Told entirely in clips and video, with barely a narrator’s voice or a talking head, the documentary essentially opens up a time capsule, thrusting viewers into the nearly quarter-century span since the Diana and Prince Charles’ fairytale wedding until their divorce and its aftermath.
Even with the treasure trove of material available, it is a feat of editing and curation. Director Ed Perkins cleverly ended the film with video of the paparazzi chasing her and young Diana peppered with questions from reporters about her upcoming wedding, meticulously bridging the gap between the two.
As for the pundit who has aged incredibly badly, one BBC commentator confidently said that after the wedding and the hype that came with it, “this whole telephoto thing will stop”.
Even so, the narrative approach employed here eliminates those dramatic embroideries, while fleshing out the old interviews with things like news snippets from everyday people responding to twists in Diana’s story. Towards the end, it includes a particularly striking shot of a man in a crowd shouting at the press, saying they are responsible for his death, drawing cheers from those around him.
Again, “The Princess” doesn’t introduce anything new into the conversation, but rather deftly filters it through the hard gaze of the cameras as they clicked – and clicked and clicked some more – while Diana was on. life.
“Eventually you get used to it,” Charles says early on, regarding the attention crush.
But his first wife never did, and watching “The Princess” should prompt at least some soul-searching about the gleeful assumption that she lost all privacy when she got that title by saying “yes.” .
“The Princess” premieres Aug. 13 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.