Biopic, biopic - medium, which is often addressed not only because of promising drama. In the modern world of huge budgets and fees in the cinema, biopic is first and foremost additional insurance for people who give money. Investing in a completely new project is scary, endlessly shooting only prequels, restarts and movies about men in shorts and tights is simply impossible. At least, a film about a famous person will be touched by its admirers. It is easier for viewers to decide to go to the cinema when a familiar face looks at them from a poster.
Heroes of such paintings are becoming everything: politicians, sportsmen, public figures, artists, musicians. A huge number of such films - frankly opportunistic and commercial works, straightforward and understandable. The studio bought the rights to someone's biography, they need to be implemented, and the investment - to return. Still, filmmaking is a business, and the financial return from the products in it is a key factor.
The secret to the success of the average biopic is very simple: one celebrity plays the second, even bigger celebrity. Simple and clear to the viewer three-structure, optimism, drama, success. Problems begin when historical facts begin to interfere with the plot. Life usually does not look like a feature film, and the dramatic events in it are not as evenly distributed as the directors, scriptwriters and producers would like.
The second big problem of this genre is casting. The situation is not simple: in order for the scheme with two celebrities to work, you need to be the first to look like the second - the actor looks like a hero. Otherwise, the problems of the filmmakers will begin long before its premiere. Internet users will not get tired of rinsing the topic on social networks and, perhaps, even unwittingly expel one of the participants from the Internet.
Of course, true gems are also found in the genre. For example, “The Social Network” is the fruit of the writer Aaron Sorkin’s works and director David Fincher, who may be the best in his field of Hollywood professionals at the moment. The story of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, consists almost entirely of endless dialogues in various frankly boring locations, but it is impossible to break away from it.
Surprisingly, Sorkin failed to repeat this success with the film about Steve Jobs, although he had a brilliant authorized biography of Walter Isaacson's pen, Danny Boyle in the director's chair and Michael Fassbender as the main technical visionary of the XX — XXI centuries as the source.
Nevertheless, the complex and overly contrived script did not allow the film to become as much a breakthrough as the Social Network.
In a separate subgenre, you can select films about musicians. They often already have everything they need for a good plot: vivid images, beautiful stories, dramatic failures and dizzying takeoffs. Due to the complete extravagance and extravagant lifestyle behavior, it seems that the best heroes for biopics are simply not to be found. There is only one problem. Musicians fans love zealously, with all their hearts. Their music, stories and images become hidden for a huge number of people. And any deviation from the canon is perceived as blasphemy. Missing fans in the case of a biopic about a musician can be tantamount to a film failure.
It is impossible to say for sure, but perhaps a similar fate befell the film “Summer”. He was warmly received by lovers of good cinema, but the film did not earn the film any good gatherings or the love of the masses. Perhaps precisely because in order to create a good film as a whole, its authors just had to cut a path in some places. Fit the story to cine drama and make the characters a little simpler and clearer. As a result, neither the participants of the events, nor the witnesses of the era recognized the film reliable. A mass viewer, apparently, felt something at the level of sensations.
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Now I wonder if the film Bohemian Rhapsody is waiting for success, the Russian premiere of which will take place later this week. The story of Fredy Mercury and the Queen group is surely a topic no less complicated than the friendship of Mike Naumenko and Viktor Tsoi. Casting authors seem to be a success. Separately cautious optimism is also suggested by the fact that the surviving trio of musicians from the Queen group is actively involved in making the film and personally follows the historical authenticity of the characters.
However, it may easily turn out that such zealous control will harm the film, turning it into something emasculated and safe - a chronicle of the success of a star ensemble that will neatly hide all the reprehensible qualities of its participants. After the first trailer, viewers even had a fear that the film would ignore Mercury's sexual orientation. More recent promotional materials seem to have closed this question, but we will not know for sure until we see the whole movie.
Curiously, the discussion of this moment occurred simultaneously with the advent of crazy rumors that in the movie "Summer" Mike and Tsoi are depicted as gay. We can look at such a dichotomy in the perception of our own heroes in the West and in different ways, but personally it seems to me that through concern for the purity of their images, society simply expresses its own neuroses. Which once again confirms: to shoot about your favorite and legendary is a dangerous and ungrateful business.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.