The recent photos from the filming of Sam Mendes’ four-film Beatles biopic, showing the four actors recreating the Abbey Road photoshoot, has awoken in me an existential dread I haven’t felt since the release of Bohemian Rhapsody. I know it’s hugely unfair to judge a movie from 15 seconds of four blokes crossing the road, but nonetheless, I have a nagging suspicion that these films will end up making the same mistakes that nearly all movies about real bands do. And I’m not just talking about the beards.
I’m all for stories about real people – Amadeus, for example, has great fun fictionalising Salieri and Mozart while saying something rather profound about the nature of talent and inspiration. This is possible because the gaps in our knowledge leave plenty of room for the writer to create.
But what I find excruciating is when filmmakers attempt to recreate real events, because the more you know about the events in question, the worse they come across. So, irony of ironies, the more of a fan you are of an artist, the ghastlier the film of their life will seem. I found it so much easier to empathise with the rise and fall of Jim McLaine in Stardust than to invest in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis because the facts get in the way.
In some ways, biopics can’t win – the accuracies take you as much out of the film as the inaccuracies do. This is particularly painful when a film tries to flesh out events where we already know what happened and adds motivations and portents to the dialogue that would never have been uttered at the time.
Suggested Reading
Now that’s what I call the best music books ever!
Watching Antoine Fuqua’s Michael, I couldn’t help wondering whether Michael Jackson would really have said “it’s got to be the greatest-selling album of all time” before embarking on the recording sessions for Thriller. Because, and you’re not going to believe this, it went on to be the greatest-selling album of all time.
Worse than that, in Back To Black, Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse actually has to say the line “No – I don’t want to go to rehab” at one stage.
Unfortunately, this is nearly always where we end up in rock biopics. It’s not definitive, but somewhere near the top of my list is this genius bit of dialogue from The Buddy Holly Story:
Richy Valens: “There’s always another show.”
Buddy Holly (to Richie and The Big Bopper): “No, you’re wrong. Both of you. For guys like us, there’s only tonight. Now let’s rock and roll!”
If you’re wondering what happened later that night, then there’s a chance you may enjoy the movie. No spoilers here, but you might want to think about why you never see copies of Buddy’s Greatest Hits of the Sixties at HMV.
But far, far worse than clunky exposition is when filmmakers fictionalise the creative process, or try to convey an artist’s inspiration taking hold. By way of an example, the scene in The Doors where Ray Manzarek sends Jim, Robby and John off for a walk and five minutes later greets them with the fully-formed riff for Light My Fire is more annoying than the real-life Jim Morrison seems to have been, which is no mean feat.
Similarly the songwriting scenes in the aforementioned Bohemian Rhapsody are so trite that the rest of the movie, which plays fast and loose with facts and timeline, seems like cinéma vérité by comparison. John Deacon breaking up a fight about the merits of disco between Freddie and Roger by playing them the riff to Another One Bites the Dust? Give me a break.
So I’m dreading the scene in whichever one of the four Beatles biopics it occurs – and it will occur, mark my words – where George tells George Martin that he doesn’t like his tie, and John says, “In seven years’ time no-one will be wearing ties, everyone will be free to wear whatever they want” (you can have that for nowt, Sam).
Worse than that will be the inevitable dramatisation of one of the highlights of Get Back – where Paul starts to write the title song. Because what’s amazing in real life is that it happens almost as an aside – John doesn’t immediately add lead guitar and Ringo doesn’t say “let’s get back to work – that will sell a million copies if we release it as a single.”
Unfortunately, such guff is the bread-and-butter of the music biopic. Not even The Beatles are safe. And the beards do look terrible as well.
Paul Hanley drummed in The Fall and House of All. He co-hosts the Oh! Brother podcast with his brother Steve
Most popular
Are you over 45 and female? Sorry, you’re not getting a job
What the hell has happened to John Cleese?
Jason Arday’s death exposes a depressing reality about so-called ‘black privilege’
The Democrats’ secret plan to elect JD Vance
