What’s a good “warts and all” subject matter for a movie?

Cafe Society
1

Supposedly when he was getting his portrait done Oliver Cromwell instructed the artist to paint him “warts and all”. Include the faults; make it real.

If you were given license to make a movie about any subject matter, and able to include “warts and all” to make a gritty realistic drama, what would you pick?

A recent discussion of sorts occurred regarding the release of the recent Michael Jackson film, as it made no reference to his sexual abuse behavior.

Certainly, a movie about Michael and the Jackson 5, which showed the spectacle, great music, and amazing dancing, but also the abuse (both on Michael, by his father, and later by Michael, against minors), would be interesting.

Another rabbit hole I recently went down concerned the drinking and womanizing by Martin Luther King. A movie about the civil rights movement, with its powerful speeches, struggle against violence, and inspiring actions, that included its bawdy elements, and also showed the meddling and eavesdropping by the FBI, would be riveting.

Actually, any story about many great leaders would have fodder for warts: FDR, JFK, and LBJ all had mistresses, for example. With Kennedy you also get the health problems and drug use. Roosevelt too, come to think of it.

How about a treatment of the founding of the United States, which showed the founding fathers debating the issues that would form our nation, but also showed slavery in horrible, stark terms? (in fact, it could be about Ona Judge, who years later ran away from George Washington’s house in Philadelphia while the President ate dinner)

What are your thoughts? Are there events or people who have a sordid side, and which would make a good tale?

2

We really need a non-romanticized bio-pic about P.T. Barnum which features his purchase and exploitation of Joice Heth. This was the start of America’s adulation of conmen…and certainly not the end.

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I think there is scope for a potentially gripping movie about a US President and his wife who is very much not taking on a typical First Lady trajectory for what she does in the role. She hates his guts, something he knows but needs to publicly ignore and gives her a significant role in planning the symbolic trappings of his inauguration and agenda. As he steps through the Big Day he’s aware that he could become her deliberate victim at any number of events that she planned, looking like a buffoon, a crass and charmless chancer, and he hates being mocked more than anything. Should he divorce her, because she would stand to benefit massively from this, and he never gave a dollar away without a fight? Can he sideline her and risk her open hostility and exposure of his secrets? He’s a venal, vain, massively immature man, surrounded by fuckwits and grifters who proffer no good advice at all, so puzzling all this out pushes his limited capacity for human emotional insight into the red. At the same time he’s trying to come out with a presidential agenda that is essentially ‘Revenge, techbro favours, accumulation’ leveraged through new and poorly thought out policies like imposing tariffs and attacking other countries. Its a race between how blatant his actions are, his wife’s active antipathy, hubris and societal collapse. Shakespearean is the word you’re probably thinking right now.

I won’t spoil the ending, and am still trying to weave in a spectacular car chase. Not sure which Hemsworth gets to play the President’s self-image when he’s dreaming.

Yes, this is the movie that Melania wasn’t. It is different because [a] she is not a waste of space, [b] Trump is portrayed with all his faults and [c] you just don’t know what will happen the next day, and what facile, trivial event might have caused it.

4

I like biographies and I like bio-pics.

Any that tell the real story are my favorites. In some cases things can’t be proven. I don’t mind knowing the gory details as long as they tell the truth that it is possibly a rumor.

So really anyone of note. Except Trump.

There’s enough that burned into my noodle.

5

You could do Charles Lindbergh, the great aviator, and the Nazi sympathizer with the secret families.

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A warts-and-all, 9-hour movie was made about Prince by Oscar-winner documentarian Ezra Edelman for Netflix, titled “The Book of Prince”. It was said to be very, very good. But the warts were big ones. Prince’s estate successfully blocked its release.

7

Yeah, and the same would apply to any doc on MLK. His estate is a corporation run by his children, and they control pretty much all of his IP. As such, they are very protective of his curated image and are quite a litigious lot.

(A little curious about what kind of warts Prince might have had. No doubt he was an oddball, but I’d never heard that he was a particularly bad guy.)

8

As I read this, I thought of the relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor.

Once she discovered he was unfaithful, she adopted a certain degree of independence, largely unprecedented for the time.

I think a movie that explored their dynamic would be interesting.

One aspect that I’d be sure to include would be how she tortured him with the cooking of Henrietta Nesbet, who served him bland and disgusting food. There was undoubtedly a certain amount of passive aggression going on there.

And an important role would be that of Lorena Hickok, who had a room adjoining Eleanor’s at the White House, and who was likely her lover.

That’s why I stipulated in the OP a hypothetical where you had the authority to make such a movie.

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I think it’s a pretty solid rule that there are vanishingly few warts and all depictions of public figures in popular culture. Partly due to the makers’ POV, partly because there are only so many hours a movie can be.

There’s also the fact that, with very few exceptions, everyone has a darker side that they would rather not have presented to the public. I can think of only two offhand that don’t seem to conform to this:

Mr. Rogers - he really was that nice, apparently

Jim Henson - I’ve read a long bio of him and the worst you can say is that he got a few speeding tickets. His relationship with his ex-wife remained better than most peoples’ married life.

10

We can add Weird Al to the list.

Meanwhile, we could do a Dr Seuss story and include his horrible treatment of his wife, who he drove to suicide.

11

Cromwell himself would be a good subject for an unflinching drama, there’s a lot going on with that guy.

On a wider topic, the First Crusade and its aftermath offers a very rich tapestry of religious fanatacism, mercenary self interest, political chicanery, terrible violence, very occasional outbreaks of humanity.

Practically any episode of British Imperial history deserves a long hard look, I’m going to propose as options 1) the Malay Emergency and 2) the post-slavery ban missionary led incursions into Africa, because seeing hypocrites skewered is always fun.

Back on biography, would be interested to see treatments of the lives of Teddy Roosevelt, Otto von Bismark, Florence Nightingale, Empress Cixi and Newton/Leibniz

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It’s this line that gets us in a bit of trouble, both the “gritty realistic drama” (my emphasis of course) and “movie”.

First, because getting all three at the same time is hard, especially if you’re going for a 3hr or less movie. Lots of realism, lots of gritty moments, and lots of drama, but boiling down an entire life means getting more than two of the three at the same time are hard.

Of course, I’m assuming then some passion product, where you and the generous sponsor don’t care about market appeal, which is certainly possible!

It also eliminates some of the issues later in the thread - where the owners of the brand as it were have no desire to have said warts called out in public. Thankfully, the further you go back in time, the lower the chances of that particular niggle coming up.

Similarly, bringing up any political, and many religious figures is going to be seen as unspeakably biased, but not as much issue for private release.

I agree with the OP, Cromwell would be good. What I’d like is to do a realistic movie on England’s King George III. We Americans tend to give him short shrift, but we’re talking about a ruler overseeing one of the largest empires of the time, the founding of the United kingdom (separate from England) dealing with rebellious colonies (for reasons both justifiable and not), the Napoleonic Wars, the 7 Years War…

With peaceful moments of his “Farmer George” title for contrast, and the internal drama of his mental and physical health challenges?

Would be quite interesting to me at least.

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I’d like to see a realistic movie about George Washington, he was a real life action hero with slaves. One without the hero worship, God ordained savior of democracy that is always told.

I’d also like to see a movie about the early Indian wars after we gained our independence. Alot of shit went down on the western frontier that gets skipped over between the US and native Americans. Tecumseh and many others were a bad ass leaders that gets played down because sided with the British in 1812. The plains Indians get most of the movies. And how about the trail of tears?

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Another problem with King is that he’s synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, to the point where he is the Civil Rights Movement for many people, so any attack on King is an attack on the movement as a whole. It’d be a good subject though. He’s a flawed man, but look at how much good a flawed man can do.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (they still exist) seem uncomfortable to speak out about the likely sexual preference their most famous president Francis Willard.

15

If we’re going to go that route, the obvious choice that’s a lot more well known would be Sally Hemings and her treatment by Thomas Jefferson.

Not really much “good” there though. Trump’s story would be all warts. That’s why I was trying to twist the description around in my head to get Bill and Hillary Clinton to fit. IMHO their story would make a much better good but with warts and all story.

AFAIK Jimmy Carter would also qualify.

16

A biopic of Boston Red Sox baseball player Ted Williams could be good. He was a great player, and had a lot of good qualities, but some really bad ones as well. He could be ill-tempered and self-centered. He carried grudges. He was often overbearing. But he excelled at everything he did (including being a military pilot and a fly fisherman), and he helped convince the Baseball Hall of Fame to recognize the stars of the Negro Leagues.

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Actually I would say this would make a good “warts and all” retelling. He’s a really fascinating character neither a bloodthirsty fundamentalist tyrant or some democratic freedom fighter.

Though no modern movie telling of the story is going the have the “original Dumbledore has original Obi Wan executed” energy that the 1970 version has :wink:

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One that is sorely overdue right now is warts and all movie about Martin Niemoller (of “first the came for…” fame). As I mentioned in another thread he was actually a conservative pastor who supported Hitler during his rise to power (even praising Hitler as beginning a “national revival” after the “years of darkness” of the Weimar Republic in his autobiography in 1933). Not that it would make that much difference, but a movie making very clear that “first the came for…” Is not just a generic warning from history about opposing fascism, it’s a warning from history specifically for conservative pastors to not get into bed with fascists just because they claim to share a few of your worldly political goals..

19

Sexual and emotional abuse of a sibling, iirc. I recommend the excellent Pablo Torre Finds Out podcasts about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qi6x3QF-v8,
The Banned Prince Documentary: Director Ezra Edelman Speaks (PTFO Vault) - Pablo Torre Finds Out | Acast

20

I think an honest picture of American history with a focus on the lens of the ownership/capital class vs the working class.

A lot of Americans are given a whitewashed history of the US. The history of company towns, private militias attacking labor unions, the police and military fighting against labor unions, the 1930s attempt to overthrow the government to prevent the new deal under FDR, etc would be very riveting. Also discussions of bacons rebellion and the virginia slave codes in response to this.

In todays day and age, there is an idea that plutocrats and oligarchs trying to undermine democracy and exploit people are a new thing, but they’ve been here since the beginning. There was just a short period after FDR where the oligarchs accepted the fact that they were somewhat beat for a few decades.

on the subject of slavery through this lens, I would like to see some focus on abolitionism in the north. How most northern states voluntarily abolished slavery decades before the south was forced to abolish it in the civil war. Thats not really discussed either, how a lot of states used state supreme courts, state constitutions, state laws, etc to abolish slavery. Basically showing examples of how resistance has worked.