General Charles De Gaulle would have “reunited the French again,” but this time, in movie theaters. A two-part “biopic,” based on a biography of De Gaulle written by a British author, has become the surprise hit of the summer in French cinemas.
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“La Bataille de Gaulle,” in its two parts, has attracted 5 million viewers since its premiere in June. This, competing with Hollywood blockbusters like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Christopher Nolan’s Odyssée.
Historian Henry Rousso, a specialist in World War II, told The Guardian: “There are very few films in French cinema that can be called historical ‘epics,’ and this is one of them. The director has achieved his goal, perhaps because it is one of the greatest epics in French history.”
The films, both nearly three hours long and with a production cost of up to 80 million euros, are an adaptation of the 2018 biography of De Gaulle “A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle” by Julian Jackson, a History professor at Queen Mary University of London.
The first installment, “L’Âge de fer” (The Iron Age), narrates De Gaulle’s journey to London in June 1940 and the founding of the Free France forces to fight the Nazis. It highlights the Battle of Bir Hakeim, where 3,700 Free French soldiers resisted for 16 days in the Libyan desert against 37,000 Nazi troops commanded by Erwin Rommel, thus allowing the British Eighth Army to retreat.
The second part, “J’écris ton nom” (I Write Your Name), covers the rest of the war until the liberation of France in 1944.
Charles de Gaulle was the leader of the French resistance against the Nazis. One of the most iconic moments in his story was the call on June 10, 1940, when, as a little-known general, he sat in a BBC studio in London and called on the French to resist the Nazi occupation and the Vichy puppet government.
In the eyes of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, De Gaulle was an arrogant, stubborn, and defiant character. For both him and the Allies, the general was a “headache,” yet the Frenchman never stopped believing in the greatness of France or the need for resistance. After the war, De Gaulle would become a central figure in French politics, serving as president from 1959 to 1969.
The reception of the film in France describes a curious “comeback.” In the days following the premiere of the first installment on June 3, everything seemed to indicate it would be a box office failure. But then, by a providential turn, the film resurged, starting a triumphant return that propelled the second installment to overwhelming success.
“The Iron Age” recorded around 380,000 viewers in its first week, far from the million expected for a two-part saga that cost about 80 million euros, or even more. In the second week, the film lost 40% of its audience, worsening the disaster. During the third week (June 17 to 23), the film, surprisingly, began to rebound by 17%.
Amid this situation, the production and distribution company Pathé went all in and moved up the release of the second film, “I Write Your Name,” by one week, to Friday, June 26, to take advantage of the four days of the Film Festival (June 28 to July 1) and its 5-euro tickets. The result was a miracle: during its fourth week, the first film experienced a 114% increase in attendance compared to the previous week.
“What is happening is exceptional,” confirms Eric Marti, from the specialized website Comscore France, to Le Monde. Among the reasons for the success, curiously, is the heatwave, and Marti believes that in that context the public flocked to air-conditioned cinemas. Two films, each two hours and 40 minutes long, are usually a disadvantage, but the idea of spending five hours in a cool environment seems to have convinced the French.
Beyond that, the “myth” of De Gaulle coincides with a classic figure in French history. French historian Alya Aglan, professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris and co-author of the bestselling book “De Gaulle, France and the World,” stated: “In French history, we have always had a ‘providential man’: someone who arrived at the right moment and transformed a situation of weakness into a position of strength.”
“The enthusiasm the film awakens among young people is because they are discovering facets of a history they did not know: that of a man who experienced failure, doubts, and hard blows, and who embodied the spirit of resistance by remaining true to himself against all odds, even at the cost of sometimes appearing ridiculous,” Aglan says about De Gaulle’s figure.
Not everyone shares the enthusiasm. Arnaud Teyssier, also a historian and biographer of De Gaulle, called the biographical film a “comic strip” that did not do justice to its protagonist. “The film is not without great attractions: it had a high budget and a good cast, and is based on a rightly respected biography. However, the disappointment is equally great,” he wrote in the weekly Le Point.
Speaking of what would be historiographical inaccuracies, Teyssier mentions an episode in which the French general argues with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and breaks a chair in the middle of a furious confrontation.
Julian Jackson is the leading British authority on Charles de Gaulle and author of the 2018 biography “A Certain Idea of France,” which inspired the film. Regarding the moment cited by Teyssier, Jackson is emphatic: “The scene in which the chair is broken is real.”
In his opinion, the film accurately portrays the relationship between Churchill and de Gaulle. “It is, basically, a love-hate relationship with Churchill,” he says. “Two powerful personalities, both with a certain romantic air and both, in a way, inhabited by history,” he concluded.
