An object lesson in biopics
(Swiped from my first ever Newsvine article, in the Entertainment section).
I had the mixed fortune this weekend of watching two films on DVD. One was the recent Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. The other was the less recent foreign film Diarios de motocicleta, released domestically as The Motorcycle Diaries. I knew only a vague overview about either film's subject matter.
Walk the Line (2005)
Walk the Line, for all its praise and adulation, was a decidedly average movie. Outlining the life of the late great Johnny Cash, the film took us through his troubled childhood, all the way to his... well, his troubled adulthood. Filled with cliches, the screenwriter seemed to make a conscious effort to boil down an entire life, with all its complexity and nuance, to a cute little narrative. And while a more capable screenwriter may have taken some effort to show us character motivations, or give us some abstract sign of the toil that goes into musical writing, instead we received a pitifully simple view of the man's life.
Everything was stripped down, polished up, and prepackaged to be the major motion picture event that Ray had become infamous for. But while Ray Charles had to struggle with being a blind black man in the middle of the civil rights era, the film shows Johnny Cash going through nothing more troubling than an emotionally distant father. The impact wasn't there, and the script seemed unwilling to even attempt to make it be.
Reese Witherspoon's Oscar-winning performance saved the film from being utterly abysmal, and in honesty her character was much more interesting than Cash's. I'd have more enjoyed a film about June Carter with Johnny taking the supporting role, as her struggles were more identifiable and interesting. All in all, we were left with a sad oversimplified view of a person's life.
Score: ***
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
I then went on to watch The Motorcycle Diaries, knowing only bits and pieces about the life of one Che Guevara. An instrumental player in Guatemala's social revolution, this film does not make the mistake that Walk the Line seemed so insistent upon. It did not give us a full view of his life. It did not try to draw small, obvious parallels so that we could easily identify what exactly caused what. A person's life is more complex than that.
Instead, The Motorcycle Diaries concentrated on one very long, very influential trip between Ernesto (Che) and his friend (Alberto Granado). In this trip you see shadows of what Ernesto will eventually become, but we are never handed Easter eggs. There are no obvious hints or clever little lines. It is simply a slice of a man's life, not as complete as some biopics strive to be, but as complete as they can manage to be in the span of two hours. The power of this small glimpse into his life shows us more than Walk the Line ever could manage with Johnny Cash. When you chase everything, you catch nothing.
Score: ****
So what is Hollywood to do? Biopics seem to be gaining popularity, and it's doubtful they're soon to back off. Perhaps they can take a lesson from a non-musical biography, one with a little more heart, a little more focus, and a little less pomp.
I had the mixed fortune this weekend of watching two films on DVD. One was the recent Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. The other was the less recent foreign film Diarios de motocicleta, released domestically as The Motorcycle Diaries. I knew only a vague overview about either film's subject matter.
Walk the Line (2005)
Walk the Line, for all its praise and adulation, was a decidedly average movie. Outlining the life of the late great Johnny Cash, the film took us through his troubled childhood, all the way to his... well, his troubled adulthood. Filled with cliches, the screenwriter seemed to make a conscious effort to boil down an entire life, with all its complexity and nuance, to a cute little narrative. And while a more capable screenwriter may have taken some effort to show us character motivations, or give us some abstract sign of the toil that goes into musical writing, instead we received a pitifully simple view of the man's life.
Everything was stripped down, polished up, and prepackaged to be the major motion picture event that Ray had become infamous for. But while Ray Charles had to struggle with being a blind black man in the middle of the civil rights era, the film shows Johnny Cash going through nothing more troubling than an emotionally distant father. The impact wasn't there, and the script seemed unwilling to even attempt to make it be.
Reese Witherspoon's Oscar-winning performance saved the film from being utterly abysmal, and in honesty her character was much more interesting than Cash's. I'd have more enjoyed a film about June Carter with Johnny taking the supporting role, as her struggles were more identifiable and interesting. All in all, we were left with a sad oversimplified view of a person's life.
Score: ***
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
I then went on to watch The Motorcycle Diaries, knowing only bits and pieces about the life of one Che Guevara. An instrumental player in Guatemala's social revolution, this film does not make the mistake that Walk the Line seemed so insistent upon. It did not give us a full view of his life. It did not try to draw small, obvious parallels so that we could easily identify what exactly caused what. A person's life is more complex than that.
Instead, The Motorcycle Diaries concentrated on one very long, very influential trip between Ernesto (Che) and his friend (Alberto Granado). In this trip you see shadows of what Ernesto will eventually become, but we are never handed Easter eggs. There are no obvious hints or clever little lines. It is simply a slice of a man's life, not as complete as some biopics strive to be, but as complete as they can manage to be in the span of two hours. The power of this small glimpse into his life shows us more than Walk the Line ever could manage with Johnny Cash. When you chase everything, you catch nothing.
Score: ****
So what is Hollywood to do? Biopics seem to be gaining popularity, and it's doubtful they're soon to back off. Perhaps they can take a lesson from a non-musical biography, one with a little more heart, a little more focus, and a little less pomp.