What makes movies like musical biopics work? What makes them so accessible to audiences?
Many of these stories come layered with ingredients and story arcs that make them easily conducive to film. Look at the biopics about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.
These stories are as rich as any fictionalized script — both Charles and Cash are renowned pop culture figures that have been lauded both critically and commercially. Each man also experienced personal tragedies at a young age that ultimately shaped their music, but undoubtedly served as a driving force behind their drug addictions.
There is something in these movies that audiences respond to. Of course, it helps that both Ray Charles and Johnny Cash supply their films with wall-to-wall music that carries viewers not only through the film, but the generations they lived in.
“Ray” not only tracks Charles’ musical progress, but the generations he lived through. The audience catches glimpses of the civil rights movement, as well as a rags-to-riches story of a lost soul who finds redemption.
Cash’s biopic has a similar arc, but the main difference from Charles’ story is that Cash’s also supplies a strong love storyline.
Though it isn’t a biopic, “Almost Famous” is perhaps the best movie about music because it not only captures the joy of the time, but, more importantly, the music of the time. Cameron Crowe’s film about the rise and fall of a band chronicles the story of a young journalist who becomes mixed up in the world of music and learns lessons hard and fast about that world.
The music of the ’70s is as identifiable to that time and place as the clothing or looming threat of the Cold War. What makes “Almost Famous” transcend being about just music is that it is a coming-of-age tale that looks at what it would be like to grow up in the seventies, when America was reckoning the sexual revolution as well as the deep wounds from Vietnam and familial discontent.
“The Runaways,” a new music biopic about a somewhat famous all-girl band that quickly crashed and burned, is also looking to capture the era’s resentment towards authority. This movie takes place at a time when punk music was a rapidly emerging style and bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones were breaking onto the scene with gritty and subversive rock that connected with youth.
The best musical biopics explore the culture that the music comes from. You can’t separate Ray Charles from where he was raised or how he grew up any more than you can separate him from his music because his music is a product of the way he saw the world.
Without culture, music doesn’t exist. The art that is worth keeping, whether it is literature, music, or film, comes from people trying to comprehend the crazy places they live in.
Peterson Hill is a senior in New College. His column runs on Wednesdays.
