CHRONIC
The first is currently broadcast on Apple TV +, the second will be online from February 26 on Canal +. Each of the two places its plot in France – Paris for The New Looka small town in the south of France for Mister Spade –feature essentially French characters but, due to international production, English serves as the vehicular language.
In The New Look, the use of Shakespeare’s language is part of an accommodating convention, which allows, among others, an Australian, Ben Mendelsohn, to interpret the character of Christian Dior, and an Englishwoman, Maisie Williams, that of his committed little sister in the Resistance. Let’s admit. After all, we’ve seen others. Peplums in Latin are rare. In Schindler’s List (1993), all of Germany speaks English. Closer to us, the Soviets of the miniseries Chernobyl (2019) express themselves without complexes in the language of the enemy bloc.
However, we have come a long way: streaming platforms are known to have contributed to making the use of subtitles commonplace, DTT and connected televisions in general have allowed viewers to choose the original version for their evening film, and dubbing has, in recent years, lost ground.
Weirdness
Which makes the choice, in these two series, to use English as a common denominator of the characters all the more surprising. In The New Look, it is less the use of English-speaking actors for good French roles that shocks, than the linguistic contortions to which this choice forces French-speaking actors. Thus Juliette Binoche, as Coco Chanel, and Zabou Breitman, in the role of Dior’s assistant, asked to speak English that is certainly fluent, but still tinged with a slight accent. With an international audience, the oddity will perhaps come across a little better, but for French viewers, it is simply disconcerting.
In Mister Spade, the choice of English as the main language already seems a little more natural, even if the American detective (modern avatar of the character created by Dashiell Hammett) could have, since the time he lived in France, mastered it a little better language. But in trying too hard to facilitate the existence of its main character, the series loses itself in the improbable: there is little chance that in this rural post-war France the cabaret owners, the nuns and the police will speak English. with such ease. The same goes for the young orphan that Sam Spade protects: raised in France, the kid nevertheless speaks perfect English. A little fragility, a little broken english would undoubtedly have done no harm to this production which language fluidity hampers more than anything else.
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