Øyvind Vågnes

The Narrativization of Historical Trauma: The Alexander L. Kielland Accident in Lykkeland (2018-) and Makta (2023-2024)

University of Bergen, Norway

When the Norwegian oil rig Alexander L. Kielland capsized in the North Sea on 27 March 1980, killing 123 people, it was the worst disaster in Norwegian seas since the Second World War. In my paper I will engage with its narrativization in two widely watched and critically acclaimed contemporary TV series, discussing the ethical and narrative challenges the screenwriters were faced with in the depiction of the accident.

The dramatization of historical trauma places particular demands on storytelling. Although both Lykkeland (State of Happiness) and Makta (Power Play) are exhaustively researched, screenwriters Mette M. Bølstad and Johan Fasting are, in writing dialogue and scenes, creating and constructing their own versions and interpretations of conflicted and painful past events.

The two series have very different takes on historical material: Whereas the character-driven period drama Lykkeland (Maipo/NRK) through three seasons chronicles the growth of the petroleum industry in Norway 1969-1990, the political comedy Makta (Motlys/NRK) is a playful take on the advent of Gro Harlem Brundtland (the Norwegian Labour Party) to the position of Prime Minister in the 1970s and -80s. Whereas Lykkeland lays claim to authenticity and historical detail, Makta, with its Brechtian break with such parameters, strategically departs from the tenets of conventional period drama. Their depictions of the worst industrial accident in Norwegian history are markedly different in fascinating and telling ways.

What are the implications of these different narrative aims for how the two series engages with historical trauma? In what ways have the writers engaged with historical material in their research and in their creative depiction of events that are very much rooted in reality? In which ways does genre commit storytellers to dramatizing past events in particular ways, and to what degree is “who said what, and who did what” open to creative speculation? My paper is based on extensive interviews with Bølstad and Fasting, as well as recent research on the relationship between historical trauma and fictional representation.

Øyvind Vågnes, professor of media studies at the department of information science and media studies at the University of Bergen, Norway, is currently working on a book on Norwegian television drama, as well as a string of articles on the depiction of trauma in tv series. Having published widely on trauma and visual culture in the past, his most recent research interrogates the various contested questions writers are faced with in engaging with individual and collective trauma in serial narrative. Among his publications are Zaprudered: The Kennedy Assassination Film in Visual Culture (2011), “Lessons from the Life of an Image: Malcolm Browne’s Photography of Thich Quang Duc’s Self-Immolation” (2015), “A Day in History: Andrea Gjestvang’s 22 July Photographs” (2017), and “For at det ikkje skal skje igjen: Tv-dramaet 22. juli” (on the tv series 22 July) (2020). Vågnes teaches at the master’s program in screenwriting at the University of Bergen and has published six novels with Tiden Norsk Forlag.