A Filmmaker's Guide to: Biography and Biopic

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re actually going to be learning about literature and film together. I understand that many of you are sitting in university during difficult times and finding it increasingly hard to study and I understand that many of you who are not at university or not planning on it are possibly stuck of what to do, need a break or even need to catch up on learning film before you get to the next level. This guide will be brief but will also contain: new vocabulary, concepts and theories, films to watch and we will be exploring something taboo until now in the ‘filmmaker’s guide’ - academia (abyss opens). Each article will explore a different concept of film, philosophy, literature or bibliography/filmography etc. in order to give you something new to learn each time we see each other. You can use some of the words amongst family and friends to sound clever or you can get back to me (email in bio) and tell me how you’re doing. So, strap in and prepare for the filmmaker’s guide to film studies because it is going to be one wild ride.

Biography

What is it?

A biography is a life-story written about one person but by another. This normally goes chronologically from birth to the present (or death if the person is deceased).

In literature, you've probably heard of many different biographies. From the famous ones we have Vladimir Nabokov's book "Nikolai Gogol". There's also more recent ones such as James Patterson's "The Kennedy Curse" and "Leonardo Da Vinci" by Walter Isaacson.

Within the realms of biography there are many different 'sub-genres'. We've got the most obvious one which is 'autobiography' which is when someone tells their own story such as books like "Educated" by Tara Westover and "Adventures of a Young Naturalist" by Sir David Attenborough. There's also a 'memoir' which is seemingly more episodic than an autobiography and tends not to cover every last detail but instead focuses on the output of the person who is writing it. After this, we have the compilation books in which lists and profiles are formed such as the "Little People, Big Dreams" series for children. (My personal favourite is the one on Bob Dylan obviously).

What about in film?

Biographies in film are often called biopics for the reason of putting biography with motion picture but I bet you knew that already. A biopic of a deceased person is normally of more interest to the audience because the interpretation of this person is based solely from the memories of other people who either knew them or if it is really that far in the past then the scholars who have researched them. For example: we do not have anyone alive today that knows the Medici Family from the Italian Renaissance but the TV Show "Medici" sure does a good job of interpreting what they would be like (although, I don't think they would've spoken English). Another example is the more recent biopic of Queen lead man, Freddie Mercury called "Bohemian Rhapsody" which had a biased view considering the fact that much of his lifestyle aspects, his goodness and wisdom were completely and entirely left out of the film in order to make him look self-destructive and to make the rest of the band look almost angelic in comparison.

Some biopics leave things out methodically in order to tell a coherent story such as the brilliant James Brown biopic "Get on Up" starring the late, great Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul. We then have the more controversial biopics that tell stories that are diverse and important to hear and see in our changing times of hopefully becoming more tolerant to difference. Films like this include "The Danish Girl" starring Eddie Redmayne and "Ed Wood" starring Johnny Depp. Finally, we have biopics of figures who are considerably larger than life being depicted in an epic film that is dramatically fitting and possibly some of the best work the director of said film has ever done. In these we have "The Theory of Everything" again, starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, "Malcolm X" with Denzel Washington portraying the eponymous character and "Lincoln" with Sir Daniel Day-Lewis portraying the American President, Abraham Lincoln.

If you would like a watchlist for biopics in order to get used to watching them in different styles, times and places, then work your way through this list of ten films to begin with:

- Malcolm X (1992) - Denzel Washington portrays Malcolm X

- Chaplin (1992) - Robert Downey Jr. portrays Sir Charlie Chaplin

- Ed Wood (1994) - Johnny Depp portrays Edward D. Wood Jr.

- Walk the Line (2005) - Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon portray Johnny Cash and June Carter

- I'm Not There (2007) - Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Richard Gere plus some others all portray different aspects of Bob Dylan

- I, Tonya (2017) - Margot Robbie portrays Tonya Harding

- Judy (2019) - Renee Zellweger portrays Judy Garland

- Hitchcock (2012) - Sir Anthony Hopkins portrays Sir Alfred Hitchcock

- Lincoln (2012) - Sir Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Abraham Lincoln

- The Social Network (2010) - Jesse Eisenberg portrays Mark Zuckerberg

Let's now have a look at some further reading that you could do to help you in reading around different types of biographies. There really is no one way to write them and the many different ones you read will make all the difference when you come to choosing which one is correct for your film.

Further Reading: