Biopics List Discussion + Suggestions (Genre Project)

[swo17]

Oooh, I'll definitely be voting for his Blaise Pascal.

[knives]

I'll be voting for about ten of his films.

[DarkImbecile]

Also, The Honeymoon Killers is another Criterion biopic.

So are Che and Hunger, for sure, and I think you could make a case of varying strength for a few others off the top of my head: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Man Escaped, In Cold Blood...

[Rayon Vert]

A Man Escaped wouldn't qualify unfortunately because the name of the protagonist was changed (André Devigny —> Fontaine).

[DarkImbecile]

A Man Escaped wouldn't qualify unfortunately because the name of the protagonist was changed (André Devigny —> Fontaine).

Ah, you’re right; forgot that requirement.

[bottled spider]

Goya in Bordeaux (Saura 1999). Meandering and slow-paced. Which is fine. Effective in places, but much of it struck me as merely artsy, and superficially beautiful. The hit-and-miss Saura has done better, and for Goya, I'd recommend Goya: Crazy Like a Genius, an excellent art documentary with a stupid title.

[knives]

There's also an East German version of his life worth looking at.

[Rayon Vert]

So are Che and Hunger, for sure, and I think you could make a case of varying strength for a few others off the top of my head: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Man Escaped, In Cold Blood...

Walker is another one.

[zedz]

Just checking, but for the biopics I gather Shakespeare's histories count? (Like Henry V, not Macbeth.)

Unless they break one of the rules I outlined in the thread, they should be fine!

Can we get a ruling on Chimes at Midnight, which has two central protagonists, one historical and one fictionalized? The broad kingly narrative follows the historical record, as Shakespeare understood it, but the Falstaff material is almost entirely invented. That said, there's a lot more verifiable historical fact in those plays and that film than in any life of Christ.

[Mr Sausage]

I'd say Chimes at Midnight isn't a biopic. It's a fictional narrative set within a broadly historical reality, with the invented aspects of more importance than the historical facts (we learn very little about Henry IV as an historical individual, and it matters not a bit that that's so). It bears as much relation to history as Hamlet, and I doubt anyone's ever taken that to be particularly biographical.

[zedz]

That's good enough for me. My rough list of must-haves is in the thirties already!

Oh, and another great Yoshida biopic (of Kita Ikki) to consider is Coup d'Etat.

[knives]

The Better Angels
This is going to be an overly trite and obvious comment, but Edwards makes it necessary to state by how true he fulfills it: This is the best Malick film of the last decade and in all likelihood will remain so for the foreseeable future. It doesn't merely lift from Malick's aesthetic, but perfectly embodies it in such a way that were it not for some very small and subtle elements it would be easy to argue it was made by him. Edwards' main point of differentiation is with the use of voice over. It's still done in that whispering style, but it doesn't serve a thematic purpose all that often. Instead Edwards uses it as a way to help build his characters which is nice since the story telling without it leaves them much broader and harder to distinguish (I'll freely admit to having difficulty at first telling Marling and Kruger apart). He also regularly uses it in a traditional narrative way explaining plot points that would not be interesting to show. In that way the voice over has more in common with Kubrick than Malick. That little bit of spice is enough to make this a really satisfying and complete experience which frankly I don't expect from something with this much Malick in it. Also even though Edwards downplays Malick's thematic approach I feel as if I have a more clear idea of the ideas he was hoping to express than with Malick's recent films. Simply put I feel after watching this that I do know Lincoln and his age better with both the beauty and the horror.

Also any film with both Brit Marling and Jason Clarke has at least that going for it.

Mao's Last Dancer
It's kind of depressing that Beresford made this sub Taylor Hackford film given how much I like some of his others. It seems I'm slowly finding out he has more like this than Black Robe. There's nothing about the titular character you couldn't learn from a wiki or even the DVDs back summary and Beresford merely gawks at Mao's China without ever really providing much beyond the bare contours of life. I'm not saying I expected a dissertation on Maoism, but the film really doesn't add anything beyond political dissenters got killed and the government lied about life outside of China. Even as a story there's not much here. It has a fish out of water element it doesn't expand on beyond Rick James montages and then there is the taste of freedom storyline that makes up the film's backbone. That freedom though doesn't amount to much as the only benefit America seems to provide over China is that he happened to have found his wife in America (which leads to an amusing irony at the end of the film that is communicated really poorly). The film isn't bad per se, it's worse by being blandly mediocre. I'm sure before I'm done I'll have asked this a lot, but this films begs the question of why this story is of any significance whatsoever. The answer surely isn't in the film itself.

Though Kyle MacLachlan's performance is a whole lot of the fun with the film suddenly being great whenever he is on screen by virtue of his accent.

The Broken Tower
Like most Franco films this is really terrible, but by the same token this is pretty interesting when taken as a Franco movie. It's incredibly important to realize that Franco is an idiot. He's about as dumb as a person making a film about Hart Crane can be. Just because he is vacuous though doesn't mean he's a vacuum. He's managed to fill the empty space between his ears with something like the id of a Yale type liberal arts program and his films are a blunt collation of that without any real understanding of what is coming through (you could say that this is exactly wrong with every MFA program in America). For example with this film it's clear Franco didn't make it because he has any real understanding of Crane and he certainly has no real story to tell. At best it seems like Crane was chosen because Franco wanted to make a film about a gay poet who does manly things and Walt Whitman's life would be too expensive to film.

Rather than a meaningful film on Crane's life Franco instead just quotes his poetry over imitations of Maya Deren with some blow jobs thrown in (actually in light of some of the criticisms I've heard about Call Me by Your Name in addition to nearly every LGBT movie made by a straight person this is probably the best on its own element to the film). This is pretty amusing in a kitchen sink sort of way. There's really a whole cavalcade of artistic voices present here that don't work together, but how they don't work is just compelling for me to be short about this.

Also, while it is not eligible for this list, the DVD contains a series of interviews Franco did with Crane experts on the film and it is genuinely good and informative in a way I was not expecting.

[Lemmy Caution]

The Broken Tower -- I remember debating about picking up the dvd for a few months, trying to get a read on the film, somewhat forgetting about it, and next thing the dvd shops started closing. I can't really tell from your write-up if I'd like it or not, but good to hear something about it. I was wondering why Hart Crane was chosen, and it seemed like a potentially interesting choice . . .

[knives]

As with all Franco I've seen I like the movie, but I don't think it is good if that makes sense. It's worthwhile because its interesting less so than good. Franco goes into why he made the film in the documentary I refer to at the end and it sounds like it is out of a love of the poems, but like I said the film comes across as wanting to be a masculine homosexual.

[Rayon Vert]

Another run of rewatches.

The Long Gray Line (Ford 1955). The story of Martin Maher, an Irish immigrant who wound up having a 50-year career at the West Point academy. There are resemblances with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; in both cases a military man’s life against the backdrop of a half-century’s wars, a redhead as his love interest, and with a tone of comedy giving way progressively to one of more gravity, revealing the film at end to be meditation on the passage of time and a life’s journey. The shifts between the comic and dramatic tones are even sharper in Ford’s film, which can be seen also to portray the feelings appropriate to the spring and autumn of a human life. The film isn’t anything like Blimp’s equal, but there is a certain thematic poetry in the terms described if you try to be sensitive to that aspect, and which gets manifested in a moving moment at the film’s end.


The Gospel According to Matthew (Pasolini 1964). This is really Pasolini’s most visually striking film. The strength of the images and camera framings and the way the different scenes, i.e. moments in Jesus’ mission, segue into one another without narrative explanation, often only with those incredible pieces of music, gives the film a strong transcendent flavor. Which is all the more powerful because at the same time Pasolini provides a strong realism with the people and locations and accentuates the rebellious and political Jesus. A remarkable film, and despite the distancing declamatory scenes, it’s still moving, especially at the end.


Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (Bresson 1962). This stands out from most of Bresson’s usual films in that so much of the focus is on dialogue. The filmmaker seems to take a lot of interest in showing the detailed specifics of Jeanne’s answers, including lengthily about the nature of her spirit communications, which are interesting in themselves. The mise en scène emphasizes how this young girl is alone against a world of older men, and the play of power at work. Not as strong as the other works in the stretch between Country Priest and Mouchette, but nevertheless memorable.


Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford 1939). I watched the new blu for this one. The rustic small-town charms of the Will Rogers films is mixed here with a mythical-heroic dimension in a completely harmonious way, the idealistic tone perhaps old-fashioned but never ringing false, with the young Fonda playing Lincoln superbly, at once larger-than-life and human. The script and style is still somewhat “vignette” like Ford's Rogers films, but there’s an added poetic dimension, helped in no small measure by the awesomely gorgeous photography.


The Prisoner of Shark Island (Ford 1936). So that’s like, what, 43 Ford films in which you can hear the song Dixie? A classic wrong man bio – Dr. Mudd, bound for Shark Island. I didn’t revisit this with any expectation that it might make the list, but I came away, same as the first time, thinking this is a pretty good yarn, flaws and all; I would definitely include it in the top half of Ford’s 30s films. More than its story, though, which is told suspensefully, its chief virtues are its atmospheric and moody photography (almost a pre-noir with the use of shadows) and frequently memorable mises-en-scènes, including settings and camera angles, which makes the mythical virtues of the historical context stand out.

(Btw, The Wings of Eagles is another Ford biopic; They Were Expendable would also have counted - and I would have voted for it - but the names were changed.)


Socrates (Rossellini 1970). It isn’t as good-looking as the historical films in the Eclipse set, and it occasionally feels a little underwhelming, lacking a bit of vitality here and there, but it winds up a winner nevertheless in bringing to life this admirable man and providing a fairly accurate portrayal of some of his teachings (e.g. on humility towards reason and knowledge, on the relationship of happiness and virtue, on the soul after death). One admires Rossellini for simply devoting so much time to Socrates’ words, who is well played by Jean Sylvère (although his reading some of his – voluminous - lines on cue cards off screen is a bit distracting at times), while Nascimbene provides a chilling score that contrasts with the sunny skies of Athens, and Socrates’ sunny disposition, but nevertheless provides a strong mood that befits the moving end. One of the great death scenes.


Richard III (Olivier 1955). This is really splendid. Such a fine production on all accounts – the strength of the acting, the intelligence of the mise-en-scène, the visual opulence – and you’ve got Olivier really delivering the goods, fleshing out such a villainously seductive character you can’t help but secretly cheer for.


The Pianist (Polanski 2002). I was pleasantly surprised that this still felt fresh. The scenes that illustrate the different phases of the Warsaw ghetto are grim and chilling but they don’t quite match the effectiveness of Schindler’s List (also eligible). However the film really takes off when Szpilman escapes the ghetto, when we get to those memorable apartment-hiding sequences, and then until the end it’s one impressive scene after another.


The Last King of Scotland (Macdonald 2006). I didn’t really remember this. OK but nothing spectacular. It’s a little cartoonish overall, the vibe just a bit Boogie Nights’ Eddie Adams thrown into “dangerous African exoticness”. The Garrigan character is problematic – it’s hard to be fully with him because he’s so naïve and gung-ho and throughout the film he keeps making really dumb decisions. The fact that you know his character, and therefore his entire relationship with Amin, is fiction, also contributes to removing you a bit from the story.

[bottled spider]

Richard III (Olivier 1955). This is really splendid. Such a fine production on all accounts – the strength of the acting, the intelligence of the mise-en-scène, the visual opulence – and you’ve got Olivier really delivering the goods, fleshing out such a villainously seductive character you can’t help but secretly cheer for.

One of the things Olivier gets right that many adaptations get wrong is the abridgment. If I'm familiar with a play I can't help being wrong footed by the absence of anticipated lines if the director takes a-line-here-a-line-there approach to abridgment. Such an approach can also obscure rather than simplify the plot. Recognizing that it was possible to completely excise Princess Margaret, and importing that excellent passage from one of the Henrys, were intelligent moves.

[Rayon Vert]

It's films I haven't seen before from here on out for me, unless otherwise specified.

The Private Life of Henry VIII (Korda 1933). I didn’t expect such an outright comedy – until, that is, the gears change three quarters of the way through when the topic of the fifth wife’s infidelity comes up. I was fearing this would be a one-note joke when the film started up with Anne Boleyn set to be executed, and having to go through all the wives this way, but the filmmakers managed to introduce some variety in the different episodes. It’s surprisingly arch, and it’s amusing enough most of the time (somewhat close in spirit to Lubitsch, but not as smart) – the scenes with Elsa Lanchester, the Bride of Frankenstein here playing Anne of Cleves, are the most successful in that respect, because of her smart characterization. And then the note of gravity with the next-to-last wife helps give the film a little extra layer.


A Song to Remember (C. Vidor 1945). One of several recommendations that domino was kind enough to share and that I’ll make my way through. Unfortunately I didn’t see what he did here. Pretty colors and the occasional sumptuous set certainly count for something with me, but I thought there was little passion of any kind in this Chopin biopic, where the composer, as played by Cornel Wilde, escapes his troubled native country to make it in Paris and fall under the spell of George Sand (Merle Oberon). The one exception was that prolonged, furious concert montage near the end. The stormy relationship with Sand was obviously a missed opportunity by the screenwriters. I also couldn’t see how the merely adequate Wilde got an Oscar nomination for this, unless it’s because he plays at least part of the challenging piano pieces himself.


The Killing Fields (Joffé 1984). An American foreign correspondent and his Cambodian colleague. I don’t know why I never got around to seeing this, since I remember it as a potential VHS rental from the days when it first came out. That first part of the film in Phnom Penh, waiting for the Khmer Rouge to arrive, is very solid, though it didn’t have the personality of something like Stone’s (fictional) Salvador working similar terrain. But the film really takes reaches another level when we get to Dith Pran’s survival journey, amidst some terrific scenery. You can see why Haing S. Ngor won the Oscar. Meanwhile I predict that John Malkovich guy is gonna go places.


Patton (Schaffner 1970). Very pleasurable and impressive film. The filmmakers really managed to get the right tone to capture this man, which doesn’t sound like something obvious to achieve in the first place, and I guess the credit for that starts with Coppola’s script. The war scenes are really well done, and the film is fairly gorgeous throughout. Really glad I finally saw this and definitely a contender.


Madame Curie (LeRoy 1943). Quite a few lovely elements in this film. The romantic coming together of Marie Skłodowska and Pierre Curie takes center stage at the beginning of the film, which Garson and Pidgeon play with charm. Then the work towards the discovery and isolation of radium begins, and there is something fairly infrequent and moving in seeing a film’s action being centered on the quest for knowledge (part of what makes several of Rossellini’s historical films special). A film that also features fine sets and photography, both recognized at the Oscars.


The Pride of the Yankees (Wood 1942). I’d call it a qualified success. The film is most accomplished and entertaining at tracing Gehrig’s start and becoming a star player and at recreating a section of sports history that really creates the illusion of being back there, complete with Babe Ruth himself and some of the other team players. The tragedy actually starts quite late in the film and in the middle there are a lot of comic marital & in-laws shenanigans that are so-so – but then Teresa Wright is terrific as usual; she’s such a strong actress that she grabs your eye every time she’s on the screen and you can’t help but just be immersed in her acting. Meanwhile Cooper is awkward in some of his line readings, also as usual, but he’s likeable, so that works too. Plus the resemblance with Gehrig is striking.

[zedz]

The Killing Fields (Joffé 1984). An American foreign correspondent and his Cambodian colleague. I don’t know why I never got around to seeing this, since I remember it as a potential VHS rental from the days when it first came out. That first part of the film in Phnom Penh, waiting for the Khmer Rouge to arrive, is very solid, though it didn’t have the personality of something like Stone’s (fictional) Salvador working similar terrain. But the film really takes reaches another level when we get to Dith Pran’s survival journey, amidst some terrific scenery. You can see why Haing S. Ngor won the Oscar.

The good old Best Non-White in a Leading Role Oscar. Whatever happened to that one?

[domino harvey]

Huh? He won Best Supporting Actor-- and earned it, I might add

[swo17]

I think he means that if he'd been white and had the same amount of screentime, the nomination would have been for Best Actor.

[domino harvey]

I mean, Alicia Vikander is hardly a minority and did the same thing to same results just a few years ago. It's up to the actor and the studio how they submit anyways, not the Oscars

[Rayon Vert]

Waterston is the lead figure in the first half of the movie, but Ngor takes up the mantle in the second half, so yeah best supporting doesn't make sense.

[zedz]

I think he means that if he'd been white and had the same amount of screentime, the nomination would have been for Best Actor.

Exactly. Doesn't Ngor have way more screen time than any other actor in the film? He's a key part of the ensemble in the first half and sole lead in the second.

[Rayon Vert]

I don't think he's the sole lead in the second half, because the action shifts back and forth between Ngor in Cambodia and Waterson back in the States, but the Ngor scenes are longer and so he definitely has the edge in the second. (And he's Waterson's accomplice throughout the first.)

[zedz]

I take your point, but as I recall (over several decades!), by that stage of the film Waterson's character isn't driving the plot at all, but rather taking the classic supporting role of watching and waiting. In terms of the dramatic action of the film, I don't see him as a co-lead any more.