The biopic, one of Hollywood’s go-to film genres, can be labeled generic, cliché, and boring. Taking the arc of icons in American culture, like Ray Charles, Freddie Mercury or Abraham Lincoln (to name a few), can produce a long line of lackluster films. Often forgettable as they follow in the same footsteps of plot beats, but also leave behind great fits of imitation, biopics can be a tired film genre. Especially when you consider these directors have to cram an entire life into a neat 120-minute, commercially viable package. All too often in biopics, the minute details get lost and the reverence of an iconic persona gets failed by the director to match. The results are like nails across a chalkboard.
2022, however, produced two incredibly audacious biopics in terms of aesthetic and convention: Elvis and Blonde. Attempting to defy the banality of the biopic most audiences have come to know, these directors had the luxury of being different. In that spirit, these are ten biopics that defy those same conventions.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
10 Walker
Universal Pictures
Alex Cox brings his formidable, fun, satirical touch to the Western genre in Walker. Placating the empty platitudes and extremes of Western expansion, Cox tells the wild true story of William Walker (Ed Harris) a mercenary who led illegal military expeditions into Central America in an attempt to colonize. Cox fills the film with hilarious banter and over-the-top violence to indict the hubris that led to “Manifest Destiny”. Showing the western expansion for what it is: a shallow and heedless effort that was nothing but salacious violence. Filling the film with anachronisms as Walker’s development grows, Cox shows that America’s will and the notion of military interventions have never slowed.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Bronson
Vertigo Films
Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s audacious and formally inventive film Bronson tells the story of one of Britain’s most violent criminals. Born Michael Peterson, Peterson changed his name to Charles Bronson in 1987 when succumbing to his psychotic and violent lifestyle. Tom Hardy plays the character with a manic comic-glee, while inflicting pain on anyone in his path. At times, switching between a vaudeville-style one-man show or reenacting the real-life exploits of his brutish fists, Bronson does not explain the criminal’s psychosis. Instead, the film envelops the viewer to experience the violence as if Bronson is the victim himself.
8 American Splendor
Fine Line Features
The underground comics of Harvey Pekar made waves in the 1970s and continued to make noise that got the underground artists a near regular spot on The Letterman Show in its early incarnations. Played with a raspy, Everyman vigilance by the undefeated Paul Giamatti, the actor was the perfect casting choice for Harvey. American Splendor spliced the art of the underground comics and the documentary nature of Pekar’s comics together to pay rightful homage to his artistry. Wickedly funny with the Everyman depression that comes from the complexity of creating a life, Pekar’s persona was made famous but his life, inner and outer, barely changed.
7 Jackie
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Pablo Larraín’s singular look at the titular Jackie Kennedy — played by a stunning Natalie Portman — is an incredibly poignant portrait of grief and the fallout of being involved in one of America’s biggest tragedies. Starting the film on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the film throws us into the void and never lets you step out of Jackie’s shoes. Larraín creates a lived experience: shooting the film on 16mm, he creates a languid, dreamlike texture as Jackie has to tiptoe through the spotlight while death hangs over her head. Jackie is about the death of an icon and how hard it is to navigate the national spotlight when you’re living in death’s shadow.
6 I’m Not There
The Weinstein Company
In a year brimming with straight-laced, brutal, and heartfelt masterpieces, experimental and, at times, avant-garde filmmaker Todd Haynes crafted a film about legendary songwriter Bob Dylan to a tune of his constantly evolving frequency. Telling Dylan’s story in a series of vignettes, having different actors portray the singer at different times in his life, was a choice that paid off hugely in I’m Not There. Haynes wasn’t scared to play with gender either, as Cate Blanchett steals the spotlight from the other actors, playing Dylan near the height of his mythos. Haynes’ film is as ambitious as biopics get.
5 Vengeance is Mine
Shochiku
An incredibly bleak but intimately recounted story of one of Japan’s most infamous serial killers, who went on a 78-day killing spree, claiming at least five lives. Told in flashback as the killer — played by the studiously opaque Ken Ogata — tells the police his story in an interrogation room. The film is meticulously detailed and cold in its execution as we go day to day following Ogata’s interactions with his victims. Director Shohei Immature goes to great lengths to make the film as human as possible while still depicting the cold-blooded relentlessness of its main protagonist, the killer. Vengeance is Mine is a masterpiece.
4 Man On The Moon
1999 was a year when great films were getting released every week. So, Man On The Moon feels like the forgotten gem of Jim Carrey’s career as it tends to get lost in the rubble of other iconic movies. In one of those roles he should’ve garnered major awards attention for — including The Truman Show — Carrey goes method and gets deep inside the spirit of Andy Kauffman. Director Milos Forman, who is no stranger to the biopic with films like Amadeus and The People Vs. Larry Flynt under his belt, uses Carrey as the heartbeat of the film and never lets go of his frequency. As we indulge in all the eccentric and nebbish pranks the jokester Andy Kaufman pulled off in his lifetime. While also showing the lows and backlash of Kaufman’s reckless behavior, the humanity afforded to one of the pop culture’s great pranksters — Man On The Moon is singular.
3 Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Zoetrope Studios
The buried rage and foreboding masculinity of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima made him the perfect muse for Paul Schrader. Mishima was a controversial figure in Japan’s artistic history. Mishima took his own life on national television via ritual suicide after taking a General hostage at a military headquarters. Schrader made a film of a similar vein to the persona, making it unconventional and controversial. The film shows his life in beautiful black and white, but also in vivid color, as he recounted important moments in his life by way of his novels. It’s an exemplary piece of filmmaking and has a towering lead performance from Ken Ogata as the writer whose patriotism drove him to a rigid, mad life.
2 24 Hour Party People
Patné Distribution
Following the early stages and late collapse of the “Madchester” music scene that spiraled, coalesced, and created new trends in music out of the England town of Manchester, 24 Hour Party People is a hilariously insightful look at how icons get revered, and the music gets started. Following in the shoes of Tony Wilson — played by a brilliant Steve Coogan — the intellectually forward-thinking journalist who knew his days on television were not his place. He instead discovers the likes of The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and then lands on the groundbreaking Joy Division. The film constantly breaks the fourth wall as Coogan leads us through the UK music scene of death, drugs, sex, and rock and roll.
1 Raging Bull
United Artists
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to centering his films around explosively violent and morally dubious men, but none quite got the same cinematic detail as his biopic on boxer Jake LaMotta did in Raging Bull. Using the major boxing matches to detail the psychological makeup and evolution of the famed Middleweight champion was a stroke of genius from Scorsese. Each fight was told differently, from using smoke and excess to using dolly zoom shots to warp the ring and show LaMotta’s boiling point, Scorsese channeled his technical mastery to tell a story of rage and violence in a way only he could.
