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Editor|Cold Purple Leaf
The origin of American biographical films with the Oscars
The works shortlisted for the Oscars have a fairly high box office and strong cultural influence, the high quality and free market mechanism of the Oscar art itself have created the huge market competitiveness of biopics, and the annual selection of the Academy Awards reflects the mainstream culture of the United States while also exerting its global influence.
The definition of a biographical film
The "Dictionary of Film Art" defines biopic as follows: "Biopic is based on the life deeds of real people, revealing their struggles and contributions in the military, military and other fields, and is remembered and respected by the people." The Encyclopedia of China Film Volumes defines biopic as follows: "A kind of film based on the life and achievements of outstanding historical figures."
Biopics are different from general feature films, in the plot structure is constrained by the deeds of the characters themselves, that is, they must depict the typical environment according to real people and real events, and shape typical characters. ”
Biographical films and biographical literature
There are countless biographical literary works in the United States, and major bookstores have separate shelves of biographical literature, the number of which is comparable to that of novels, which also reflects the enthusiasm of the United States for biographical works. Many writers draw on artistic means such as character shaping, atmosphere rendering, and psychological portrayal in the creation of biographical themes in the creation of biographical themes, so as to make biographical works more readable and verifiable.
Biographical films and biographical literature have some common creative appeals, both of which arrange and combine relevant information about historical events or historical figures in the form of "sketching" to guide people to understand and recognize the past. Film and literature are both spiritual nutrients that are both artistic and aesthetic. "As a subject that pays attention to information and historical facts, biographical creation must be based on biographical literature, so each biopic can be said to be an image interpretation of the biographical literature it refers to."
Daniel Bell once said in "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism" that "contemporary culture has become a visual culture", and it is true that people's aesthetic demand for image information has given rise to the pictorial nature of biographical literature. Compared with biographical literature, biographical films are more industrial and entertaining, and they re-interpret and evaluate characters in the intertextual expression of their fate and grand history, which has a great sense of history and scene. Biographical films dig deep into the complexity of characters, rather than reducing them to blameless people, exposing the shortcomings of characters and contradictions in their personalities instead of making one-way evaluations of characters.
Biopic and genre films
Biopic is only a film category, but in fact it is often treated as a genre film to enhance the viewing of biographical films. For example, "General Patton" and "Lawrence of Arabia" presented in war films; "Song and Dance King Zigfei" presented in the form of a song and dance film; "Mozart" is integrated into the expression of musicals; "A Beautiful Mind" can be seen as a mixture with suspense films.
"The Legend of Zola" contains elements of court drama; Chariots of Fire is full of elements of sports films; "Schindler's List" and others are presented in the form of war historical films; The narratives of "Out of Africa" and "Shakespeare's Love History" presented in the form of feature films are very smooth; Although many biographical films are mostly presented in the form of a certain type of film, they do not fully conform to the genre elements and narrative mode of this type of film. Biopics in the form of genre films often combine the genre elements and narrative modes of multiple types of films, and are veritable composite films.
Biopics and feature films
Biographical films and feature films should depict the characters, and present the characters' personalities through specific examples that happened to them. The difference between the two is that the characters portrayed in biographical films are real, the events depicted are real, although there will be reasonable reasoning, assumptions and embellishments on the basis of historical materials, and its basic plot structure will still be affected by the characters' own deeds, and focus on analyzing the inner spiritual world of the characters and expressing their thinking about human nature.
For example, the 1986 Academy Award-winning biopic "Out of Africa", based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Danish female writer Karen Brixen, shows the author's life on a farm in Africa to the audience, the story tells the author's departure from Kenya in East Africa to her husband Blue, the breakdown of the marriage, the encounter with Dennis Fincher Hatton and the poignant and moving love between the two.
The classic soundtrack and panoramic scenery vividly present the real story that once happened to this real person, and her spiritual world is becoming more and more three-dimensional and clear in the storytelling, and the six classic narrations depict the writer's lonely or melancholy or comfortable or indifferent state of mind when he is in different situations, and every detail is moving. Feature films focus on the dissection of characters' personalities.
For example, Paramount Pictures' inspirational comedy film "Forrest Gump" is adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name by American writer Winston Bloom, which is a masterpiece of American "anti-intellectual films". Forrest Gump in the film is the author's fictional character, he is portrayed as the embodiment of virtue, bravely facing his own flaws, being honest with others, conscientiously doing everything in hand, maintaining an open-minded attitude towards what happens, and being frank and open in life, and a large number of plots in the film are in the service of shaping Forrest Gump's character.
Biopics and historicals
Both biopics and historicals are combinations of "cinema" and "history," and as Hayden White argues in Postmodern Historical Narratology, "History and stories have similar narrative codes." Of course, as an art form, after all, film will have emotional expression and imaginary construction, and its historical authenticity cannot be demanded.
The creator of narrative art will comment on history according to the values and universal emotional needs of his own era, so as to dialogue with the audience through history, and in the process of creating historical images, there must be a filling and expression of the spiritual and cultural aspects of historical events as skeletons. Therefore, there must be a gap between film and history, as is the case in biographical films, as well as in historical films.
Scholars Cai Wei and You Fei included biopics in the subgenre of historical biopics in the book "American Film Studies". Historical films focus on restoring historical events and conveying thinking about history, while biopics also focus on expressing human nature, exploring the inner world of characters, and doing cultural and philosophical thinking on historical truth. Biopics are not equivalent to panoramic historical dramas, but through artistic means and techniques to achieve the integrity of contemplation of life and the processing of time and space.
As the American scholar Robert McKee said, "A character biopic is the cousin of a historical drama whose focus is on one person rather than an era." Compared with learning the "historical truth" from the movie, people are more inclined to communicate with historical figures at the ideological level in the process of watching the movie, seeking a certain relationship between the people and things in the film and real life, so biographical films tend to show the "soul" of the creative object.
"Gandhi's Biography" traces history and outlines the magnificent life course of "Mahatma" Gandhi, a generation of Tianjiao who once unified the Indian nation, which is not only an image of Gandhi and his surrounding figures, but also a rewriting of Indian culture and history at that time. The film does not portray him as a god-like existence, but shows a real flesh and blood body, allowing the audience to travel through time and space to achieve a spiritual dialogue with Gandhi.
"Binhu" is a beautiful war historical film carefully prepared by MGM for many years, this classic epic masterpiece of 15 million US dollars, the scene is very magnificent, the momentum is extremely magnificent, in the war to spread out history, with the help of war to tell history, embedded in the protagonist and Roman commander emotional entanglement, tell the history of the rebellion against Roman rule, as well as a variety of wonderful dialogue and gorgeous exoticism.
"Hacksaw Ridge" is also a war historical film, adapted from the real experience of Desmond Dawes, the protagonist is a high-class military doctor in World War II, and it is also the main line of historical storytelling. The film condenses about a month of hacksaw ridge battle into two hacksaw ridges, and at the end shows a large number of real video materials to the audience in the form of a documentary.
Film text and era context overview A nation in the major historical events, inevitably will produce confusion, and confusion often awakens people's consciousness of thinking, which also objectively spawns the production of biographical films, through the expression and presentation of film art, explore philosophical thinking on topics of grand significance such as the country, nation, history, and life, in order to seek wisdom and strength.
Therefore, early biopics had a tendency to worship heroes, which can be seen in films such as "Zola", "General Patton", "Mozart" and so on, and the protagonists are outstanding figures who have made great contributions to human history. The subject of biographies has been favored by American directors and literary creators since the founding of the United States, and biographical films and biographical literature have a large market in the United States, where the history is not long.
American biopics attracted much attention in the 30s of the 20th century, when films had moved from the silent film era to the sound era, and there was great progress in artistic level and technological innovation. The peak of song and dance film creation has also spawned the perfect combination of biographical themes and song and dance films, and the addition of a large number of song and dance elements has added a lot of style to biographical films. The biopic "Siegfried", presented in the form of song and dance, was filmed in 1935 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
This film is dominated by the founder of Broadway's largest song and dance troupe, the highly famous Siegfried in the American entertainment industry, dazzling stage sets and solo dances of different styles are intertwined, and the protagonist's fame has also won the Oscar for Best Picture. This success also inspired major companies to create biopics, and a large number of biopics emerged.
The following year, the biopic "Zola" won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and this film featuring the French literary hero Zola was the first strictly biographical film in the history of the Oscar for Best Picture. The creation of the film coincided with the reign of Hitler, and the European land was full of anti-Jewish voices, and "Zola" selected the literary giant Zola's intervention in the Drover case in the second half of his life to expose the spread of fascism in Europe and the anti-Jewish tendencies of the French government, and to speak out for the suffering under Nazi oppression, which is very realistic and directional, and has aroused the general resonance of society.
In the sixties and seventies, there were many epic blockbusters, which were inseparable from the rapid development of technology at that time, panoramic widescreen movies, three-dimensional technology made the film more visually impactful and watchable. The films produced in this period were well-made, such as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "General Patton" in a large number of luxurious set settings, various large-scale combat conflicts. Due to the huge impact of the Vietnam War on American society at that time, people were generally confused and disillusioned, and the voices of black people and women in society for equal rights also arose.
Therefore, biopics of this era have a strong spirit of realism, and the choice of biographers also tends to be famous but marginalized characters, conveying obscure and ambiguous positions through the narration of characters to get close to complex reality. For example, "General Patton", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Patton's fame and repeated combat achievements, but not tolerated by the mainstream of Junjie, the film was shot at the time of the US military's repeated defeats in the Vietnam War, which is of great significance to boost the morale of the US military and arouse the spirit of war adventure among the youth, and the impact of the surging anti-war upsurge on the creators is also reflected in the film, and the film also conveys that Patton was born in ancient Rome or the Napoleonic era, and was not constrained by politicians, he could show his talents.
The metaphor is that if the command of the Vietnam War had been given to General Patton, not the politicians of the time, the United States would not have been in such a passive situation. While paying tribute to Patton, the film "General Patton" also uses ancient irony to criticize the Vietnam War at that time, and the film skillfully caters to the aesthetics of people from different positions.
Half of the films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in the eighties were biopics, and the trend of economic globalization also promoted international cooperation in the film industry, "Chariots of Fire", a film co-produced by Britain and the United States, is the first sports-themed biopic in the Academy Award for Best Picture, the film is adapted from the real experiences of British young athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Dale, based on the courageous choices, overcoming obstacles and realizing dreams in the 1924 Paris Olympics, praising their adherence to faith.
The film was filmed in 1980 at the end of the XXII Moscow Olympic Games, because the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 blatantly provoked international norms and caused widespread international dissatisfaction, and many countries and regions resolutely refused to participate. Taking the Olympic Games as the starting point, this film takes the adherence to principles and beliefs as the main tone of the film, and successfully caters to the psychology of the audience.
The following year's Oscar-winning Biography of Gandhi, co-produced by Britain, the United States and India, based on the extraordinary life experience of Gandhi, the father of India, Gandhi's adherence to the spirit of non-cooperation and nonviolence, and the meaning of Gandhi's lifelong struggle with a humanitarian mind. The film was shot at the end of India's general election, Gandhi's political opponent Desai won, the Congress Party fell into a low ebb, and the situation was difficult, and the film's realistic pointing success attracted the attention of the judges and audience.
Biographical films in this period have made some new breakthroughs, the expression of films has become more flexible, the biographical themes have also become more diversified, the narrative techniques have become richer and richer, and the identity and nationality of the characters have been further liberalized. The dialogue of the characters in "Mozart" is very interesting, the addition of various humorous elements and imaginative plot construction enhance the artistry and appreciation of the film, and the human position of the film vividly shows the life course of the musical genius Mozart, but also triggers people's deep thinking about artistic life and the real environment.
Out of Africa was the first biopic to feature a woman as the protagonist and won Best Picture; "The Last Emperor", which won the Oscar for Best Picture, was co-filmed by Italy, Britain and China, and interpreted the life experience of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, from the unique perspective and narrative of Westerners, and triggered the public's thinking about philosophy, and destiny.
After the end of the Cold War in the nineties, the film industry also ushered in great development, and a large number of films with both entertainment and ideology have emerged. At this time, biographical films emphasize the return to humanistic and practical significance, explore new ideas for biographical film creation, film not only gives people a shock when watching movies, but also begins to focus on the aftertaste and texture of the aftersound, leading people from art works into the world of characters and understanding their fate.
The great director Spielberg has been shooting "Schindler's List" for many years, exposing the sins of the Nazis in a realistic style, while focusing on painting and describing the psychology of the characters, pursuing the meaning of human existence as an individual, which not only arouses sympathy for the world, but also brings people soul shock and spiritual baptism. "Braveheart" is an epic historical masterpiece that is magnificent and beautiful, telling history with the packaging of neo-romanticism, captivating with majestic scenes and tragic battle shots.
"Shakespeare in Love" changes the conventional narrative mode and adds a large number of fictional components, cleverly integrating Shakespeare's creative experience into the narrative of the love story, giving people a sense of joy. Since the beginning of the new century, the art of film has been continuously improved, and it has also assumed the responsibility of reflecting reality and guiding society. The psychological panic caused by 911 and the anxiety caused by the Iraq war have made people yearn for security, peace, and hope for good and love.
At this time, the Oscar judges and the public consciously chose those themes that inspired people to pursue beauty and highlight the light of human nature, and biopics that focused on showing human nature were highly respected because they catered to people's psychological needs. "A Beautiful Mind" adds some dramatic depictions based on the real experience of mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, and uses the technique of a suspense thriller to narrate the "secret service career" of the heir, showing the love and support of the wife under heavy pressure to her husband, and this kind of goodness in human nature undoubtedly gives the public comfort and comfort.
Today, the Oscars are still favoring biopics, and excellent works continue to flow. The King's Speech, filmed in 2010, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and in 2013, Steve McQueen's "Twelve Years as a Slave" also won the Academy Award for Best Picture, a film adapted from Solomon Northup's autobiographical novel of the same name, about the abduction of the African-American Northup.
With a free identity and a happy family, he was sold into slavery in the American South, and after 12 years of hardship and struggle, he finally escaped the beautiful and poignant story of regaining his freedom. The film's premiere was unanimously well received, filling the lack of slavery films in the American film industry, and reconciling with history by confronting slavery that actually happened in American history.
The director also expressed in the interview that he hoped to use this film to arouse people's attention to "modern slavery" such as the abduction and trafficking of women and forced labor, which is not only well-made, but also consciously fits the mainstream social psychology, speaking out for citizens' freedoms and rights.
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