My distaste for a single film has never before made me want to give up on an entire genre. While I have seen some bad romantic comedies in my time, I still understand that one day, in the future, I will watch a film that makes me feel warm, that will be a warm cup of tea to my soul that I can add to my collection of feel-good flicks alongside the likes of Sleepless in Seattle and Pretty in Pink. However, I have had a sour taste remain in my mouth since last October, when I saw Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time.
While this is by no means a rant about the film’s wasted potential (you can read my full review here), the film has acted as a blacklight for my appreciation of the musical biopic by illuminating all the imperfections of a genre that, for the most part, I have quite enjoyed. Sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll is a tired and true combination in the entertainment business. In film, the music biopic has been handed a tidy blueprint for success: cast an actor we all know from ‘something else,’ with a smattering of prosthetics to truly “transform” them, get an ex-band member or close family member to publicly give their thumbs up for the portrayal, drum up enough buzz to have the songs featured in the soundtrack blaring on supermarket radios and, if all goes well, hope for an Oscar.
The Formula
It’s not only the industrial aspects of these films’ creation that are littered with cliches, but the text within these films. Begin your movie with your protagonist (or if it’s supposed to focus on an entire band, the one with the most marketable presence) preparing to enter the ‘biggest concert to ever concert.’ Then, flashback to their childhood—without spending too much time there, because who actually cares?—before hurriedly getting the band together. Some incredible moment of fate means our band ‘clicks’ and is quickly found by a record producer. Cue the tour montages: city names flash on the screen to the beat of a high-octane number; corporate big-wigs “not understanding the music” only for it to reach the height of popularity (take that, The Man); some drug abuse and shots of women’s asses; all culminating in a self-destructive spiral for our protagonists before we cut back and end on the big concert. In the end, it was all worth it, because of ‘the music.’ Credits then roll, and the song you want your audience to have stuck in their heads, hoping they will play on the ride home, blares as everyone exits.
For the most part, I believe people to be complex, unique beings—each with a different story to tell. Similarly, the value of a musical career is almost impossible to capture on film; an entire band’s history of work and its impact on the wider musical sphere is difficult to capture in a two-hour runtime, especially while awards seasons are looming. Bohemian Rhapsody is not alone in its trope-laden storytelling. Straight Outta Compton, despite winning over critics, did get dragged down by its own genre in its latter half. Similarly, Netflix’s The Dirt tries to tell a ‘no-nonsense’ account of Motley Crue’s notoriously lavish existence, only to end up confused (and, at points, unnecessarily misogynistic). The problem lies in the scope of a feature film: you cannot adequately chronicle someone’s entire existence within that runtime, so will end up having to focus on a tightly-selected group of key elements to their stories. The issue is, the modern music biopic has maintained focus on the same material.
The Gems
There are some diamonds hidden among the ever-increasing number of trope-laden films that plague the genre. 24 Hour Party People is a musical biopic that gives the middle finger to convention. It makes sure we know it serves as a fictitious account of events based on the memories of people who were probably drugged out of their minds for the majority of its key events, while still feeling like it captures its era more genuinely than most. Does it stretch the truth here and there? Well, yes, but it lets you know when it’s doing it.
The film follows DJ and ex-news presenter Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), during the glory days of Manchester’s Hacienda Club. It focuses on the creation of Factory Records (who signed the likes of Joy Division, New Order, and The Happy Mondays), and its inevitable decline. Throughout the film, Wilson is completely aware that he is in a film about his own life—continually commenting on cameos, lapses in memory, and future events. In one scene, Tony finds his wife sleeping with Magazine singer Howard Devoto, only for the real Howard Devoto to show up on-screen as a janitor and comment to the audience, “I definitely don’t remember this.” We are aware that we are watching a fictionalised version of a true story, but it doesn’t stop us from feeling what this particular musical movement was all about.
I’m Not There (2007) also attempts to redefine the genre by subverting expectations. Bob Dylan is one of the world’s greatest shapeshifters, his aesthetic, music, and outlook changing throughout his long history as a musician. By splitting his biopic into ‘eras’ of his existence, casting Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, and others to portray different aspects of his life, the film captures a man in a state of constant reinvention. The filmmaking itself is also just as fractured, presenting a joy-ride of different styles throughout the film in a strange mosaic. Once again, the filmmakers had a focus and decided to explore that focus in depth, presenting a film that is much more than just a retelling of the man’s Wikipedia page.
There are less gregarious examples of the biopic done right. Films like Walk the Line and Sid and Nancy focus on a key relationship in the musicians’ life, providing a focus for the film to anchor itself with. Similarly, Backbeat, a Beatles biopic, focuses purely on their Hamburg days, opting to forgo a soundtrack filled with the band’s greatest hits. Instead, the film is more concerned with capturing one quite obscure moment in the bands’ history. Here, we get to see the personality traits that help facilitate legend—not the rise and fall of the Liverpudlian superstars. Oliver Stone’s The Doors is a grandiose, highly kinetic, film that flourishes in its own excess. Val Kilmer’s Jim Morrison is at once spilling with illuminating, poetic nuggets and complete and utter twaddle. Stone shows the singer’s inevitable self-destruction without judgement or reservation. This is a film you may only watch once, but it is a film you will never forget.
The difference between these films and the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody is that they are made with more of a purpose than selling bucketloads of soundtracks. They wish to capture, well, something about the music or personalities behind our most treasured songs.
There’s more than one way to tell a story.
We aren’t dependant on the lowly biopic to present to us an account of a musician’s impact on the wider world. In fact, the entire reason for my writing this article, and my reinforced passion for what we could achieve from a musical story, is because I watched the documentary Oasis: Supersonic—a film that, ultimately, made me feel what Bohemian Rhapsody tried to make me feel.
Oasis: Supersonic begins with the Gallagher brothers preparing for their biggest concert, only to then flash back to how they got there. Sound familiar? However, the expert crafting of the narrative leading up to the final moments earns itself the right to maintain convention. The documentary is a different beast to the biopic; one has to convince audiences the story is real, the other needs to convince you the story is interesting. However, both need to capture a legacy in a two-hour story.
In Supersonic, the filmmakers weave Oasis’s inevitable decline into the subtext, opting instead to focus on the absolute madness that was their glory days. The film knows that the key to Oasis’s success, legacy, and inevitable decline lies in the complicated sibling rivalry at the band’s centre. We are given a look into the Gallaghers’ brotherhood in a reflective, nuanced manner that makes every moment of fist-pumping, sing-alongable concert footage feel earned. By the end, we are able to see the real crowd at Knebworth, not a badly CGI’d copy, and if someone caught me directly after my viewing of the film, I would have told them that Oasis were the greatest band of all time.
Films such as Montage of Heck, Made of Stone, Eight Days a Week, Searching for Sugarman, and Amy all work to capture the essence of a musician’s story, while having the luxury of access to real, archive footage. However, it takes a lot for these films to be entertaining—one wrong move, and any of these films could have felt more like homework than entertainment. Where the biopic seems to have run stale, the music documentary has flourished—each year, a new one seems to come along and blow it out of the park. Perhaps the difference here is, while the biopic is mandated by studios, crafted purely to make Oscars and money, the documentary feels more genuine in its enthusiasm, having one filmmaker at its centre trying to explain to their audience why this band matters to them.
There may be hope yet.
Despite Bohemian Rhapsody making bucketloads of money, and winning two awards (side note: the Academy must have been high to give the film shot like this an award for best editing), the critical consensus is that the music biopic is now stale. While the films’ financial success will mean Hollywood will continue to crank-out these films, perhaps somewhere there is a filmmaker thinking, “No, I can do better.”
Recently, the trailer dropped for the Elton John biopic Rocketman, a film that advertises its fantastical elements from the get-go. While this could be a marketing ploy, distracting us from the thought of this being just the same thing with Elton John music playing in the background, I am intrigued to see what happens. Really, if my hopes aren’t warranted, and it’s complete and utter garbage, I’ll only feel bad that Taron Egerton has to shoulder yet another loss.
However, if the sun doesn’t finally come out, we are not left in the dark where the musical story is concerned. With a vast number of well-crafted, excellent documentaries, we can perhaps stave off cold, dark winter yet. For now, I am going to blast “What’s the Story Morning Glory,” as loud as my neighbours will allow me, safe in the knowledge that, despite it being touch-and-go for a while, my interest in this particular brand of narrative did not completely bite the dust.
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