The pact of veridiction in the biopic Isabel

visual narrative reconstruction based on History of the Moorish Kings of Granada by Hernando de Baeza

Abstract

The Spanish state has been built on a series of historical milestones, at least two of which occurred during the reign of Isabella I of Castile between 1451 and 1504: the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and the discovery of America, both in 1492. This reign, of which there is still abundant legal literature of the period, as well as all kinds of written materials, has already been portrayed in literature and, to a lesser extent, recreated in film. This paper seeks to analyse and contrast the RTVE biopic Isabel (2012-2014) and historical works: specifically, we will address the problematic relationship between reality and visual reconstruction of Hernando de Baeza's Historia de los Reyes Moros de Granada, whose work has never been formally acknowledged to be based on the series. To do so, we use a descriptive-argumentative logic and a narrative analysis with a mixed methodology. Among the conclusions, we highlight that the narrative structure is the bearer of imperial ideology, with deliberately false or erroneous aspects, which seek to strengthen a collective national imaginary about the goodness of the reign and which seek a certain spectacularisation from the visual point of view, moving away from the plausible.