Elton John sang at a party after the release of Rocketman. Visual China figure
After its premiere in Cannes, Elton John's biographical musical film Rocketman surpassed Bohemian Rhapsody. Although the restrictive (R-rated) classification determines its inherent disadvantage at the box office, and it is difficult to compete with the PG-13 (children can watch the bohemian rhapsody under the guidance of parents), but as Elton John himself said: "I have never lived a PG-13 life".
Rocketman's director, Dexter Fletcher, was the one who came to the rescue after the bohemian rhapsody director Bryan Singer was replaced, with Elton John and husband David Furnish. The former flipped through his diary to Taron Egerton, who played him, and the latter stayed on set every day.
"Rocket Man" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are both rock star song and dance films, and the standard elements of the "rock star" biography are not few. Lonely childhood, gray and restless unpromising period, recording studio, party, rock, sex, rocket-like success speed, dazzling stage light, a deep love. But the four-minute standing ovation that Rocketman received in the Lumiere Hall in Cannes was largely due to its honesty. At the very least, Elton John's homosexual status has not been concealed or weakened (unlike the "whitewash" of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody).
On the other hand, Tarren Egerton sings all for real in the film. Elton John decided it would be an R-rated film when he started the project, flatly refusing to lip-sync the actor who played him in the film. Singer Elton John had never thought of becoming a rock star and had made many mistakes, but this time he demanded at least the least amount of truth.
Stills from Rocket Man
At the beginning of the film, Elton John, played by Tarren Egerton, strides into the drug rehab center wearing an orange-red devil's horned headdress and an angel-winged stage suit to introduce himself to his drug rehab partners: "I am an alcoholic, addicted to drugs, a sex addict, a bulimia patient, and sometimes I can't help but hold my hand when I go shopping, I can't control myself when I see marijuana, and my temper is bad. ”
Twenty Elton John's songs sounded at key points in his life, especially because the film did not follow the timeline. The music blends into the hearts and surroundings of the characters, not just as a driving force for the plot. The fantasy scenes are not distorted, and the floating rooms match eldon John's inner experience of being alone and ethereal after an overnight rise to fame.
In Rocketman, important people in Elton John's life appear one by one. In the opening fifteen minutes of the film, he witnesses himself and his parents, who are not divorced, and their dear grandmother in his grandmother's old house sixty years ago, crying and sobbing on the spot. Former lover/agent John Reed is played by handsome Richard Madden, lyricist and lifelong friend Bernie Taupin is played by Jamie Bell, and Blythe Dallas Howard plays his mother, Sheila Irene.
The film ends before Elton John meets her current husband, David Fernish. There is no complicated past with Princess Diana, nor is there any mention of his severed relationship with his mother. Sheila Irene hired a special actor who resembled Elton John to celebrate her ninetieth birthday.
Here's an excerpt from Elton John's long article published in The Guardian: "Elton John: "They want to downplay sex and rock and roll." But I'm not living a PG-13 life."
I was completely unprepared for what kind of force I was going to be hit. "I Want Love" is a song written by Bernie about himself: a middle-aged man who has been divorced several times and wonders if he may still fall in love. It was a great description of my parents' marital relationship. I thought they should have loved each other, but in my post-birth situation, the love was gone. They always showed the appearance of hating each other. My father was strict and cold, with a very bad temper; my mother was sharp-tongued and prone to falling into dark emotions. When they were together, all I remember was the cold silence or the screaming quarrels. The subject of the argument is usually about me, about how I was raised.
Seeing someone playing himself on the screen, the memories of the past come alive again, and the feeling is strange and confusing, like an unusually vivid daydream. How I sat in that movie theater and wept at the way I was with my family sixty years ago is a long and tortuous story.
I've never been interested in going back in time. It happened, and I'm grateful, but I'm always more interested in what will be done than what I did forty years ago. As I got older, my thinking changed a little bit, especially after having children. I welcomed our first son, Zachary, when I was 63, and Elijah, at 65. I began to imagine that they would see and read about my life forty years from now. I no longer want to claim my life experience for myself. I love having a biopic like this, in which I am an honest self.
Many people have told me it was crazy to agree to make such a documentary (referring to Tantrums and Tiaras, released in 1997, when director David Fenish later married Elton John). But I love it because it's real. Some of the moments inside I was very bad and disgusting. But my worst looks are really that bad and disgusting, there's no need to pretend and cover up.
But my life wasn't originally PG-13. I don't want a movie full of drugs and sex, but just as everyone knows that I was indispensable to my life in the 1970s and 1980s. The film doesn't have to be pretentious, nor does it imply that whenever the show is over, I sneak back to my hotel room and fall asleep with a cup of hot milk and a Bible.
I left England penniless in August 1970. Bernie and I were almost in a state of bankruptcy, sleeping in bunk beds in empty rooms at my mom and stepfather's house. I make money when I hire musicians, whose albums are on. The second album, Elton John, gave me a pitiful little bit of media attention and opportunities to perform, but it was so few that I didn't feel the need to go to the United States to mix. No one knew me there. But I did go to the United States anyway. When I came back a month later, I had become what the American media called "the savior of rock and roll."
It's not hard to understand that Bernie and I at the time had no idea what was going on. I didn't want to be a rock star at all, I just wanted to be a successful songwriter. But in the years that followed, everything snowballed bigger and bigger. During that time, I always had the habit of keeping a diary. I just record what happened. It wasn't intentional, but [the diary] looked ridiculous. I deliberately recorded the facts in the simplest terms, but it seemed even more absurd: "Get up and watch Grandstand." Wrote Candle in the Wind. Go to London and buy a Rolls-Royce. Ringo Starr came for dinner. ”
Strangely enough, I didn't feel any pain when I saw these clips (bad memories). They are at least real, and unlike childhood, I am entirely at my own fault. No one forced me to do drugs and drink heavily. In fact, a lot of people have tried to warn me, "You're out of control."
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" is extremely difficult for singers to sing. When I recorded this song in 1974, it was a disaster: I couldn't record it well. In the current crisis, I showed my legendary composure and light-hearted sense of humor — threatening to strangle producer Gud Dudgeon and declaring the song so scary I'd never publish it. I'm going to transfer this song to Engelbert Humperdinck. Tarun, however, sang without saying anything. There was no threat of murder, and no mention of dear old Ingber.
Rocket Man poster
I was shocked by his (Taron's) singing. He wasn't imitating me, and he didn't look much like me—even though they shaved his head and thinned his thick hair so that it looked like the one I had in my 70s. Baby, welcome to my hair-thinning world, at least your hair can grow back. But he is indeed like mine. He captured some of my stuff, just as Richard Madden captured John Reed's form and Jamie Bell captured Bernie's.
Jamie and Tarren even captured the essence of my relationship with Bernie. It's a miracle, I don't know how they did it. Bernie and I are two people who were thrown together by chance. After my failed audition for Liberty Records in 1967, one of the label's staff members gave me an envelope with lyrics he had written to talk about comfort. I don't even know if he opened the envelope and read these things before handing it to me: I felt like he was doing it to feel sorry for me and didn't want me to go home empty-handed.
We (Elton and Bernie) are two people who are so far apart. But the moment I opened the envelope, a strange bond arose between us. I can compose music directly from his lyrics, without even having to think through the brain. This relationship lasted more than fifty years.