In 2018, "Bohemian Rhapsody" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Feature Film and was nominated for an Oscar, which shows that film critics have a positive attitude towards the film and highly appreciate its artistic value. The film belongs to the model of biographical films, mainly revolving around the narrative of Freddie, the lead singer of Queen. In short, by depicting Freddy's separation, contradiction, and transcendence, a coherent narrative logic is constructed, with obvious intrinsic characteristics. From the change of Freddie's fate, there is also a relevant logic of story semiotics. For a wide audience, Freddie began as an ordinary airport porter and eventually grew into a world-renowned rock star, a personal "myth" that matched his imagination. Therefore, the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" is not only because of the accurate portrayal of Freddie's character, but more importantly, the phenomenon of the audience's heroic character in postmodern society is realized in the film and finds emotional resonance.
This type of film presents a uniqueness. Usually, this kind of film has the protagonist as the core, and the entire narrative section revolves around him, and in order to clearly show the characteristics of the character, the key is to depict the protagonist in detail. Of course, this type of film must be based on objective facts, which puts certain limits on the narrative. In order to fully show the life of the protagonist in a limited time and bring visual enjoyment to the audience, it is often adapted and created on the basis of facts, that is, artistic creation is displayed in the narrative text, the storyline is fine-tuned, and some minor characters are added to adjust the narrative rhythm and make it more compact. By adding contradictions and conflicts, the plot is promoted while highlighting the dramatic effect. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a unique film in that it is generally the same as other films in terms of narrative techniques and rules adaptation, but it is a musical biopic. When depicting the personalities of the characters, they perfectly match the song of the same name, blending the story, emotion, spirit and rhythm of the song, resulting in a more significant artistic expression. Among the songs written by Queen, there are many representative tracks, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the most famous one, its lyrics are all written by Ferredi alone. At the time, the musical structure of the song was very peculiar, abandoning repetitive choruses in favor of stylized and broken pieces. The title of this song can interpret the art form presented by rock music at that time, and also show the mood that the song wants to convey. This rock song fits well with the title and is markedly different from traditional rock music, borrowing classical music and operatic art, with a classical piano in the intro and elements such as choruses and arias from multiple tracks interspersed in the middle, ending with the sound of gongs. The whole song is full of rich emotions, and the lyrics are subtle and give people a hazy feeling. Rock music itself exhibits iconoclastic qualities, and here it once again subverts itself, borrowing from classical music. At the time, the New York Times commented that the most attractive thing about the song was the fatalistic lyrics. When the band officially promoted Bohemian Rhapsody, it tells the story of a young man who unknowingly kills someone and then gives his soul to the devil, but the night before the execution he repents and receives the help of an angel and finally regains his soul. However, Freddie does not agree with the story, in his opinion, it is just an improvised song with no deep meaning in the lyrics. However, the other members held different opinions, Brian May believes that the song shows the psychological trauma that Ferretti has suffered, and he believes that Ferredi's personality is very complex, and he presents the world with a frivolous and funny image, but not internally. He developed a strong sense of insecurity due to the presence of childhood shadows, which the song clearly shows, although Ferredi does not explain the meaning of the lyrics. In the film Bohemian Rhapsody, the creative team tried to express the same idea, so when choosing the title, they preferred the title of the song and arranged the narrative structure with the musical structure of the song to convey this idea.
According to Campbell, mythological archetypes provide a reliable way for people to know and understand the outside world. A hero's journey can be seen as a legend, but also as an individual's inner experience after colliding with the world. In the case of Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, the mythological archetype has been further reinvented to present a triple narrative character. First of all, it helps the public to understand Freddie more deeply, this film is not just a memorial film or satisfying the psychological needs of Queen fans, it is a feature film, and the story is at its core. When narrating the story, the film pursues a popular and smooth style, which can be said to adopt the narrative strategy of mythological prototypes, bringing some of Freddy's stories to the screen and coinciding with the relevant elements of the film's story text, so as to resonate in the audience's hearts and make it easier to understand.
Since "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a typical biopic, its story composition must be based on reality, but the narrative angle is different. Therefore, there are differences in the interpretation of the character's personality. Through the narrative of mythological archetypes, misreadings can be avoided, and metaphors and archetypal logic can be fully utilized to improve the breadth of character connotations.
There is a scene in the film where Freddie and Mary gaze at each other in the dead of night. Through the use of lamps, telephones, champagne and other objects, Freddie's spiritual dilemma is shown, without the need to express it through dialogue or voiceover. When the emotions of the characters cannot be expressed through words, the narrative method of using mythological archetypes can effectively solve this problem.
Bibliography:
LI Xiaoyu. "Bohemian Rhapsody": Generalization of Campbell's mythological archetypal narrative paradigm[J].Film Literature,2019(17): 144-146.)
GUO Jia. Biographical film "Bohemian Rhapsody": Narrative discourse and lessons from gains and losses[J].Film Review,2019(06):72-75.)
MAO Kang,LIN Yong. Entering with Music:"Bohemian Rhapsody" Film Music Narrative Function Kaoso[J].Film Review,2019(03):107-109.)
