Yu Wei, who won four Oscars (Best Actor, Best Editing, Best Sound Effects, Best Sound Editing), based on queen lead singer Freddie Mercury's film "Bohemian Rhapsody", landed in major theaters in China on March 22. Since its release in the United States and elsewhere last November, the film has grossed $870 million worldwide, the highest-grossing musical biopic in box office history.
At the same time as the box office hit, critics were not impressed with "Bohemian Rhapsody", and on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, its praise rate barely exceeded the passing line (61%). The film is co-produced by two members of the band, Brian May and Roger Taylor, and although the authenticity of the content is guaranteed, it can also save the trouble of subsequent lawsuits, but it is also restrictive and binding. Simran Hans, a film critic for the British newspaper The Observer, criticized Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hour, The Theory of Everything) for writing a script that was too bland.
In fact, making biopics of rock musicians has always been a thankless attempt, and polarized reviews are sparse and commonplace. Although the life experiences of rock musicians are often passionate and magnificent, which is an excellent material for movies in themselves, given their high popularity, there are not a few die-hard fans who think they know their idols well, so it is inevitable that there will be difficulties in the mouth. However, the rock biopics that can be recognized by most fans are not unique, such as the following ten, the first nine of which are from the "Top 30 Best Music Biopics of All Time" by Rolling Stone magazine in 2016, and "Nicole in 1988" is the best rock biopic born in recent years in my personal opinion. It is worth mentioning that "The Rose", which alludes to the life of Janis Joplin, and "Velvet Goldmine", which alludes to David Bowie's relationship with Mick Ronson, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and other films with more fictional components, even if it is of high quality, It also shows the spirit of rock and roll, but it cannot be considered in the biopic.
The Buddy Holly Story (1978).
In steve Rash's film about the late Great Texas rock musician Buddy Holly, lead actor Gary Busey personally sang Holly's masterpieces, and the Oscar nomination was well deserved. The rock 'n' roll spirit that Busser injects into the film is quite innocent, which is rarely seen in its kind in Hollywood. Fundamentally, the film's most far-reaching impact was its success in reintroducing Holly's music to American audiences; in its hottest days of disco, the film sparked a conversation that propelled Buddy Holly Lives, a selected record, to Billboard's 55th place.
Elvis (1979).
Since Elvis Presley's untimely death in 1977, the film industry has released a number of biographical works of "Elvis Presley", but to this day, the TV movie directed by John Carpenter is still one of the best. Lead actor Kurt Russell was still known to audiences for starring in Disney live-action movies such as "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes", but received an Emmy nomination for his wonderful performance as "Elvis Presley" this time. In a way that has nothing to do with parody, he perfectly captures the depth of the Uranus superstar. He doesn't really sing in the film — only lip-sync, and the sound is partly handled by country singer Ronnie McDowell — but his stage performances do highly reproduce the power and shock that Elvis Presley shows on stage. The darker side of Elvis Presley's personality is not lightly weakened; the scene where Russell shoots the hotel TV set is arguably the most memorable scene of any Elvis Presley movie.
Sid and Nancy (1986).
The film chronicles how Sid Vicious, a member of the British rock band Sex Pistol, slides down the drug abyss until he eventually kills his girlfriend and dies of a drug overdose. The film isn't that closely related to music, and today it seems that Sid Visches's music is not even more punk-like and more avant-garde rock: look at the slow-motion sequence in which he and Nancy kiss against the trash rain next to the trash can, and you can see that his music has a grandeur similar to orchestral music compared to the roar that erupts directly from the depths of his throat.
Music aside, Gary Oldman's self-deprecating personal charm of Sid is so magical that even John Lydon, the lead singer of "Sex Pistol," angrily cursed director Alex Cox after watching the film, but was still impressed by Oldman's performance and gave him high praise.
La Bamba (1987).
With the superb acting skills of Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays The Mexican-American rock star Richie Valens, and Esai Morales, who plays his brother Bob, the film Legend of Youth nuances recreates the ups and downs of the last eight months of 17-year-old Valens' life: an ordinary high school student who became legendary overnight. Soon became a victim of a tragic air crash.
The film not only chronicles his early death, but also touches on the racial tensions that spread throughout Los Angeles in the late 1950s and the hardships of Hispanic Life. However, the core of the film is also to reaffirm Valens' enduring influence on popular music: as a result, the film did allow The Los Lobos to reinterpret Valens' classic song to the top of the album charts.
The Doors (1991).
When the film was released, the late well-known film critic Roger Ebert complained: "Watching this film is like a person who does not drink, forced to sit in a bar with an annoying drunk." It may be true, but director Oliver Stone's commemoration of Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the band "Gates," has a dynamic and absurd sense of grandeur, and the film takes rock and roll to the extreme, even if it is destroyed, it is also very spectacular.
Morrison, played by Val Kilmer, is arguably the best performance of his acting career. Instead of mythologizing the singer, who died young at the age of 27, he used the portrayal of hormones, alcohol and drugs to represent the hedonism of Los Angeles throughout the 1960s. His interpretation of Morrison is both heroic and absurd, full of nonsense and poetry.
Regarding Morrison, director Stone did not judge, but only created a psychedelic voice and a picture of unsentimental revelry, but the audience who experienced a crazy journey in the film should not want to imitate Morrison's self-destructive behavior.
Backbeat (1994).
While the soundtrack of The Burning Years is not a true soundtrack—the songs are reinterpreted by a supergroup that includes Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, Mike Mills, and Greg Dulli—the anarchic energy they explode is enough to make up for it. The film focuses on The Beatles' early residency in Hamburg, Germany. At that time, they were still covering other people's works, which also made it a pity that the original voice was not used.
The film focuses on the story of the idol characters before they become idols, focusing on finding the personality traits in them that will soon make them immortal. After Christopher Münch's "The Hours and Times," Ian Hart played Beatles lead singer John Lennon for the second time, and his somewhat bizarre plausibility was not just a simple imitation, but an ideological and emotional import.
The film's focus isn't solely on John Lennon, though, with director Iain Softley wisely focusing the spotlight on the forgotten early members of the Beatles, especially stephen Dorff's hapless bassist Stuart Sutcliffe.
Last Days 2005
Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain told us when he died, "Better to burn out than fade away", but the doppelganger of Kurt Cobain presented by director Gus Van Sant in "The Last Days" has faded very much, almost a transparent person.
In a large, empty house in the forest of Washington State, the protagonist Blake , played by Michael Pitt ( who doesn't use Kurt Cobain 's name in this film ) slowly walks back and forth, surrounded by a group of parasites who only notice his presence when they reach out for money or ask for drugs. He didn't look like a man about to commit suicide, but more like a walking corpse who had long since lost his life—the soul was dead, just waiting for the body to end.
The film imagines the suicide path of a rock star, replaces the explanation with ambiguity, explains everything clearly to the inherent set of character biopics, and presents the reasons and the practices that make the audience feel comfortable watching, and launches a challenge. The film itself is no less confusing and fragmented than the lyrics written by Kurt Cobain, but it is completely devoid of the cathartic anger of his lyrics.
I'm Not There (2007).
Bob Dylan is arguably one of the greatest "chameleons" in rock 'n' roll history, and it's easy to include his life in one movie. So, todd Haynes, a director who is well versed in the spirit of rock and roll, adopted this method, dividing Dylan's entire life into several parts according to different times and influences, and brought in Kate Blanchett, Richard Geehr, Christian Bell, Ben Weshao, and others to interpret each different fragment on Dylan's rich and colorful mosaic of life.
Watching this movie will undoubtedly not allow the audience to understand the life of Bob Dylan, but it will make them more curious about him. Instead of adopting the traditional biopic approach of chronophilia, it captures Dylan's essence on a higher level of intention: over the years, he has constantly reinvented himself and reconstructed the whole world. On one level, the film seems to be a flashy dabble in a variety of film styles—imitating Godard, A Hard Day's Night, Eight and a Half (8 1/2) and the new American Westerns of the 1970s, but on a deeper level, the film's brilliant exploration of Dylan's own fragmentation is as energetic as Dylan himself, and can be called the highest tribute to him.
Control 2007
Photographer-turned-Anton Corbijn has long worked with rock stars, photographing rock musicians ranging from U2 to Depeche Mode to Tom Waits. So, it's no surprise that his directorial debut featured rock musicians as subjects.
In the "Joy Division" lead singer Ian Curtis' biopic, Sam Riley's protagonist is a melancholy youth long before he broke himself at the age of 23. However, the real sadness of this minimalist style drama film is that it does not create any illusion while showing the depression that Curtis could not get rid of throughout his short life. In this way, the film avoids the typical line of the biopic "from poor to rich and back to poor": Riley's Curtis is not an angry egocentr, but rather a deeply tormented soul who transforms pain into beautiful music until he is finally swallowed up by it. Like the Happy Squad records, the film itself has a most immediate sense of desolation.
Nico in 1988 (1988) 2017
Rather than the beautifully eyed and graceful Nicole with The Velvet Underground, the film shows the last year of a woman's life named Christa Päffgen (Nicole's real name). At the age of 49, she desperately wanted to get rid of the label of "Nicole", for which she declared: "My life began with leaving the underground velvet. She said that she had wanted to grow old gracefully and calmly, but her face was deeply wrinkled with ugly wrinkles and flesh; she was trapped by drugs and worried about her son with self-destructive tendencies; the only thing that remained unchanged was that her voice was still hoarse and low, and she used up all her strength when singing. Through this film, we understand that throughout her life, this woman has never been able to become the person she really wants to be.
In addition to the excellent atmospheric control of Italian female director Susanna Nicchiarelli, the interpretation of Danish actress Trine Dyrholm is also the essence of the film: she not only holds the expression and demeanor just right, but also sings Nicole's masterpieces such as "These Days", "My Heart is Empty" and "Big in Japan" in person. It also has a super high degree of reduction.