“Atlantic Crossing”: – They must stop fooling us

The history is a strange and meandering animal. It can be understood and interpreted in many ways. But it cannot simply be what you would like it to be. What happened happened.

So what do NRK and producer Cinenord do, when they’re so keen to tell an epic heroine about Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, at the big company “Atlantic Crossing”? They bluff that history may not give them exactly what they’d like, and they embark on a narrative elevator portraying the Crown Princess as the one who almost single-handedly gets Americans and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a join the war on the allied side. I myself gave the dice roll 2 of the series on Dagbladet, for purely quality reasons. But I’ve been waiting for an agreement from historians, as the series depicted the processes that led to dramatic political decisions in a way that such decisions were obviously not made: impulsive, without debate, governed by emotions and personal relationships.

And now they begin to arrive. On Monday, royal author and biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen wrote a scathing review of “Atlantic Crossing” on NRK’s ​​own website, calling the series a “false story” and showing how the series’ creators hit the spot. Crown Princess Märtha an undeserved lead role in one of America’s most important strategic decisions.

Bomann-Larsen’s criticism in itself is enough to be highly critical of NRK’s ​​concert production, had it not also been for director Alexander Eik’s lurid response at Nyhetsmorgen: The critics themselves must be able to prove that this didn’t happen. In other words: in practice we are free to make up what it should be about people who have actually lived, who have living descendants and a reputation at stake, and if you weren’t in the same room as them, you just have to. . Keep your mouth closed. It doesn’t help that there is massive documentation that the processes were different than how they are presented in the series.

This is an almost bizarre disclaimer from someone who has managed at least 157 million kronor, much of that community’s funding, to tell this story. It is an attitude that does not take into account that popular culture is extremely important to spread knowledge about history – for most people, the first and perhaps only knowledge of certain people and historical facts comes from these types of stories – and That actually involves a responsibility to not mislead your viewers.

Finally say goodbye to the dictator

One face of the problem is that anyone retelling the story to a wide audience without prior knowledge must always make certain changes to the material. The story in the raw version is often overly understood, intricate, and popular, so embarrassing precision will be the best solution. As a general rule, certain simplifications and communication measures are required. But this must be done to make the story stand out more clearly, not to distort and distort it, or to give Norway and the Norwegians an inflated role in major world events, at the expense of those who really were there and remained in the storm. . .

The latter is important, because there is a clear tendency in the films and television series of the last years of the Second World War to paint a romantic, naive and populist national image of the occupation. Movies like “Max Manus” and “The Twelfth Man” were about good Norwegians with a banal and unshakable conviction that evil Germans must be fought and then they go and do the right thing. They may collapse or two along the way, but their belligerence or heroism is never in doubt.

Anyone who compares these works with older Norwegian films such as “Nine Lives” (1957) or “Cold Tracks” (1962) will be surprised at how much more sober and nuanced Norwegian filmmakers used to treat these stories. In “Nine Lives”, the Norwegian resistance fighters helping Jan Baalsrud (Jack Fjelstad) on the run are portrayed as tired and a little grumpy, disagreeing on the best way to proceed and suspicious of their own family because they fear being exposed. In “Kalde spor”, a person without borders (Toralv Maurstad) is given the choice between helping a group of strangers or someone close to him personally, and makes a decision that will upset him for many years to come.

When we compare These movies with the war epic of our time, the latter fall short to an almost comical degree. The Norwegian resistance fighters in “The Twelfth Man” yell open-cheeked at the Germans and salute each other with an “All for Norway” anointing. They act just patriotic and pretty stupid. Crown Prince Olav in “Atlantic Crossing” comes word after word about the fight for his country, without the filmmakers taking into account that Crown Prince had previously written that a close relationship between Germany and England was the only hope for a secure Europe. , in a letter. to his British cousin, the Prince of Wales. Seeing the Crown Prince’s agreement with such early thoughts would be infinitely more interesting than watching him play slogans.

Reason that it will be so is as banal as it is depressing: these are convenient stories that impress Norwegians, and there are hundreds of thousands of viewers who like to watch them. This is why NRK and the movie industry, which are politically expected to take huge market shares, are throwing millions at anyone who wants to try. But these are investments that provide low returns on everything but audience, and should be drastically reconsidered.