“They asked me a lot of questions, because they wanted to avoid anachronisms. I don’t know to what extent they wanted to go into detail, but the idea was to at least avoid gross aberrations. buckled shoes, for example, did not yet exist at the time the plot takes place, at the very beginning of the twentieth century.”
No time to figure
The production even offered Laurent Donzé to appear in the series, but he declined because at that time, the museum was under construction and he had little availability. On the other hand, he lends around fifty items, including 25 pairs of skis. Among the latter, a dozen were prepared to shoot the scenes outdoors: “At the time, the skis were made of solid wood. Over time, the wood had become very dry, and it had to be moistened, then coat it with a layer of a tar-based product so that it repels water and can be used in snow.”
For the shoes, it was even more complicated: “The size had to correspond to that of the actors, which was far from easy. And then, over time, leather tends to become hard. One thing is Certainly, at the time, there were no ski boots, we used everyday lace-up shoes.”
Other objects were used as decoration inside the hotel, and some were also used for table service: “To attract customers, you had to be original, to entertain the gallery. During a meal, For example, they served the starter on skis, the main course on sleds and the dessert on snowshoes.”
A late development
“Winter sports tourism first developed around skating, sledding, bobsleighing or sledding. Skiing came later, because it required learning the technique, and it was physical.”
In Switzerland, skiing spread mainly under the leadership of the army, explains Laurent Donzé. While sports skiing appeared around 1850 in the Nordic countries, it took a long time to develop here: “Skis as they existed in northern Europe were not adapted to the rugged terrain of the Alps , because they were much too long at the beginning, we mainly practiced hiking, and the heel had to be able to lift. It was when we started grooming the slopes that the skiing we know was able to take place. develop.”
Telemark with 1 or 2 poles
At the time when the plot of Winter Palace takes place, at the turn of the 20th century, telemarking was practiced, a set of techniques of Nordic origin adapted to downhill skiing with the heel free, which allowed turns to be executed performed with a bending of the inside leg: “Two schools coexisted, one using a single stick, very long, and held with two hands (we see this practice used in the series), and the other using two sticks.”
Telemarking disappeared around 1910, supplanted by techniques with a heel attached to the ski, which were more efficient in terms of speed, explains Laurent Donzé.
Related News :