first half of the 1980s corresponded to a large increase in the number of broadcasters and to the birth of the current audiovisual ecology.
- 3.
All translations from the French are mine.
- 4.
Many explanations have been put forward, all hinging on Drummond’s double status as a famous biochemist and spy. His killing was an act of retaliation for his activity as a spy for the British, and possibly American, secret services, which he had been engaged in since World War I. One of the most probable theories relates to Drummond’s zealous postwar involvement, as a spy for the British Intelligence Service, in the exfiltration of former Nazi scientists to the West and in particular to the USA. This affair was a serious bone of contention between the Eastern Bloc and the West at the time. West Germany, at the end of the 1950s, protested against this ‘brain drain’ which severely damaged the recovery of its industry (see Pierre Carrias, Yves Thélen, Jean Teyssier and Roger Pacaut, Dominici: De l’accident aux agents secrets, Paris: Editions Cheminements, 2003).
- 5.
This phrase corresponds to Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann’s concept of ‘historical event television’, which he outlines further in Chap. 2 of this book. My phrase, however, has a distinctively French inflection because the idea of ‘patrimony’ is fundamental to French national identity.
- 6.
Moloch is a book about a Madame Preud’homme, who criminally pretended that her daughter was suffering from organic disorders so that she could inject her with heavy doses of insulin. These eventually proved fatal.
- 7.
The airing, in 2004, of The Last Days of Pompeii, a BBC production broadcast 20 years earlier in Great Britain, garnered 32.5 % of viewers, which was one of the highest records of the year. See: http://www.strategies.fr/actualities/medias/r79297W/france-a-battu-tf-dimanche-soir-avec-les-dernieres-jours-de-pompei.html
- 8.
To be precise, the official viewing figure was 8.74 million.
- 9.
In the present paper, ‘realism’, when applied to aesthetics, refers to what John Fiske and John Hartley in Reading Television define as ‘the mode in which the fictional story is presented […] the natural representation of the way things are: a story may be fictional, but the way it is related tells it like it is’. As for realism, when it is used to refer to the subject-matter of a film or a novel (‘a realistic film’), it is to be understood as being a careful description of everyday life. See Fiske et al. (2003, pp. 129).
- 10.
Olivier Marchal, the former policeman and scriptwriter, tapped into his decennial professional experience in the police to write this screenplay. The title is the actual address of the Paris police headquarters.
- 11.
‘L’Affaire’ is best translated in all these legal instances as ‘Case’; in non-legal examples the English word ‘affair’ can be used.
- 12.
Chapter 2 of Paget 2011 deals with the various legalities associated with British and American television (particularly concerning docudrama). Many regulations are designed to try to avoid ‘trial by television’. The same work needs to be done in respect of French television, but space does not permit this in the present chapter.
- 13.
Again, for further detail on terminology, see Paget (2011).
- 14.
In a sense, L’Affaire du Rainbow Warrior could be said to be the French equivalent of Peter Watkins’ The War Game, made in 1965 for the BBC, finally screened on UK television in 1985.
- 15.
‘Choir structure’ is my translation of the French term film choral, which refers to films with a large number of characters but without a main protagonist or prominent characters.
- 16.
British TV channels have often broadcast docudramas offering fierce criticisms of political leaders—even when they are still in office. For example, two quite recent teleplays were highly critical of Tony Blair (The Government Inspector, C4, 2005, and The Trial of Tony Blair, More4, 2007).
- 17.
This is the literal translation. A more idiomatic one would be ‘Fast Track to Power’ or ‘Fast Lane to Power’.
- 18.
Canal+ has broadcast a number of Kosminsky’s radical films to French audiences in recent years.
- 19.
Recently, a docudrama was made about Charles de Gaulle, Le Grand Charles (2002) produced and broadcast by France2. It would take too long to list all the films on Joan of Arc, the first one being La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) and the latest one being Jeanne d’Arc (dir. Luc Besson, 1999), with Milla Jovovich as Joan of Arc.
- 20.
Of course, instant recognition of the identity of the protagonist was unlikely when the film was shown outside France, hence the naming of Mitterrand in the English title.
- 21.
The biographer is a thinly disguised portrait of Georges-Marc Benamou who, at the time, was a young journalist François Mitterrand was well acquainted with, and whose company he appreciated.
- 22.
The subject of François Mitterrand and wartime resistance is well-documented in Gérard Guicheteau’s François Mitterrand: La Résistance et Vichy (2008). See also Michel Winnock’s François Mitterrand (2015).
- 23.
For more details, see Jean-Louis Baudry in Mast et al. (1992, pp. 703–704).
Chapter 5: French Docudrama
Bibliography
La Camera explore le temps (The Camera Explores Time (ORTF, 1957–66)
L’Affaire Seznec (The Seznec Affair, TF1, 1995)
36, Quai des Orfèvres (TF1, 2004)
La Séparation (The Separation, FR3, 2005)
Marie Besnard (TF1, 2006)
L’Embrasement (Flashover, ARTE, 2007)
L’École du pouvoir (The School for Power, Canal+, 2009)
Mast, G., M. Cohen, and L. Braudy (eds.). 1992. Film theory and criticism: Introductory readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paget, D. 2011. No other way to tell it: Docudrama on film and television. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press.
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Fournier, G. (2016). French Docudrama: ‘Patrimony Television’ and ‘Embedded Biopic’. In: Ebbrecht-Hartmann, T., Paget, D. (eds) Docudrama on European Television. Palgrave European Film and Media Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49979-0_5
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