The Chevalier de Saint-George, from Enlightenment hero to fictional icon

"The film about the Chevalier de Saint-George? That would have been fantastic," laments Yannick Noah, on the terrace of a Parisian café. The former tennis player and musician was long considered to play this composer, fencer, and soldier, born in Guadeloupe in 1739 or 1745 to a planter and a slave. But the biopic project never came to fruition. With similar ambitions, filmmaker Euzhan Palcy and actor Pascal Légitimus also failed. "Broadcasters and producers were afraid that it wouldn't appeal to the majority of people," recalls Catherine Jean-Joseph, an artistic advisor in the French audiovisual sector for over thirty years.

The film finally saw the light of day, but in the United States. Released in 2022, Chevalier was directed by Canadian Stephen Williams. He is responsible for the Watchmen series (2019), among others, in which several masked vigilantes confront their superpowers. And it is indeed the portrait of a superheroic Saint-George, defying prejudices and ridiculing a self-righteous Mozart, that this pure Hollywood product paints. "What a terrible film! " laments American diplomat Bisa Williams, 71, who also drafted a script around Saint-George. "They exaggerated it to the point of making racism a character in its own right."

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