The hot trend on the big screen these days is the musical biopic
Hi everyone, welcome back to Plain English, I’m Jeff. JR is our producer and this is episode 202. All the episode resources for this episode can be found at PlainEnglish.com/202. That includes video lessons, flash cards, and a faster version just for members of Plain English Plus+.
Coming up today: the first song ever played on MTV was “Video Killed The Radio Star” by the Buggles. But today, video just might be saving the radio star. That’s because the musical biopic is one of the hottest new trends on the big screen, and they’re breathing new life into older music. The phrasal verb we have for you is “pass off as” and it’s Monday so we have a quote of the week.
Can video save the radio star? Biopics breathe new life into older music
Elton John, Freddie Mercury, and Aretha Franklin. Most of us recognize these superstars as musical artists, but what else do they have in common? These artists, along with many others, have recently been depicted in musical biopics. What is a biopic? A biopic, an abbreviated word for a biographical film, is a film that depicts the life of a person. And it’s one of the hottest genres in Hollywood right now.
Perhaps the most famous lately has been “Bohemian Rhapsody.” If you haven’t seen it on the big screen or on a streaming service, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, is about the lead singer of the rock band Queen. His name was Freddie Mercury. The title “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes from one of their most famous songs. The movie has been a tremendous success grossing over $900 million worldwide and winning four Oscars. After the movie was released, the song, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became the most-streamed classic rock song of all time, and it became the most-streamed song from the 20th Century, according to Universal Music Group. If there were a category for the most stubborn earworm—that’s a song you just can’t get out of your head—then, it might just win that prize too.
In addition to Bohemian Rhapsody, several other biopics have been or will soon be released. “Rocketman”, portraying the life of Elton John was released in May 2019. I saw that one at home a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was excellent—I was more an Elton John fan than a Queen fan. “Yesterday” is a fictional film featuring music from the Beatles that came out last spring. “Blinded by the Light”, with music from American rock legend Bruce Springsteen, premiered August of this year, and “Amazing Grace”, a concert film starring soul singer Aretha Franklin became available this month on Hulu. “Respect,” another Franklin biopic, is due for release in August 2020.
Bob Dylan will get a biopic, as will Judy Garland. If American and British music isn’t your thing, then maybe you’ve seen the Netflix series on Luis Miguel, one of Mexico’s most famous singers. Luciano Pavarotti will get his own biopic, too.
So why all the recent popularity of musicians in film? One major reason is the demand from audiences for more content. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime are hungry for content. At the same time, music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify let people discover more music than ever before. The two can be used together: you can easily watch biopics on Netflix, then turn around and listen to the artists’ music on Spotify. The two types of streaming are symbiotic—they enhance one another.
Another reason for the increase in popularity is that streaming provides another, well, stream of revenue. They can breathe some new life into the reputation of an ageing superstar and revive his or her back catalog. Older music today has to continuously compete with newly released music. There’s so much new music coming out today that younger audiences might not be familiar with older music. Biopics give them a good way to explore some of the popular music of the past.
Moviemaking is a business, and it’s an increasingly cutthroat one. To make a lot of money at the movies, you can either produce a megahit or produce a normal hit, but for a lower cost. The cost of production for biopics tends to be less than for feature films. A good biopic can cost $40 million to $50 million to produce—a lot of money, sure, but still much less than many other blockbuster feature films. They tend to be safer, too, from a business perspective. If you have a popular artist as the subject, then chances are good that people will go see the movie. Lower cost to produce and lower risk is the financial formula that some of these biopics are following.
Movie producers want new and fresh ideas and musical biopics offer unique content. I hate to say it, but sometimes you can’t make this stuff up—real life can be more entertaining than fiction. Music also lets moviemakers take some creative license and experiment with new concepts. While some biopics, like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” are more straightforward life stories, others can be more complicated.
For example, Elton John’s “Rocketman” took on a more musical approach: watching the movie feels like watching a musical. There are live-action scenes, interspersed with musical performances, like you’d see in musical theater.
Movies such as “Yesterday” and “Blinded by the Light” take yet a different approach. The central characters in both movies are not the musical artists themselves. Instead, the music is woven into the story. In “Yesterday”, for example, a struggling artist suffers an accident and realizes that nobody in the world knows who The Beatles are. So he brings Beatles music to the world, passing it off as his own. The artist Ed Sheeran, had a supporting role in the film and lent some star power to it. In “Blinded by the Light”, a Pakistani-British teenager finds inspiration in Bruce Springsteen’s music.
What do the artists, record labels, and, in some cases, estates of the major artists think of all the attention? Well, it depends on how involved they are in the process. The more they are involved in the creative process, the more likely they are to give their nod of approval and cooperate in the project. For example, before Aretha Franklin passed away, the Queen of Soul personally approved Jennifer Hudson (American R&B artist) to portray her. Brian May and Roger Taylor, band members of Queen, had a lot of input in “Bohemian Rhapsody”. A biopic portraying the life of reggae music artist Bob Marley is in the works with Paramount Pictures alongside Ziggy Marley (Bob Marley’s son). Yoko Ono has also approved of a film featuring herself and John Lennon. Many want the ability to provide input to control how the story goes.
Related: Episode 79: Aretha Franklin, the ‘Queen of Soul’ music who dared to ask for R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The artist’s input and cooperation is important, as is the cooperation of the rights-owners of the music catalog. That doesn’t necessarily mean the artists are lobbying to have themselves portrayed as saints—though their influence might muddy the waters. Here again, Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman diverge. “Rocketman” is rated R, and Elton John didn’t want the film to shy away from his turbulent past—drugs, sex, divorce, broken family relationships. The film opens with Elton John in a rehab clinic. “Bohemian Rhapsody,” on the other hand, has been criticized for going easy on some of the more controversial parts of Freddie Mercury’s life.
Related: Episode 193: Learn English phrase ‘shy away from’
My favorite biopic has to be “Walk the Line,” about American country singers Johnny Cash and June Carter. The music, the acting, the story: all are great in that one. I liked “Selena,” too. And “Gloria,” about Gloria Trevi, was a good one too. Gloria Trevi said about her biopic—she said it was hard to watch. That was an example—actually all of these three, “Walk the Line,” “Selena,” and “Gloria”—they’re examples of biopics that don’t shy away from showing some of the more difficult parts of an artist’s life.
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