De Gaulle: is the film true to historical reality?

[Mis à jour le 8 mai 2022 à 20h50] De Gaulle is the first biopic dedicated to the historical figure of the first president of the Fifth Republic. To avoid telling the general’s story linearly, director Gabriel Bomin chose to tell the weeks leading up to the roll call on June 18, 1940, taking inspiration from the British film The speech of a king. The film stays true to historical reality as we know it, but allows itself some minor anachronisms (in particular, a plane with three white stripes whose poster did not exist before 1944) and liberties with reality. Thus, the Charles de Gaulle Foundation and his family were not consulted (but were informed of the project), so that the film would not be “hagiographic”. As Yvonne de Gaulle’s personality is less well known, more liberties have been taken with this character.

So that De Gaulle To be as faithful as possible to historical reality, director Gabriel Bomin has gone through biographies, history books, more personal stories such as those of his son, the letters that Charles and Yvonne exchanged daily. This served as the fundamental basis for writing the film’s script, which combines historical moments and scenes from intimate life. “Then, within all that, you have to choose, and above all you have to invert the fictional spaces and give them life with honesty and likeness,” he conceded in an interview with Linternaute.com at the time of the premiere. of the film This is how certain moments were imagined: if Anne, the couple’s daughter, had Down syndrome, the director and the screenwriter imagined the scene in which Yvonne De Gaulle takes the (existing) photo of her husband with her daughter in arms on the beach

For his part, Lambert Wilson also confessed to Linternaute “not having tried to imitate [Charles de Gaulle]”. “It seems to me that it is not a very interesting exercise. The perfect imitation is entertaining for a while, but you may miss the point. I find that it is more important to give a feeling, a vibration of the character and to make understand what moves him.” However, and the actor himself acknowledges it, the incarnation work was more complicated to shoot the scenes of intimate life than the scenes in which the character is in his traditional military outfit are well known to the public: “We have to make decisions where there is no information at all, except the letters, your correspondence, this your child described the family situation and the environment there, etc. […] We have responsibilities, if not in front of family members, we are still obliged to do nothing. And at the same time you have to be imaginative, invent their body language.”

film sheet

French historical figure of the 20th century, Charles de Gaulle had never been entitled to an adaptation of his life on film. Only television movies had tested the exercise. It’s Done With De Gaulle, theatrically released on March 4, 2020. Starring Lambert Wilson and Isabelle Carré, the film looks back at the few weeks leading up to the General’s departure for London and the June 18 call. 1940.

Synopsis – In June 1940, Marshal Pétain wants to stop the armed struggle against Germany. Council President Paul Reynaud and General de Gaulle want to continue the fight but are not listened to. The armistice is signed. De Gaulle decides to go to London to seek the help of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and thus continue the conflict that has become global. On her part, Yvonne, his wife, sees the enemy advancing dangerously and therefore decides to take the road with her children. In England, the general has no news of his family and is about to deliver a speech that will change the course of his life and his history…

Critics were relatively pleased with de Gaulle when it was released in March 2022. This “four-star biopic” for Culturebox, which considers the challenge “garbly taken on,” while La Croix praises “a moving film about the dark hours of the spring of 1940 that offers a sentimental vision of a single strategist against all”. The gamble is also successful for Télé-Loisirs, which hails “an ambitious biographical film produced as a political thriller and providing true dramatic tension.” In general, Lambert Wilson’s performance is acclaimed by critics, with Les Inrocks deeming him “inhabited” by his character.

However, not everyone is convinced by the thrill of the film. Le Parisien criticizes de Gaulle in particular for “the monotony of the historical narrative, which is too classical”. For this medium, the feature films “Breathless” and “De Gaulle do not fit in the history… of cinema”. An opinion shared by the specialized medium Première that deplores a “stuck biopic”: “Gabriel Le Bomin confirms the difficulty of making a great fictional figure of the general”. De Gaulle must, however, become curious fans of the genre, or those who wish to immerse themselves in this complex period of our history.