Televising tragedy

A beautiful woman is sitting at a piano. "Don't really understand how I ended up here," she says to herself: "dashing around and losing myself in the process... I think that's the story of my whole life." Suddenly the scene changes and there she is again - pursued by paparazziPhotographers who take photos of celebrities as they go about their normal lives to sell to newspapers and magazines. wherever she goes, with cameras flashing. 

The woman is Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Elizabeth Debicki in the final episodes of The Crown.

Diana died in 1997, a year after her divorce from the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III). At the time she was going out with film producer Dodi Fayed.

On the night of 30 August the two arrived at the RitzAn expensive hotel. in Paris. From there the hotel's deputy head of security, Henri Paul, was told to drive them to a nearby flat belonging to Dodi's father. Paul drove at speed, chased by paparazzi on motorbikes, and lost control of the car in an underpass, where it crashed into a pillar.

He and Dodi died at the scene. Diana was taken to hospital, where she died two and a half hours later. She was 36; her sons William and Harry were 15 and 12 respectivelySeparately and in the order already mentioned..

A post-mortem found that Paul had been drinking. But many people felt that it was the press who were chiefly responsible for the crash. It is thought that the two princes have never forgiven them for Diana's death, and that many of Harry's problems stem from the tragedy. For them above all, The Crown threatens to open old wounds.

Netflix has said that it will not show the actual car crash, but there will be "scenes covering the lead-up to and the aftermath". According to executive producer Suzanne Mackie: "There was a very, very careful, long, long, long conversation about how we do it... there was a huge amount of respect from us all."¹

But there have already been complaints about filming taking place at the underpass. A priest who gave Diana the last ritesIn Catholicism and other forms of Christianity, a religious ceremony performed by a priest for a dying person., Father Yves-Marie Clochard-Bossuet, called it "voyeuristicGetting enjoyment from seeing the pain of others or their private lives. " and "crassInsensitive, or done without thinking about how other people may feel. ".²

"There is no need to recreate the events of that night," he said. "This is because Diana has children, she has a brother and sisters, and it affects the feelings of her entire family."

"The earlier episodes could sometimes feel quaint and far away," Sarah Lyall writes of The Crown in The New York Times. "But the new season... is a different thing entirely."

Is it too soon?

Yes: As Father Yves-Marie Clochard-Bossuet points out, many people who knew and loved Diana - or one of the two other victims - are still alive. The series will bring back deeply painful memories for them.

No: This was a major event in modern British history. The grief over Diana's death changed the royal family's relationship with the nation for ever. It is important for people to know about it.  

Or... What this series shows will make little difference to anything. Most people made up their minds about Diana (and The Crown) long ago. William and Harry must think about her every day.