When a movie sets out to adapt a person’s life on film, it’s not just about translating an author’s work, or transforming a story from one medium to another. By definition the events depicted in a biopic actually happened. Their nature is to distill, adapt, and even distort real life. Maybe being beholden to at least some sort of truth is why awards season can often be drowning in them, or maybe there’s an inherent attraction or credibility to the phrase “inspired by true events,” but whatever it is, we can look at some of the most intriguing of the genre to find out how the films take shape and the different ways they go about depicting real life on screen.
From day in the life biopics like 127 Hours, Steve Jobs or Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, to start to finish cradle-to-the-grave films like Ray, Coal Miner’s Daughter or Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson in 42. Biopics can tell the story of triumph over adversity or about a fall from grace, like nearly every Martin Scorsese film from Casino to Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street or they can be avant garde AF like Todd Haynes with both his star studded Bob Dylan story I’m Not There and his Barbie studded Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.
This Movie List was written by Billy Jackson, Clint Gage and Joshua Yehl, edited by Justin Donaldson and Clint Gage with graphics by Casey Redmon.
The Picks
Chapter 1 - How Biopics Distill Reality
Day in the Life - Fruitvale Station (2013) dir. Ryan Coogler
Single Event - The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
Whole Life, Low to High - Malcolm X (1992) dir. Spike Lee
Whole Life, High to Low - Goodfellas (1990) dir. Martin Scorsese
Chapter 2 - How Biopics Adapt Reality
Unique Structure - Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) dir. Paul Schrader
Autobiography - The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (2007) dir. Julian Schnabel
Trojan Horse - Persepolis (2007) dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
Chapter 3 - How Biopics Distort Reality
Fast and Loose with History - Amadeus (1984) dir. Milos Forman
Anachronistic - The Favourite (2018) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Avant-Garde - The Color of Pomegranates (1969) dir. Sergei Parajanov
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