Music Biopics

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The thing about biopics that people rarely get right is they needn't cover an entire person's life. Tell a chunk of a story, not the whole thing. Then you can do it some proper justice.

When I was in college I took a course on the genre and we had to pitch a biopic at the end. Mine was based on the book Until the End of the World. That would make a badass movie, even if a lot of it is a touch fabricated.

Now I have a different story in mind, and I'm thinking about actually trying my hand at a screen play :shifty:

With a band that's been around as long as U2, there could probably be 3 different movies based on their career. One could cover their formation to The Joshua Tree. Another could cover their 90's run. Then another one could cover their life as aging rock stars in the 21st Century. But, a documentary is better suited for U2. Kind of like From the Sky Down. :wink:

Artists like Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and James Brown, as far as I know, never really had a good documentary about them. So, biopics were good for telling their story.

Backbeat is really the only good Beatles biopic and that focuses mostly on their formation and early years before worldwide fame hit them. The Compleat Beatles was a good documentary, but, obviously, the Anthology is the definitive one.
 
Can't believe I forgot that one, although it's more of a meta-mythology than a straight-up biopic. It perfectly captures its subject and his essence in different time periods without providing any actual biographical information.

It's also better than everything else mentioned so far, and probably in my top 5 films of the last 10 years.
 
I know the Karen Carpenter Story exists, but that life deserves a second look. That's got to be one of the more tragic music industry stories.

A movie for The Mamas and the Papas with special focus on John Phillips would be riveting too. It may exist, I'm not sure.
 
I know the Karen Carpenter Story exists, but that life deserves a second look. That's got to be one of the more tragic music industry stories.

A movie for The Mamas and the Papas with special focus on John Phillips would be riveting too. It may exist, I'm not sure.

I agree with you about Karen Carpenter. Her biopic was a TV movie from 1989 starring the legendary Cynthia Gibb. :wink:

The Mamas and the Papas could definitely use a proper biopic. But, I'd focus on all 4 members, not just John.
 
Mentions of Karen Carpenter and The Mamas and Papas in the same posts brings to mind the old ham sandwich joke....

Yeah, Mama Cass and Karen Carpenter. Talk about polar opposites. Poor Mama Cass, that ham sandwich urban legend still haunts her.
 
And like I said above, this is why a lot of biopics will continue to be worse than they could be.

Well, you were right when you mentioned a biopic shouldn't completely cover an artist's career. A filmmaker couldn't really do a good enough job to be able to cover an artist's career in a 2 or 2.5 hour movie. In Ray, they didn't cover his entire career and only focused on one of his wives. He was married twice, but had 12 children with 9 different women. The guy was a regular sperminator. The movie didn't portray him as a choir boy, but you only saw a few of his kids.
 
A Bowie biopic focusing solely on his coked out Nazi period would be terribly disrespectful and 100% entertaining. I would watch that.
 
A Bowie biopic focusing solely on his coked out Nazi period would be terribly disrespectful and 100% entertaining. I would watch that.

Makes for a good PSA: Don't do drugs, kids! It will turn you into a Nazi.



I agree about the 100 percent entertaining part. Bowie had his different personas, but that one was the darkest of them all.
 
A Bowie biopic focusing solely on his coked out Nazi period would be terribly disrespectful and 100% entertaining. I would watch that.

weren't there tons of weird Nazi-inspired artists in the 70s? like Joy Division (at least the name, it is) or even Lemmy (not inspired but he's got tons of Nazi memorabilia)
 
weren't there tons of weird Nazi-inspired artists in the 70s? like Joy Division (at least the name, it is) or even Lemmy (not inspired but he's got tons of Nazi memorabilia)

I'm not sure if there were "tons", but Eric Clapton was an artist who, at one point, was concerned that Britain was becoming a "black colony" and there were other artists using Nazi imagery like Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux which led to the creation of Rock Against Racism. Clapton's foolishness could easily be excused by drug/alcohol use. Sid and Sioux were using the imagery for shock effect.
 
Easily my most anticipated music biopic:

Vulture | What Is This Random Chinese Tupac Biopic?



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I fear that even a piece that commented on his relationships with women in the 60s would whitewash them into some sort of redemption story with his later peace messaging. Dude was a creep.

John Lennon was a complicated dude. Sure, he might have been creepy. But, he evolved into a better person when his son Sean was born. He was no longer a practicing Beatle and could devote a lot more time to being a good dad as well as a good person. His first son, Julian, kind of got the shit end of the stick because John was an absentee father to him. Julian has even said that when he was younger he was closer to Paul than his own father. When John was murdered at age 40, he was no longer the creepy guy he was in his 20's and early 30's. He was a monogamous husband and devoted father to Sean. He was actually starting to hit his stride as a human being.
 
I fear that even a piece that commented on his relationships with women in the 60s would whitewash them into some sort of redemption story with his later peace messaging. Dude was a creep.

Thank you. The worship is so wide, I thought I was the only one who felt this way. The John as a peacenik myth drives me nuts.

John Lennon was a complicated dude. Sure, he might have been creepy. But, he evolved into a better person when his son Sean was born. He was no longer a practicing Beatle and could devote a lot more time to being a good dad as well as a good person. His first son, Julian, kind of got the shit end of the stick because John was an absentee father to him. Julian has even said that when he was younger he was closer to Paul than his own father. When John was murdered at age 40, he was no longer the creepy guy he was in his 20's and early 30's. He was a monogamous husband and devoted father to Sean. He was actually starting to hit his stride as a human being.

Not really sure that years/decades as an abuser is made up for by finally being a decent human for a few years.

Also, on topic - great thread, BVS. Old school, I know, but a couple offhand I can think of are Coal Miner's Daughter and the Buddy Holly Story. Not sure how accurate the latter is, or how much is glossed over, but the music is pretty great, and I really like how the didn't dramatize his death at the end. Just rewatched it a year or so ago. Also, The Doors' biopic is what sent me from indifference into actively hating Jim Morrison. Can't even remember the movie, but the hatred burns.
 
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