Favorite Bioflicks

Cafe Society
1

I watched Wilde last night – picked it up on a whim from the library, though I’d already seen it, and liked it very much – and was delighted that it held up so well. It covers a whole lot of ground, maintains good agreement with the facts (AFAIK, I’m not a Wilde scholar), and is absorbing from start to finish. The acting is good – Stephen Fry is wonderful as Wilde, and Jude Law brings more than just his amazing beauty to the role of Bosie. All in all, an excellent movie.

And it got me thinking about bioflicks, and the fact that there are so many films in that genre I really, really like. So many, in fact, that I wouldn’t be able to pick my overall favorite bioflick – and would be hard-pressed to pick just one in a couple of subgenres. Here are some of the subgenres I came up with:

Musician or composer: (given the role of the soundtrack for these, I separate these out from all other performers and artists)
Other performer (actor, dancer):
Visual artist (painter, etc.):
Writer, scholar, intellectual: (A Beautiful Mind would go here)
Politician or other leader: (including non-elected leaders, including both monarchs and spiritual leaders like Gandhi)
Athlete:

I must be missing some other subgenres here – feel free to add them.

So what bioflicks do you particularly love in each of these categories? They don’t necessarily need to be “the best” (I’m leaning heavily towards DeLovely for “Musician or composer,” though I can’t defend it as a better picture than Ray or Walk the Line), but one you love.

Also, I’m thinking specifically about biographical films here, about the subject’s entire life, or at least his or her entire adult life (Wilde starts with him deciding to get married), and not just one particular incident, so The Queen, although a wonderful movie, wouldn’t qualify.

Anyway, I need to give a little more thought to my entries for faves in each of these – back in a bit.

2

How about just the ordinary person? I was thinking Silkwood as an example, not that it’s necessarily my favorite of the genre, although it might not qualify under your criteria as although it does follow her personal life it does deal in large measure with the Kerr-McGee incident.

3

One of my all-ti me favorite films is A Man for All Seasons – the Fred Zinneman version with Paul Scofield, not Charlton Heston’s later remake. It’s sort of a version of Robert Bolt’s stage play, with a screenplay by Bolt, although he rewtrote it so significantly that it’s not the same work at all.
Is it really a “biopic”? It doesn’t cover his entire life, and Bolt wasn’t trying to be accurate – he was trying to make a point. He doesn’t depart as much from the facts as Schaeffer does in Amadeus, but you still shouildn’t assume you’re watching the True Life of Thomas More.

I liked Gandhi, too, which does seem to try to cover much of the subject’s adult life, and which does seem to want to be accurate. And it is very well-made. But I’d much rather watch AMfAS.

4

It’s the first biopic I ever saw, but I still think Malcolm X is the best. Mostly that’s for Denzel Washington’s great performance, although the movie also has a great stateliness to it.

5

I went back and forth on that. Since it’s mostly about a particular incident, though, and not the person’s life qua life, I don’t think it fits. I’m open to argument on that point, though.

6

Okay, here’s the current status of my list:

Musician or composer: De-Lovely (Cole Porter)
Other performer (actor, dancer): Yankee Doodle Dandy (George M. Cohan) – Ken Russell’s film about Sarah Bernhardt was also … “interesting” … in a Ken Russelly sort of way
Visual artist (painter, etc.): <Still thinking about this one>
Writer, scholar, intellectual: Wilde (Oscar Wilde)
Politician or other leader: Malcolm X, with Oliver Stone’s Nixon a close runner up
Athlete: <I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single one>

7

The Magic Box, a bio-pic of forgotten inventor William Friese-Greene.

Many of the UK’s best actors took at least cameos, it was made during the post-war era’s golden age of English cinema, and it’s nostalgic and tragic and all the other good stuff that biopics should be.

8

I like **Wilde **too. Did you catch the brief shot of Orlando Bloom?

I’m not a big Jackson Pollock fan, but the movie **Pollock **was pretty good.
Would Topsy Turvy be considered a bioflick, about Gilbert & Sullivan? I love that movie.

9

I saw Bird three times and I don’t even like jazz.