Biopics: Cinema or Money Grab?
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Though they have been around for a long time, films known as “biopics” are making a comeback. In the past few years, releases of Rocketman, Bohemian Rhapsody and Spencer have popularized the genre to mainstream audiences and have seen their continuation in cinemas today. This year, we’ll be seeing the releases of biopics such as Blonde about Marilyn Monroe, Weird about Weird Al, I Wanna Dance With Somebody about Whitney Houston, and Oppenheimer about J. Robert Oppenheimer, as well as many others.
So what makes a biopic? I spoke to the wonderful Ren Varani, scriptwriter for the youtube channel Hidden Hollywood and owner of the Instagram accounts @/art.shitposting and @/undergrounddarling, who defined biopics as films used to portray real people through real events in their lives. “The point of it is to try to elevate the person, kind of humanize them, but at the same time glorify them,” said Varani. He gives the example of Rocketman, which helped to humanize Elton John by showing viewers the not-so-glorious aspects of his life in a way that made them love him more.
Varani summed up nicely why these types of films are so popular- “We’re nosy,” he explains. “The industry is restricting our access to films by not producing original films or scattering them in different streaming platforms, forcing audiences to consume the same thing over and over again.” Those trying to make it big in film know that any amount of gossip will have both the fans and critics of celebrities alike sprinting to the theater and use this to their advantage. They aren’t taking the same big risks as they used to , preferring to keep selling what they know will sell- but, at the same time, failing to entice audiences with the new, original and mind-blowing works of art that used to grace the screens. Award-winning director Martin Scorsese said it best- “There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema… I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.”
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Just like with any movie, there are ways biopics could be considered “cinema” despite adhering to the money-making blueprint that they often do. Varani prefers biopics that take creative freedom rather than recounting a celebrity’s life event by event. “Some directors are diversifying biopics by adding a more artistic approach, for example, Spencer, in which Irranitu takes several artistic freedoms. We have a beautiful montage of Princess Diana’s younger selves running around, dancing, biking, etc. while she dances from room to room. It is obvious that wasn’t a real event in her life, but it is a way to stamp the personal style of the film, to give it identity,” said Varani. He also gives the example of the TV show Pistols, in which “the directors of the show chose to take the essence of the band and plastered it all over the show’s image and go with a film editing style that accentuates the maelstrom of both the era and the band. But besides these examples, the trend of the biopic means a relegation of original films to lesser time in the movie theaters or being thrown directly to streaming services.”
Taking biopics in an artistic direction helps to create a thought provoking experience for viewers, rather than duplicating the same brain frying one other biopics often do. Varani warns against this formula for biopics, citing that “the production of them has become so serialized that they can be predictable if they lack artistic identity. We can see this in many shows, such as Inventing Anna. Despite being entertaining, it has no identity whatsoever, instead feeling like a soap opera with a huge budget. Newer Marvel TV shows and films are so badly edited compared to the first ones because there's a constant demand or need to pump out content, not films, that there's no time to actually refine it's artistry, if there was any to begin with.”
Biopics have potential to be objectively good movies, though tend to fall flat. I believe the film industry has forgotten its roots in urging film makers to create the breathtaking masterpieces they once did in favor of making easy money from the masses, a fact I don’t foresee changing any time soon. Varani, however, has given me hope. “I’m glad to say that cinema is responding to this already decaying content. This week, many original films have premiered. We have The Woman King, starring the great Viola Davis, then Ti West’s Pearl, starring Mia Goth, Smile, Don’t Worry Darling, starring the drama behind the scenes, See How They Run, etc. We are in the gates of a new wave of cinema that is yet to be defined, but seems to be quite exciting.”
Strike Out,
Writer: Maya Kayyal
Editors: Marissa DeMaio & Madison Sloan
Saint Augustine
