TV Series (Dec 2016)
La Seconde Guerre mondiale dans Band of Brothers (HBO, 2001) et The Pacific (HBO, 2010)
Abstract
Heirs of Saving Private Ryan (1998), the mini-series Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010) present the Second World War as is was experienced by the men of the 101st US Airborne Division in Europe (Band of Brothers) and by the US Marines against the Japanese (The Pacific). Designed and directed under similar terms, they both focus on the battlefield. Thus they do not make any reference to the diplomatic, political, economic and social issues raised by the conflict. But the similarities end there. If the paratroopers and the Marines are described as effective combatants, the former are portrayed in a more flattering light than the latter. Competent and rarely undermined in Band of Brothers, the hierarchy is regularly criticized in The Pacific. The relationships between combatants and civilians are much more highlighted in the second mini-series than in the first. Moreover, from one series to the other, the representations of the enemy, of the fighting and of its consequences change substantially. If Band of Brothers describes a rather formidable German soldier whose value points out that of the American paratroopers, The Pacific shows the racial dimension of the war and the terrible difficulties created by the other enemy that the environment was. Present on the European battlefields, violence, injury and death are more crudely staged on the Pacific theatre. Finally, the consequences of the conflict on the combatants and the complex coming out of war process are incomparably better evoked in The Pacific than in Band of Brothers. These variations are related to the differences between the sources on which the mini-series are based, to the nature of the warlike phenomenon that they present, to the changes in terms of historiographical and film contexts, as well as to the evolutions of the US and international political environments.
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