Tag / biopic

by hutchwp

Film Review: Back to Black (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2024)

Big-budget biopics have become a popular box office draw, with Queen, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Williams all getting the Hollywood treatment in recent years. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s retelling of Amy Winehouse’s rise to fame is certainly not a bad film, but it falls short in many ways.

Let’s start with the story itself. The narrative that has been concocted doesn’t align with the reality and what really happened in her life. My memory of her successful music career was that she exploded into public consciousness with the song ‘Rehab’, her first in a new-sounding musical approach she’d found alongside Mark Ronson, who produced the smash-hit album ‘Back to Black’. Seemingly for narrative reasons, this song is not focused on until much later in the film, and Mark Ronson is only mentioned a couple of times rather than being a key part of the story. The implication is that she was already a huge popstar, when in reality her first album debuted at #60 in the UK charts and was outperformed that week by new releases by Michael Ball, S Club 8, Myleene Klass and Daniel O’Donnell. Not to undermine any of their careers, but none are expecting a big screen retelling of their musical successes any time soon.

Of course, chopping and changing the ordering and minor facts is something we’ve come to expect with these kinds of films, and it’s a topic I explored in my previous article ‘Fact vs Fiction – How far is too far for biopics?’. As I said at the time, there is a a fine balance between telling a truthful story and telling an entertaining and dramatic story.

The problem I have with ‘Back to Black’ is that it does neither.

What it does well is provide a platform to showcase Winehouse’s wonderful music. The music took over the world for well over a year, soundtracking big nights out, house parties, dinner parties, car journeys and everything in between. The titular album was one of the last big sellers when it comes to physical media, shipping almost 2m copies in the UK alone in 2008. You only need about a third of that now. Anyone who sees this film and who lived through that period will surely be seeking out her music in the aftermath of their first viewing.

It’s not a surprise that her alleged struggles with alcohol and substance abuse and subsequent health decline after the success of the ‘Back to Black’ album are not a key part of the film. However, by choosing the much safer route the whole film feels a bit vanilla. As a standalone piece, it kind of works. But the world knows so much more about her life and knows it has been left out for a reason.

As a result, it doesn’t really land and it feels like a struggle to enjoy.

by hutchwp

Fact vs fiction – How far is too far for biopics?

Stan and Ollie is a brilliant example of comedians using their aptitude for mimicry to bring a dramatic story to life. In Steve Coogan and John C Reilly, a lesser-known period of the careers of one of the world’s greatest ever comedy duos has been immortalised in film forever more.

The only problem I have with it is that almost all of it is fabrication.

Admittedly, writer Jeff Pope wasn’t there personally to verify the specifics of the script. This is forgivable.

But the plot is not.

Thanks to a wealth of online resources, not least the website Letters From Stan (which provides a record of every available letter Stan Laurel sent in his lifetime), there is enough factual evidence to piece together a fairly accurate timeline of events during their final tour of the UK and Ireland to know how much of this is real.

For a start, the tour started in September 1953 in Ireland (see letter to Dorothi and Jac dated 12th September 1953) and ended in England, allowing the duo to start their tour earlier due to a visa issue. In Stan and Ollie, the change in the plot allowed them to end on a triumphant emotional high with Oliver Hardy fully fit and able to perform. This is arguably a small change that makes sense from a story-telling point of view.

You will also note from the letters that Stan’s wife Eda joined him on the ferry crossing: “Had a nice crossing – calm sea all the way. Eda caught a cold so is now in the Pill & nose drops dept.” This is another small but critical plot point that was changed for arguably a good reason – it gives the viewer some time with Stan and Ollie without their wives, allowing the plot to explore their relationship thoroughly before the introduction of more characters on the tour.

Indeed, Stan Laurel himself was also ill for around a month in the lead up to Christmas, meaning they cancelled several shows. It makes sense to not include this in the film for timing and pacing reasons. Even if it was just a 20 second montage of him being ill for a month, it doesn’t really add anything.

The fabrications start to impact more when you think about their planned triumphant return to cinema, in this case an adaptation of Robin Hood. This is the plot device used as the driving reason Oliver Hardy agrees to do the tour. Robin Hood is a film that was mentioned once in an interview in 1947 during a previous tour of the UK, but never existed even as a concept. This factual change impacts hugely on the portrayal of the pair’s relationship.

If Oliver Hardy was only doing the tour to return to cinema, the suggestion is that his relationship with Stan is purely professional and the tour is only being completed to allow his film career to get back on track. Several times in the biopic he makes it clear he is only doing the tour to facilitate doing the film. On the contrary, in reality the pair had toured the UK four times between 1937 (when Way Out West was released) and 1953. They also released a film in 1951 (the unpopular and critically-panned Atoll K). This wasn’t a comeback for them and wasn’t something that brought them back together, and there was no film in pre-production. All three are fabrications.

The dramatic plot developments and emotional journeys of the main characters are built on a timeline so chopped and rearranged that the end result is a dishonest representation of the events. The crux of the film is a falsity.

The same can be said of the Oscar-nominated Bohemian Rhapsody, which also played around significantly with the timeline to make sure there was a triumphant ending for Freddie Mercury and Queen. The details are explored thoroughly in the article ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Fact Check: Did Freddie Mercury Really Tell Queen He Had AIDS Just Before Live Aid?.

In this film, the Live Aid performance was used as a way to reunite the band in the wake of Freddie finding out about his diagnosis. Roger Taylor, Brian May and John Deacon had been angry after Freddie Mercury had released several solo albums in the early 1980s. As the film shows it, the band agree to reunite after a long hiatus and Freddie tells the band about his AIDS diagnosis late on in the rehearsal period.

In reality, the band had released an album together in 1983, Roger Taylor released two solo albums in 1981 and 1984 and Brian May released an EP in 1983. Queen had played a series of shows two months before Live Aid in 1985, so they had never really been apart. It is also thought that Mercury didn’t find out about his diagnosis until April 1987 (according to his partner Jim Hutton).

These are critical changes to the timeline that completely alter the impact of the story. I agree it is completely appropriate to finish on the high of the Live Aid show. Similarly, it is impossible to tell the story of Queen without mentioning Mercury’s AIDS diagnosis. So, what were the filmmakers to do?

It’s a fine balance between telling a truthful story and telling an entertaining and dramatic story.

With Stan and Ollie, the result is a whimsically funny film that achieves its main goal of bringing one of the greatest comedy duos back to the attention of the public. It’s not a bad film at all. It’s just important to know where the fact stops and the fiction starts. This is a decision that ultimately lies with director Jon S Baird, writer Jeff Pope and producer Faye Ward, all of whom will presumably be happy with the critical response and the box office takings. Similarly for Bohemian Rhapsody, director Bryan Singer, screenwriter Anthony McCarten and producers Graham King and Jim Beach will not care a jot about the changes made, especially if they pick up an Academy Award for their efforts.

History will forget whether or not the facts are correct. Inevitably what is on screen will take priority over the truth, hidden away in books and on websites for only the most ardently-interested fans to find. How the films themselves are remembered will only become clear years down the line.

by hutchwp

Mandella: Long Walk To Freedom (Justin Chadwick, 2013)

Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom is a biopic of the life of Nelson Mandella, a rich and vibrant story that has been crying out for a big screen adaptation for years. It’s pulled off in great style by director Chadwick. The story becomes even more poignant with the recent news of his passing, but makes the timing of the release of the film perfect.

The first thing you’ll notice when the film starts is that Idris Elba, famous for his roles in Luther, Prometheus and more recently Pacific Rim, looks absolutely nothing like Nelson Mandella. Many people assumed there would only ever be one man for the job: Morgan Freeman. Yet, the ambitions of this film were to cover Mandella’s whole life, and the meat of the story required a younger man to take the role. That Elba doesn’t look like him doesn’t really matter; his mannerisms and ability to convey the emotion of this rich story are of far greater importance.

The story moves at a terrific pace – it has to so it can cover everything. At times I wondered whether they could have spent longer on certain sections, and maybe a two part film would have been more suitable (this worked to great effect in Steven Soderbergh’s Ché). It didn’t detract from my enjoyment too much, but I feel like there’s more to tell – especially on his time as the president, which is a massive part of his life that was barely touched on.

Some of the prosthetics used to make Elba age were also a bit lacklustre. The first scene we see him as an old man is seriously undermined by the fact it looks a bit cheap. I wonder whether they thought they could get away with Elba’s appearance as a younger Mandela because we were less familiar with him, but panicked with his latter years under the knowledge that Madella’s face and appearance are so familiar.

Overall, this is a film that deserves to be seen and the box office will no doubt swell because of the timing of the release. It’s also a film heaped with responsibility that treats his legacy with due respect. Some reviewers have said that, because of this, it plays it safe. I disagree whole-heartedly. How else could this story have been told? It’s a fantastic work of art that is certainly worth seeing.

Mandella: The Long Road To Freedom is released at cinemas in the UK on 6th January 2014.

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