Between History and Fiction: the Spanish Transition through Historical Biopics

The relationship between history and fiction has always been difficult, although it has improved in recent decades given the potential of the audiovisual medium to disseminate knowledge of our past. Among historical fiction, a prominent place is occupied by biopics, which have recently received singular attention in Spain around the main protagonists of a key episode in our history: the Transition to democracy. The objective of this article is to analyze the way, in which the history of the transition to democracy and its protagonists, has been reconstructed in the biopics made about Adolfo Suarez, Vicente Enrique y Tarancon, Juan Carlos I and Torcuato Fernandez-Miranda, which show the hagiographic and elitist tone from which this episode of our recent past is projected.