A History, Several Stories, and a Dramatic Narrative: L’Honneur d’un Capitaine [A Captain’s Honor], a Film by Pierre Schoendoerffer

Abstract

The film L’Honneur d’un Capitaine (1982), directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928–2012), is the media option chosen to address the dramatic accounts of one French colonial soldier’s struggles to rehabilitate his memory. Objectives: Instead of writing a story essay or a novel, since he was a gifted author, he preferred to play the soldiers' drama in a film. Result: As a fictional account, however, L'Honneur recovers the past in images imbued with the status of plausibility. Conclusion: By taking advantage of his enormous experience as a documentary filmmaker, Schoendoerffer produces scenes of a brutal conflict and gives them great authenticity.