Music Biopics: Where’s The Value?
By Anthony Heron
(Elvis promotional movie poster. Credit: Rearview Mirror)
For many years it’s been said that the concept of a modern Hollywood blockbuster is dying. The only films to make a big splash at the box-office are ones attached to existing intellectual properties. Most would say the obsession with superhero franchises and shared universe films is the biggest contributor to this, but a contributor that often goes unacknowledged is the oversaturation of biopics following famous musicians.
The anticipation around Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan performance and the announcement Jeremy Allen White is set to play Bruce Springsteen have brought this subgenre of film to the front of online pop-culture discourse.
It's important to note that, while these films are a modern phenomenon, they aren’t a modern invention. Music biopics can be traced back as early as 1991 with Oliver Stone’s Jim Morrison film “The Doors” starring Val Kilmer, but what differentiates these early entries to the genre with its more recent ones?
The first comparison that should be made to understand this difference is the kinds of people helming these films. Oliver Stone for example, is an auteur, he writes, directs, and produces. He treats his films as opportunities to explore politics and themes he’s interested in. This gave “The Doors” a unique tone of its own. Compare this to perhaps the biggest music biopic of the last few years “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which chronicled the life of Freddie Mercury.
Bryan Singer was brought on to direct this film, Singer is primarily known for the X-Men films. Regardless of your opinion on that franchise, it’s hard to argue that Singer is someone known for crafting stories of any real substance, he's a safe pair of hands a studio can trust to make a biopic like “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Therein lies the problem with these films, they’re made to be consumed rather than thought about, they come from the most generic of directors, and as a result feel as though they’ve came off a conveyor belt.
A bigger issue here, is the level of bias that comes attached to these films. The most noteworthy example of this, is the Michael Jackson biopic currently in production. Jackson’s family are highly involved in the film, with his own nephew Jaafar Jackson taking up the role of his uncle. It’s been confirmed that the film will not touch on Jackson’s numerous allegations of sexually abusing children.
This begs the question, where is the value in telling the story of a highly publicised public figure if you’re going to brush over their most publicised controversies? The issue of bias has reared its head in almost all these films, the remaining members of Queen were involved in “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which is perhaps why they came across so well in the film, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” almost refuses to acknowledge that Elvis’ wife Priscilla was 14 years old upon their first meeting.
The darkest shadow cast over this genre however, is its exploitative nature. Sam-Taylor Johnson’s “Back to Black” is set to release, following the tumultuous career and life of Amy Winehouse. Through her career, Winehouse was hounded and scrutinised by the press constantly, possibly contributing to her mental health, addictions, and eventual death. Seeing as she passed over 10 years ago, it’s hard to know how she’d feel about the release of this film, but it’s tough to look at it and not see it as another opportunity to make a spectacle of her personal issues, even after she’s passed.
While these films are often at the centre of the pop culture zeitgeist upon release, they fail to make a lasting impression. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone talking about any of these films years or even a few months after their release. Leading to the big question, where’s the value in them? They don’t tell their stories accurately, or in an interesting way, and are often exploitative of their subjects. With more set to release in years to come, it’ll be interesting to see whether these films continue to grow in popularity, or slowly die out.