Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is great biographical films on a variety of different important figures.
Biographical pictures, also known as Biopics, is a popular genre of film, usually shackled with the notion of ‘Oscar-baiting’ when filmmakers try to portray a figure of importance on-screen. Biographies allow actors and directors with a wealth of previous knowledge and visual aids when building these films thanks to being retellings of true stories.
The large problem with these films arise from the desire to entertain audiences clashing with the need to tell the story exactly how it happened, leading to frequent disparities between fact and fiction. The history of biopics makes a modern audience always question the “Based on a True Story” tagline which is thrown on practically most drama and horror films nowadays.
1. RKO 281 (1999, Benjamin Ross)
A HBO Television movie chronicling the creation of Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane and the relationship between Welles and Randolph Hearst, a billionaire newspaper tycoon, whom the film is based on. Orson Welles (Liev Shrieber, who doesn’t physically look like him, but does a decent voice job), fresh off his success of War of the Worlds, was given a carte blanche by RKO pictures to make whatever film he wanted to.
According to RKO 281, Welles had a poor encounter with Hearst, which lead him to make Citizen Kane as a passive-aggressive insult towards the man. In reality, Hearst was picked in a decision between Welles and co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz because he was a big American figure who wasn’t a politician. This is an example of how this film frequently skews the facts on what actually happened, falling into the usual trap of adding dramatic elements in order to make the original story more theatrical.
The cast for this film is tremendous, with frequent sci-fi baddie James Cromwell as Randolph Hearst, who adds a vulnerability and sympathetic portrayal of a man who is annoyed that his life story being manipulated by the young Welles. John Malkovich plays Mankiewicz, adding the sardonic wit and likability that made up Mankiewicz’ known persona. Rounding off the great cast is Roy Scheider as George Shaefer and Melanie Griffith as Marion Davies.
Whilst not exactly accurate, the film’s decision to show both sides of the story, Hearst’s and Welles’, makes an interesting dynamic, usually unseen in these Hollywood biopics.
2. Quiz Show (1994, Robert Redford)
Based on Richard N. Goodwin’s memoir “Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties”, Quiz Show chronicles the ‘Twenty One’ quiz show scandals of the 1950s, the effects on the contestants affected and the extensive scandal that followed.
Popular game show Twenty One, run by producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freeman (Hank Azaria) have set up everyman Herb Stempel (John Turturro), as the current reigning champ of the show, winning consecutive episodes and boosting the ratings. Once his popularity starts to fade, the producers seek out a new champion. Finding one in Columbia University professor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), the producers force Herb to lose and for Van Doren to become the new champion.
Unhappy with his forced exit, Stempel seeks out legal advice, but the case is thrown out immediately. Rookie lawyer Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow) becomes intrigued by the quick dismissal of the case and starts to investigate the rigged show, uncovering layers of corrupt media personalities and shattering the illusion of television in the 1950’s. In terms of historical accuracy, the film is refreshingly quite close to the original story, only emitting the girlfriend of Van Doren and condensing the action from three years into one.
Redford directs the film well, using the same subtle paranoia used by Alan J. Pakula in the Redford starring All The President’s Men. Redford is able to construct a pretty compelling biopic out of an obscure tale in the 1950’s which is an interesting scandal to view in modern day, now that audiences are so aware of how constructed television is and that they don’t buy into everything they witness anymore.
3. Baadasssss! (2003, Mario Van Peebles)
Much like Straight Outta Compton this year, Baadasssss! features a son playing his own father in a biopic about him. Mario Van Peebles, son of Melvin Van Peebles, plays Melvin, as he struggles to make and distribute his film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.
Sweet Sweetback’s is a hugely influential film for a variety of reasons, as it was the film which showed Hollywood that a significant African-American audience existed in America, starting a trend of African-American themed movies which birthed the Blaxplotation genre. The film is also an important film in the independent circuit, as no one in Hollywood wanted to fund the film, thus Van Peebles was forced to fund it himself ($150,000 in 1971, with 50 grand coming from Bill Cosby).
Mario Van Peebles does a great job of telling this story, making Melvin’s story compelling whilst not being too cliched or predictable in his approach. There’s a sense of appreciation and affection behind Van Peebles’ directing, acting as a loving portrait of his father whilst not being too one-sided on the portrayal of Melvin. Due to the film’s snappy script and funky soundtrack, the film is consistently entertaining, so that’s why it was so unfortunate to see the film do poorly at the box office.
Despite great reviews from most film critics, the film was released at the same time as box office smashes Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow, which took mainstream audience’s attention away from this great biopic.
4. Auto Focus (2002, Paul Schrader)
Auto Focus tells the tragic story of Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane and his dramatic decline after the show was cancelled, which led indulging in an underground sex lifestyle. Bob Crane was a radio host who found overnight success in the hit 60’s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, but when the show was suddenly cancelled, Crane unfortunately failed to find further success, getting small roles in various Disney productions.
This dramatic shift, along with his growing friendship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronic expert who frequently makes homemade pornography, changed Crane from a church-going family man into a sex addict who started to record his sexual exploits and share them with Carpenter.
Schrader was a perfect choice for this film, a director/writer who really knows how to translate sleaze and apprehensive sexual material on-screen. His history, featuring films such as Taxi Driver and Hardcore share a similar visual style and understanding of portraying sleazy characters in a way that hint at sympathy and understanding from its audience. Comedic leading man Greg Kinnear sheds his usual goofy image to play Bob Crane, injecting him with enough personality and charisma which lets us understand how Crane navigated his way through stardom. Willem Dafoe plays John Henry Carpenter perfectly, playing up his creepiness and really letting the sleazy side of his character rise to the surface.
Auto Focus still remains as one of Paul Schrader’s better directional efforts, with his understanding of the male psyche and the limits of human morality when dealing with past traumas.
5. Dillinger (1973, John Milius)
Set during 1930’s depression era America, Dillinger chronicles the last few months of bank robber John Dillinger (Warren Oates) as the FBI started to close down on him, led by FBI pursuer Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson). With a mix of documentary footage and footage from the era, Dillinger is a Bonnie and Clyde–like crime thriller which doesn’t quite stick to fact but provides an interesting character piece on John Dillinger.
Retired FBI Agent Clarence Hurt, one of the agents involved in the final shootout with Dillinger, was the film’s technical advisor, which lends some credibility towards the film, but in terms of sequences of events and what some character beats, the film frequently veers into fictional territory. Warren Oates delivers again, securing his reputation as one of the best character actors that existed in Hollywood, with his off-beat charm and crooked smile. It also helps that Oates has a very close similarity to the actual Dillinger.
Another famous character actor, Harry Dean Stanton, pops up as Homer Van Meter, a known associate of Dillinger. This film led to two made-for-TV spin-offs centered on Melvin Purvis, with Dale Robertson taking over the role from Ben Johnson.
6. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, Paul Schrader)
It’s quite unusual to feature a director twice in these lists, as we try to be diverse in our choices, but Mishima is such a different film than Schrader’s Auto Focus, that it’s worth talking about. Mishima has sadly gone under the radar, even though it’s directed by Paul Schrader, mainstream audiences rejected the notion of a Japanese-American anthology biopic based on Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The film’s episodic nature is split up into different parts of Mishima’s life, intertwining dramatised portions from Mishima’s many different books.
Executively produced by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, Mishima is a very different approach to the biopic genre, having the movie reflect the nature of the subject’s work. Everyone is on the top of their game in this film, from Schrader’s focused direction, to Phillip Glass’ powerful score and John Bailey’s striking cinematography which really features some powerful shots. The film shifts from uplifting to bleak constantly as the stories change and the film accomplishes it with ease.
Schrader has named this the favourite film that he has directed (with his favourite script being Taxi Driver), but unfortunately Schrader’s name has been diminished over time due to low budget schlock such as The Canyons and Dying of the Light which pale in comparison to the strong work he achieved early in his career, such as this film, Hardcore and Light Sleeper.
7. The Insider (1999, Michael Mann)
Based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brener (“The Man Who Knew Too Much”) which detailed the true story of a 60 Minutes segment about Jeffery Wigand, a whistleblower in the tobacco industry. The initial segment was censored because the owner of CBS at the time, Laurence Tisch, also owned the Lorillard Tobacco Company.
CBS Producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) is seeking a tobacco-related story for 60 Minutes and needs someone to translate a bunch of leaked tobacco-related documents. He is put in contact with Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a recently fired employee of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. When their little story starts to grow into something much bigger, the pair start to receive death threats and massive legal troubles which threaten to silence the both of them and their stories.
This was Michael Mann’s first film after his major hit Heat and is just as technically competent and an accomplished work of a skilled filmmaker. Sadly the film didn’t do well at the box office, most likely due to its adult material and intelligence, deferring the usual mainstream fare audiences may expect from Crowe and Pacino. Mann employs a boastful cast of character actors (Christopher Plummer, Phillip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Rip Torn), stunning cinematography and a refreshing sense of intelligence, The Insider is a modern day version of All The President’s Men, in a good way.
What are some other film biographies that you can recommend?
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