Whose lives are they anyway?

the biopic as contemporary film genre

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by Dennis Bingham

Type: Studies
Subject: Genre > Historical films
Keywords: historical films, biopics
Publishing date: 2010
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 432 pages
7 x 10 ¼ inches (18 x 26 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8135-4658-2

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Book Presentation:
The biopic presents a profound paradox - its own conventions and historical stages of development, disintegration, investigation, parody, and revival have not gained respect in the world of film studies. That is, until now. ""Whose Lives Are They Anyway?"" boldly proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one - it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person. Through detailed analyses and critiques of nearly twenty biopics, Dennis Bingham explores what is at their core - the urge to dramatize real life and find a version of the truth within it. The genre's charge, which dates back to the salad days of the Hollywood studio era, is to introduce the biographical subject into the pantheon of cultural mythology and, above all, to show that he or she belongs there. It means to discover what we learn about our culture from the heroes who rise and the leaders who emerge from cinematic representations. Bingham also zooms in on distinctions between cinematic portrayals of men and women. Films about men have evolved from celebratory warts-and-all to investigatory to postmodern and parodic. At the same time, women in biopics have been burdened by myths of suffering, victimization, and failure from which they are only now being liberated. To explore the evolution and lifecycle changes of the biopic and develop an appreciation for subgenres contained within it, there is no better source than ""Whose Lives Are They Anyway?"" ""Whose Lives Are They Anyway?"" cuts to: ""Lawrence of Arabia""; ""Citizen Kane""; ""Ed Wood""; ""Man on the Moon""; ""Erin Brockovich""; ""An Angel at My Table""; ""32 Short Films about Glenn Gould""; ""Lumumba""; ""Malcolm X""; ""Marie Antoinette""; ""Gorillas in the Mist""; ""Star!""; ""Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story""; ""I'm Not There""; ""I Want to Live""; ""Rembrandt""; and, ""The Notorious Bettie Page"".

Contents:
Introduction: a respectable genre of very low repute -- Book one: the great (White) man biopic and its discontents. Strachey's way, or all's well that ends Welles -- Rembrandt (1936) -- Citizen Kane and the biopic -- Lawrence of Arabia: "but does he really deserve a place in here?" -- Nixon, Oliver Stone, and the unmaking of the self-made man -- P.S.: W. -- Thirty two short films about Glenn Gould: ghost picture: -- Ed Wood: the biopic of someone undeserving -- Spike Lee's Malcolm X: appropriation or assimilation? -- Raoul Peck's Lumumba: drama, documentary, and the postcolonial appropriation -- Book two: a woman's life is never done: female biopics. Prologue -- Superstar: The Karen Carpenter story: toying with the genre -- I want to live!: criminal woman, male discourses -- Barbra and Julie at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius -- Funny girl -- Star! -- Hacked: Gorillas in the mist and other female biopics in the 1980s -- An angel at my table: re-framing the female biography -- Erin Brockovich: Hollywood feminist revisionism, after a fashion -- Twenty-first-century women -- The notorious Bettie Page: free will, and God's will -- Marie Antoinette: the female biopic gets the guillotine -- I'm not there: some conclusions on a book concerning biopics.

See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press

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