(Personally I found
A Beautiful Mind
quite boring, because it flirted with portraying the terrifying hyperconnective logic of active schizophrenia, and then skated away into Twue Wuv. Bleah.)
I suspect that biographical films are much more interesting when they're about a specific time period or topic --
Anne of the Thousand Days,
the fact that
Lawrence of Arabia
doesn't talk at all about the parts of his life when he isn't in Arabia -- because then the film doesn't have to ramble through a life and then, at the end, manufacture a point to it all.
I think book biographies are easier to stomach, rambling along chronologically without having a point, and film documentaries are similar. But a biography with actors, perforce, applies the rules of fiction to a nonfictional source, and seems to benefit most often from turning its source into something more approaching fiction than not.
ETA: Weird x-post with the expert Robin!
Speaking of biopics - any word on The Aviator? (about Howard Hughes, starring that guy from Titanic.)
Amadeus with a so-so Wolfie would have been a terrible movie.
I love the movie, but didn't think Tom Hulce was that great in the role. Mostly, I was just drunk on the visuals and the music, and I thought Mozart's characterization remained rather opaque--which might have been a point, because like Jim said, one can definitely make an argument that it was Salieri's story.
Where does Shadowlands fit?
Hmm. I would think a biopic would have to concentrate on the *work* of the person that made him/her famous to a degree. And show the evolution of its subject from obscurity to fame.
Shadowlands
doesn't fit either of those criteria.
Patton. Not a biopic, more a dramatization of a historical figure. Where does Shadowlands fit?
What Vonnie said. I'd say that Shadowlands is a dramatization, like Patton. It makes a few conjectures about the personal life of C.S. Lewis for the purpose of its narrative, trying to sort of fit it into the basic framework of what's known about his life. My mother's something of a fan of Lewis, so I got quite a bit of this stuff as a kid.
Has anybody heard advance word on
National Treasure?
Because I could SO use a good fluffy adventure movie.
It has Sean Bean. I'll be there. I have no high hopes, but I have my Sean Bean love.
Yes. Sean Bean being evil; what more could I want? Illuminati, of course.
Illuminati, of course.
How can they not be there?
Would Ed Wood count as a biopic? If so, it was a great one, and I'd say that despite Depp being wonderful in the title role, it was Martin Landau's performance that set the movie screens on fire. But even Sarah Jessica Parker was very, very good in that film.
Several radio stations here are using the "bi-ah-pic" mispronunciation. I feel like asking them if they think it's the Six Million Dollar Movie.
Are Illuminati related to the Freemasons and/or the Knights Templar? I always get these secret societies mixed up. They are all, like, international finances and secret rings and goat sacrifice. Who could keep it all straight?
