CThis is how the biopic works. The first photo is launched, the Internet explodes, comparing the star’s look to that of the real character he playswaiting for the trailer. Then tests of the voice, the tics, the credibility of the prostheses (if there are any), the release of the film and therefore the inevitable dissent from the critics or the green light towards the Oscar. The most striking recent case? That of Master Of Bradley Cooper And Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolanzero statuettes against seven. Although the life of the atomic bomb scientist, more than a biopic (simple biopic), it is a very powerful one bioepic author’sthe rules also applied in his case.
They are done immediate comparisons between the original Robert and Cillian Murphy’s Robertbetween their two hollow bodies, between the watery eyes of one and the other, even between their 1940s hats. Moreover, unlike a film based on an invented story, here we deal with paintings, photos, period films and recordings. In short, the documents.
Matter for historians and above all for fans, who at the cinema and on TV want to see how well Tonya Harding’s famous “triple axel” scenes are reconstructed (Tonyanomination for Margot Robbie) and of Freddie Mercury that (in Bohemian RhapsodyOscar to Rami Malek) fires his fist at the sky at Wembley Stadium during Live Aid 1985 (just as they saw live or in repeated viewings on YouTube).
New biopics: from A complete unknown by Timothée Chalamet a Mary
It is a game of waiting and comparisons that the spectator also plays more distracted, he struggles to escape. Because the pain and glory of the biopic is, inevitably, the faithful replica of the original. Which is more part of our experience plus it has a series of verifiable details, often identified with the true success of the performance. But recreating them – from hair to costumes – doesn’t mean getting a good performance.
The Madame Tussauds packaging can work against you. For a fake nose of Nicole Kidman in The Hours (for a more authentic Virginia Woolf) there is the make-up mask of Jessica Chastain in Tammy Faye’s eyesa true copy of the real Faye: nevertheless, an Oscar for her too, with a specific weight very different from her colleague. And it doesn’t mean that it always goes well with the choice of natural resemblance: Does anyone remember Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in Respectwhich was also chosen by the singer herself before she died? Yet, between missteps and exemplary evidence, the biopic reigns supreme.
Two beautiful, Angelina Jolie and Timothée ChalametI’m now at the cinema with Mary And A Complete Unknown – about Maria Callas and Bob Dylan respectively – two biopics that required very little make-up. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi has just started filming Duse (i.e. the divine Eleonora, directed by Pietro Marcello), while Noomi Rapace is filming the life of Mother Teresa of Calcuttathe first English film by Macedonian director Teona Stugar.
Edward Norton and Timothée Chalamet in “A Complete Unknown”. (Searchlight Pictures)
Elsewhere, Kristen Stewart, the queen of the format with Diana, JT Leroy, Jean Seberg and Joan Jett on her CV, is preparing to become Susan Sontagno less. It is clear that there are few who say no to the powerful aphrodisiac of birth-gavetta-success-decline. Both when the characters are dead and when they are alive contributing to their transpositions (for example, Rocco Siffredi-Alessandro Borghi in Supersex and Gianna Nannini-Letizia Toni in You are in the soulboth on Netflix) or by opposing a reactionary or revolutionary counterbiopic for those who wanted to tell a life without the point of view of the living.
As Madonna did with a base camp of tight auditions that not even the Marines (project now frozen). Not everyone is happy about this frenzy of transposition; at every awards season, operators in the sector and the public complain. It’s an approval, they shout in chorus. It’s all one legend unearthed to celebrate. And then downloaded until the next movie. Even if next means a year away. Like theElvis by Baz Luhrmann and Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, two different Presleys but nevertheless two Presleys.
The trend began in the 1980s
Where have the playwrights, the theatrical texts, the Tennessee Williams who wrote with great, great actresses in mindscreenplays like Anatomy of a fall by Justine Triet and husband? They are there, but they are suffocated by a flood of small and large rotogravure sagas that have taken over since the 1980s.
Precisely since 1980, since the release of The girl from Nashville. The success of the biopic on country singer Loretta Lynn (Oscar for Sissy Spacek) is historically the breaking point that coincides with a change in sensitivitywhich took place around the time of the elections of Ronald Reagan, the first actor-president of the United States. In the decade of the festive man coined by Philippe Muray (French novelist and essayist), of the well-fed, disengaged individual with the city as his living space, you go to see blockbusters but also the epics of Amadeus and Gandhi. While in the Nineties, still prey to the same desire for fiction combined with the residues of school lessons learned reluctantly, between Jurassic Park And Independence Day There are Charlot (Chaplin) e Ali (Muhammad).
Kate Winslet in “Lee”, a biopic arriving in the next few months. (Summit 360)
The security of the stories of idols already known
The real boom, with the addition of female biopics, however, it arrives with the new millennium. Looking at the Oscar nominations since 2000, the curve of biopic roles is a pandemic peak that steadily rises up to Gary Oldman-Churchill inDarkest hour and Renée Zellweger in Judy (Garland), victorious in 2018. A curve that also speaks of the difference between excellences worthy of representation: the real men in the cinema are politicians, athletes, leaders, professors. Women are a heterogeneous group of queens, princesses, singers, artists and tormented poets. Like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia (Plath) (in 2003, centuries before becoming the Queen Bee of wellness and vaginal eggs).
Today, this vast market of biographies it is a jagged and bulimic kingdom. Without any more boundaries of genres and sense of measure. With increasingly upward announcements: Sam Mendes who will make a biopic for every Beatles. And with obvious conflicts of interest, Hollywood nepobabies take advantage of abundance: Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan and Uma Thurman, as Flannery O’Connor (biopic filmed by his father), e Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andy MacDowell, the next face of Amanda Knox in a miniseries; not to mention Jaafar Jackson, nephew of Michael Jacksondown on the set dressed and made up like his uncle.
But if stars don’t say no to biopics, why should young people do so, just as eager to disappear into roles to avoid the category prestigious snubbed? Or to enter into that of flashy but memorable caricatures, like Joaquin Phoenix soft, insolent and sleepy Napoleon, also delicious.
Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s nephew, as his uncle in the biopic “Michael” arriving at the end of the year. (Sony Pictures)
Danger Artificial intelligence
However, beyond the genre which, when it works, is a marvelous triumph of will, and, when it fails, looks like a Wikipedia page with lame syntax, for the future the danger of an abuse of true stories no longer even seems to concern directors. Excluding Madonna, who has always been able to look after herself, lawyers and copyright experts advise stars to carefully choose their ideal characterto avoid legal resentment from the families and protests from the fans.
The risk is no longer that of Kafka (series for now in Germany and Austria). Or Amy Winehouse (the latest victim of a film that has all the air of a karaoke and in which the singer’s father would have loved to be played by George Clooney). But to end up in the hands of artificial intelligence like poor Edith Piaf.
Perhaps the first deceased to be brought back to life by a disembodied brain of data and numbers. In fact, Warner Music announced in November 2023 that it had “collaborated with the heirs of the legendary French artist” to recreate her voice and appearance in the documentary film Edith. Lots of pats on the back for Marion Cotillard in La Vie en rose (2007), therefore. Suddenly antediluvian for the arduous effort of make-up, tics, mannerisms and lip syncing.
If not her, who will get the Oscar? A video, a hologram, Anna Magnani’s digital wrinkles? Monica Guerritore, next to lower herself into Anna-A human voicea biopic about the night of March 21, 1956 (when Magnani won the Oscar for The Rose Tattoo), reassured us about the human and indigenous model. “An actress from Ohio is unlikely to tell you to go to hell like she did.” Of Ohio no, but of the land of the algorithm yes.
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