A biographical film, or biopic ( /ˈbaɪɵpɪk/; abbreviation for biographical motion picture), is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives.
Because the figures portrayed are actual people, whose actions and characteristics are known, biopics are considered some of the most demanding films of actors and actresses. Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey, and Jamie Foxx all gained respect as dramatic actors after starring in biopics: Depp as Edward D. Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood (1994), Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon (1999), and Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004).
In rare cases, sometimes called autobiopics, the subject of the film plays himself or herself: Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story; Muhammad Ali in The Greatest; Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back; Patty Duke in Call Me Anna; Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant; and Howard Stern in Private Parts.
Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck, but Bingham's 2010 study Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a similar trajectory as that shown by Rick Altman in his landmark study, Film/Genre. Bingham also addresses the male biopic and the female biopic as distinct genres from each other, the former generally dealing with great accomplishments, the latter generally dealing with female victimization.
Read more about Biographical Film: Controversies Over Veracity
Famous quotes containing the words biographical and/or film:
“Biography, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true and brave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtue—one given and received in entire disinterestedness—since neither can the biographer hope for acknowledgment from the subject, not the subject at all avail himself of the biographical distinction conferred.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)