October 6, 2004

What's the biggest bio-pic issue as we head into this awards season of so many bio-pics?

It's not Che's adult politics or Kinsey's willingness to include the abhorrent in his survey or J.M. Barrie's interest in small children or Alexander's sexuality or Howard Hughes' fingernails or the women in Ramon Sampedro's life or Bobby Darin's hair or Ray Charles' heroin abuse or even Jesus Christ's pain threshold.

It's the movies, stupid.

The most problematic thing about true life stories is getting the movie right. In every case, there is something that brought the filmmaker to that story, a lot of history, a lot of facts to contend with and dramatize effectively and plenty of people sweating the details. So what are the elements to these bio-pics?

I haven't seen Alexander or The Aviator, so I can't opine on how they are structured. But the other six should give us some idea.

GRAB A SLICE - Every one of the Seen Seven bio-pics focuses primarily on less than half of the protagonist's life, not falling into the young/old two actor approach to a character's evolution. Four of the seven - The Passion of The Christ, The Motorcycle Diaries, Neverland, and The Sea Inside - focus on a fairly narrow window in the life of their focuses (titles listed in order of brevity of the window).

Ray follows Ray Charles from the start of his musical career to when he first hit the road to the height of his Atlantic Records career, roughly 1948 to 1968. Kinsey follows Alfred Kinsey from roughly 1935 to the year before his death in 1955. Beyond The Sea follows Bobby Darin from roughly 1955 to his death in 1973.

The biggest magic trip of all of these films is The Sea Inside, which is about Ramon Sampedro's 30 year effort to die after a youthful diving accident. But time is compressed a bit, as we meet Sampedro as an aging adult and his drive for the freedom to choose, while there are clearly long stretches that occur off-screen, seems to take place in an inaccurately short period. But it is in the service of the drama, and anyone who comes after this movie on that detail should be slapped silly.

But The Sea Inside has the advantage of ignorance, in non-Spanish markets, of Sampedro's story. It's no surprise that more than half the Seen Seven end in death. Ray essentially stops more than 35 years before the death of the very familiar musical genius. Likewise, The Aviator, which I gather does get Leo in some aging make-up, doesn't reach anywhere close to the infamous end of the story (at least in depth). Choosing a slice of a famous person's life is almost a necessity of a bio-pic of less than three hours… but managing expectations can be tricky.

THE BACKSTORY - Five of the Seen Seven rely on flashbacks to set up the story, including The Passion, but most limitedly in The Sea Inside, which flashes back to the time of the accident.

The flashback can be a very tricky thing and each of the other three films that use them uses them quite differently.

Beyond The Sea actually sets up a movie-inside-the-movie structure, which it then abandons, but the young Bobby Darin is shown to be a near-pro from a very young age, raring for action and challenges.

Ray's back story shows his musical roots, how he learned to play, how he went blind and one haunting tragedy in his life, but it doesn't really drive the rest of the movie so much as inform it.

In Kinsey, the childhood is presented as very much a driving influence in Kinsey's life. His raging, verbally abusive father and the inherent fear of sexuality in his family caused by his overzealousness isn't what drives him to science, which is how he seems to see the examination of human sexuality, but the need to explore what was so angrily withheld does seem to drive him further.

The Motorcycle Diaries and Neverland quite specifically choose not to linger on the before or after of their heroes… which has created an unnecessary hunger on the part of the press and Oscar campaigners to challenge that decision rather aggressively.

IMITATE OR ACT? - Playing the lead of a bio-pic can be very, very dangerous. The more famous, the more dangerous. But also, the more famous, the more opportunity to dazzle. Jamie Foxx has become an early lock for an Oscar nomination and a 50/50 shot to win a Golden Globe versus Kevin Spacey in the Musical/Comedy category at the Golden Globes because he got it so damned right. On the other hand, few are focusing on Spacey channeling Bobby Darin so much as the fact that Spacey sings well and charms in the role… a role he is notoriously too old to play.

Very few people really know what the young Che Guevara or J.M. Barrie or Ramon Sampedro looked like, much less behaved like, leaving these actors space to be respectful, but create their own performances of these characters. Somewhere in the middle, Kinsey has some profile, but not enough to keep you wondering throughout Liam Neeson's performance (as well as with the performances of his wife and team, many of whom are well known in their own rights.)

And of course, Christ… not blonde… but bearded… and Jim Caviezal's accent was so heavy that I hardly understood a word he said through the whole movie.

DEAL WITH THE PERSPECTIVE OF TIME - This is, perhaps, the biggest challenge. And it does infringe on my notion for this column… that it is the movie first. Truth is, a movie that connects with the audience can overcome anything - as we learned with A Beautiful Mind whose central figure was challenged as being far more offensive than portrayed in the film and The Pianist, whose director was the source of great controversy.

In this year's race, the fur is already flying. It appears that the "cleanest" films of the season with be Ray, which deals with no small amount of darkness in Charles' life and has yet to be hit with any inaccuracy charges, followed by The Sea Inside, which bends time and the stories of some of the people in Sampedro's life… but again, is not about an American or a figure highly familiar to Americans.

The controversy around The Passion of The Christ seems not to be so much about history, but about interpretation and intent.

Beyond The Sea is virtually a one-man Broadway show starring Kevin Spacey and is likely to be seen as more in line with The Phantom of the Opera, in terms of historical issues, than other bio-pics… which might seem to be a veiled insult but is clearly Spacey's intent as he pushed away age issues, found a barn (in Germany) and put on a big show.

No, the dirty pool will probably be filled with The Motorcycle Diaries, Kinsey and Neverland. Commie, pervert, pervert. Sucks, sucks, sucks.

As far as I'm concerned, none of these three films deserves the mud that's flying or that will fly if they gain even more traction in the awards season. Each of the three titles has a differently weighted burden. There is not much question about what happened on Che's watch in his later years. The attack on Kinsey is about whether he should have taken certain histories. And the hum around J.M. Barrie is, seems to me, mostly hum and not too much fact. And still, I would suggest that these are non-issues in all three cases.

READER OF THE DAY: HAY HAY HAY writes: "I'd never thought to make this list before, so I needed a little time to see what my year, 1979, contributed. Quickly I found that while there were a lot of famed "serious" films that I've seen and feel kinda blase about (Apocalypse Now, The China Syndrome, Norma Rae), 1979 was a great year for cult/genre flicks and comedies.

So with that in mind (and with the sad admission that I've still never seen Manhattan or Being There), here's my list:

Runners Up: The Warriors, The Electric Horseman, Kramer vs. Kramer, Mad Max, 10, The Muppet Movie, The In-Laws.

5. Rock and Roll High School - This movie remains a blast of fun no matter how many times I see it, and no band captures teenage rebellion and rock and roll better than the Ramones.

4. The Jerk - Steve Martin's first movie is inspired lunacy.

3. Breaking Away - A simple coming of age film, but just one so genuine, with great unique details.

2. Alien - Because it's still scary.

1. Monty Python's Life of Brian - Perfect satire. The Python boys at their best.

Oh, and for the person from 1984 the other day, what about Ghostbusters!
One of the top comedies of that or any decade."

And NotNiro writes: "1969 in da house...some good ones...in alpha order...

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Easy Rider
Midnight Cowboy
The Rain People
True Grit
The Wild Bunch
Z"

E-ME: Whose life is it anyway?