Well, it has finally come. Last week we were assigned a film project in English (a pretty cool project, might I add). The project consists of picking a specific genre of film, researching it, and developing 1) a thesis statement for what the genre itself does, and 2) generating 3 other points that support this thesis, with film clips being your support (or, in essay terms, the clips are the content of the 3 paragraphs under your thesis statement). And while you'd think I might be an expert at this, this is looking harder than I thought it would be.

My genre? Biographical films.

I've got some ideas going, but I was wondering if any of our well-versed members here (I'm looking at you, dolce), could help me out. Maybe just a tad. Work with me, and I'll reciprocate the favor (not sure how, but let's say, I'll love you forever?).

Feel free to spit out any ideas you have.

Go ahead.

Spit.

Spit.

What ideas do you have right now, Dkmuto?

Our group was thinking something along the lines of...

"Biopics tend to fictionalize events and characteristics of their subjects in order to illicit desired emotions from the viewer."

It would be hard to support that with clips, though, considering we wouldn't want to be basing our entire presentation off saying stuff like, "But in real life, he was actually gay/violent/a pedophile..." Yanno.

I think if we used that, it would work better as one of our three sub topics, not our main thesis, though.

I've got an idea, why don't you do it yourself, instead of getting help!!!! :razz:

Here are some of the films we are considering using (if this helps generate ideas):

A Beautiful Mind
Amadeus
The Last Emperor
Malcolm X
Lawrence of Arabia
Ed Wood
Patton
Raging Bull
Gandhi
My Left Foot
Schindler's List
Shine
The Madness of King George
The Passion of Joan of Arc

Those examples are on the extreme end of the spectrum. You can look at a biography like Schindler's List and point to certain aesthetic choices that toy with the audience (girl in red, b&w, score, etc...)

If anything, biopics are more fictional than films that are entirely original. You can't reproduce reality, heck, even documentaries are shown through a filter.

Considering this is a message board devoted to film, I'd feel dumb not to push some ideas around.

I didn't mean to sound dependent in my first post. I'm looking for possible ideas, not someone to do the project for me.

Try Ray.

I was only kidding anyway Dude.

Considered it, but our films have to span at least four decades, and if we chose one from the 2000's, I think we'd go with A Beautiful Mind.

Maybe, though.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Ray Charles was famous and around for longer than 40 years, could pull that one :wink:

Is there a certain type of biographical genre you're looking at (political, mental illness, fame, historical backdrop...)?

None in particular, no.

Thesis- these films, are/are not, accurately labeled as biographies.
1- Better name: personal backstories during specific world events... percent of film..
2- Biographical information.... schooling, siblings...... present?
3- Communications/ travel/lodging .. glossed over or not shown..
( how life was) percent of film....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the above can be quantified......... The better bio's include the above...

Watch out for historical mistakes/errors. Often Directors make the error that they want to do a to much "artist" movie or are forced to make a movie more enyojable (money) or want to see things like they want to see and fail terrible in historic facts.
loyalfromlonden mentioned Schindlers List. Historians often critic that the picture of Schindler was to good.

Check out some names for Books. (Are they Books written that are serious and nonfiction?Written by people that are neutral)

Sometimes Biografical movies are also based one a book. Questions here is. Is it a good written book. How did the person feel who wrote the book. Was he neutral or seemed she to love or hate to much. Whats the Background from the Writer/director.

Uh, let me think about this Dk. :wink:

Biographical films is such a wealthy genre the first thing I would do is narrow it down if I was your group. I would also hesitate to pick the thesis you did, only because it sounds condemning. One would argue why they shouldn't use individuals as a vehicle for directorial agendas? Look the very strict biographies (of which there are few) are probably less interesting. Dk, its like an art object that's been decontextualized. You can still appreciate it, but it actually resonates less. Often biographies, you selection Malcolm X, have as much to do with race relations as they do with the man himself. That's why A Beautiful Mind (for me) was such a weak movie. It begins with his contributions to the field and then just sli[ps into a completely isolated and personal narrative that never leaves his home. Randomly at the end they come back to give him the Nobel and you just sit there and wonder about it. I know my father was a physicist in college and was so excited for this movie to come out. When he got back from the viewing he was dissappointed becuase it didn't deal with the physics field at all.

Anyways, Shindler's list as an example of a movie that falls into the biography genre that was actually just using him as a more palatable and accessable figure to orient on while exploring events of the Holocaust. No one could argue half the movie isn't about him.

So biographies are veru interesting. I have a film suggestion for you. I know I've mentioned before, but if you can, check out Caravaggio (by Derek Jarman) for a very extreme case of manipulation of an individual's character to discuss other issues. Caravaggio is not very well documented a figure (long story), so we do know he dueled, got sick, etc. But besides that what he left for the following centuries was his paintings. SO Jarman uses Caravaggio's visual imagery (and other painters) as the primary source for the movie. Very odd, also purposefully riddles the film with "errors" (I noticed someone mentioned that). Which were intentional achronisms because painters through the ages tended to produce historic scenes swathed in contemporary garb, etc. There's a heavy sexuality discussion. Basically this is a "biography" that is only about 10% about the man in it.

There are alot of biographical movies, I like your picks, but you guys are making it hard on yourselves. You might want to pick biographies dealing with one genre (Minority Leaders) or by one group of directors (Minority Directors, Female Directors, etc). There is still so much within each subgroup that it will allow you guys to find some similar trends in "voice" (I don't know if that's what its called), vs. your selection now is so wide every movie will really be different than the other. Thats going to lead to a paper that can only address the films in regard to eachother (This movie did this while this one did that) rather than allowing you to make some connections that could be broader (directors tend to film children this way, etc).

Its a tricky topic so good luck and feel free to keep thinking out loud in this thread, ask for suggestions, etc. I think it could be easy. You are an ambitious bunch of guys, heh, had I been given this paper I would have just done the Spaghetti Westerns, that would have been mad easy.

Hope that helps even a little?

A Beautiful Mind .. Nash used math developed from physics to match what he observed about the real world. Basically 'game theory' for economics. ABM shows this development in the 'group dating' scene. It's best that the interest 'as a' group is accounted for. Next, pigeons 'amiably compete' for fodder, walking in patterns. Riding his bike in the infinity symbol, JN understands and can model economics, using steady wave equations borrowed from physics. Supposidly leading to more bird-food for all(unseen). However, looking for commie launch codes in magazine headlines is a red herring headache...
Even though imaginary, his 'relatives' gave it abit more family ambiance than most bio's...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cheers.... the operations research department.......

Haha! Hey gardenia...I miss your insight. That's exactly the point, I liked the film up until he left school. During that period it went into some of his philosophy and physicas, his application of numbers to human behavior, I loved when he said they compete for the prettiest girl and all walk away empty handed. The problem is after he left school there was zero sense of that. Nada....just some guy going nuts and his miserable, unhappy wife. Then out of nowhere they come back at the end and offer him the Nobel for his work in college, and that's that. The entire bulk of the movie had nothing to do with his theories or what he became known for in science.

I thought the use of the non0aging roomate and roomie's daughter was actually an ok way of showing his loss of touch with reality, but only to a point, since it became the focus of the movie and was uninteresting.

Perhaps you can find something to use in THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES? It shows Ernesto Guevera before he became Che Guevera...Cuban revolutionary.

Whoops..

Whoops..

Whoops..