La Vie en Rose,a new film about the life of Edith Piaf, is the latest in a long line of musical biopics, many of them about talented tortured rockers who leave a pretty corpse behind. Michael Dwyerexplores Hollywood's fascination with living young and dying fast.
SEX, drugs, rock'n'roll and dying young are the prerequisites when producers assess the lives of singers and musicians as suitable material for movie treatments. That explains why nobody has made a film about, say, Cliff Richard, even though he has sold more than 250 million records in a career that has spanned half a century.
The trouble with Sir Cliff is that he is just so squeaky clean. Sure, he dabbled in rock'n'roll early in his career before finding his niche in the MOR mainstream, but he's still alive at 67, has never taken drugs and claims to be celibate, keeping the promise made on his 1962 hit "to be a bachelor boy until my dying day".
Film producers - and, by implication, audiences - find musical biopics altogether more interesting when the subject has a self-destructive streak that ends in tragedy. For example, Anton Corbijn's Control (warmly received at Cannes last month and opening in October) is a model of the genre as it follows the traditional arc of the doomed rock star scenario.
Control begins in 1973, when Ian Curtis is an introspective 17 year-old. He marries his best friend's girlfriend and joins local band Warsaw. They change their name to Joy Division and Manchester impresario Tony Wilson signs them to Factory Records.
Newcomer Sam Riley brings Curtis vividly to life in a film, fuelled by such an evident empathy for him and his music that it forms a compelling and touching portrait of the artist as an angry young man. Control charts the rise and rise of the band and the consequent complications in Curtis's young life - fatherhood, adultery, epilepsy, the pressures and demands of fame. It ends in May 1980, on the eve of the band's first US tour, when Curtis killed himself at the age of 23.
Whereas Riley convincingly performs Curtis's songs, Marion Cotillard does not dare try to replicate Edith Piaf's distinctive singing voice in La Vie en Rose, which opens today and follows Piaf from childhood to death at the age of 47.
Cotillard's lip-synching is just perfect, however, and the movie's US distributors are already talking up her prospects of bagging an Oscar nomination next spring.
Given that actors constitute by far the largest voting bloc for the Academy Awards, movies dealing with troubled performers are irresistible Oscar bait. It helps immeasurably when actors risk performing the songs made famous by the singers they are playing . For proof, look no further than the Oscar-winning performances of Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line - although Jamie Foxx's lip-synching to Ray Charles was so persuasive that he also collected an Oscar for Ray.
Joaquin Phoenix was unlucky not to win one for his intense portrayal of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, but the movie gave Phoenix a valuable opportunity to extend his range. And it propelled Cash's back catalogue up the music charts, just as the success of Ray caused an upsurge in sales for Ray Charles albums.
Music biopics come complete with built-in soundtracks, and the familiarity of so many featured songs serves as an incentive for audiences to see those movies. It's all part of Hollywood synergy at a time when so many conglomerates count film studios and record companies among their assets. Which is why Don Cheadle received the green light from Sony Pictures for his planned biopic of Miles Davis: Sony also owns Columbia Records, which holds the rights to the Davis music library. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks as well as MTV, which is useful for cross-promotion, and MTV has its own film production division.
Still, biopics featuring megastars do not guarantee megabucks at the box-office.
Ian Hart played John Lennon in The Hours and Times, but the low-budget movie was relegated to the arthouse circuit. Hart played Lennon again in Backbeat, which starred Stephen Dorff as doomed "fifth Beatle" Stuart Sutcliffe, but the film raised few ripples.
There are times when stars simply overwhelm their subjects, when biopics are designed to showcase singers in dramatic roles. Although The Rose was loosely based on Janis Joplin, it was essentially a star vehicle to promote Bette Midler as a serious thespian, as was the case when Diana Ross suffered nobly as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues. (Both did receive Oscar nominations.) More recently, Ross insisted that she had not seen Dreamgirls, in which Beyoncé Knowles plays a thinly disguised character based on her.
Fictionalised biopics can offer more latitude, as Allison Anders proved in her superb Grace of My Heart, featuring Ileanna Douglas as a singer-songwriter based on Carole King, with Matt Dillon as a Brian Wilson surrogate. Then, some singers have enough ego to play versions of themselves, which Eminem did with panache in 8 Mile while fellow rapper 50 Cent had less success in Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
Most musical biopics go into production well after their subject has gone to that great auditorium in the sky, which may be why nobody has attempted a movie on the exceptionally colourful lives of Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, and why the only film on any of the Rolling Stones has been Stoned, dealing with the band's founder and lead guitarist, Brian Jones, who drowned in his swimming pool in 1969.
Jones was one of many performers who happened to die at the age of 27, along with Jim Morrison (the subject of Oliver Stone's The Doors), Kurt Cobain (the inspiration for Gus Van Sant's stylised Last Days) and Janis Joplin (to be played by Zooey Deschanel shortly). Both Andre Braugher and Sean (P Diddy) Combs are pursuing plans to play bluesman Robert Johnson, who also died at 27. So did Jimi Hendrix, a role Lenny Kravitz covets if the musical copyright tangles are resolved.
In addition to the imminent projects listed separately here, there are rumblings about movies on any number of dead singers, notably Dusty Springfield, Gram Parsons, Michael Hutchence, Rick James, Joey Ramone and Freddie Mercury. Rumours that Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen will play the Queen vocalist have been flatly denied.
As a respite from all these tortured tales of tormented, self-destructive performers, we can look forward to Walk Hard, a spoof on the genre due for release later this year. Scripted by director Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow, it stars John C Reilly as Dewey Cox, a fictional singer who overcomes adversity to become a musical legend.
Hollywood tunes up: on the way
I'm Not There:Todd Haynes has constructed an "impressionistic" picture of Bob Dylan, in which different characters "embody aspects of his life and work". Playing Dylan are Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin, a black child.
El Cantante:The subject is Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe, who found fame in New York, succumbed to drug addition and died in 1993. Marc Anthony plays him, with his wife Jennifer Lopez as Lavoe's wife.
The Passenger:In a most unlikely casting decision, Elijah Wood will play Iggy Pop in a biopic following the gaunt rocker's early years with The Stooges.
The Gospel According to Janis:Renée Zellweger, Lili Taylor, Melissa Etheridge and Pink have all been attached to projects about Janis Joplin. Zooey Deschanel is now set to play her.
See Me, Feel Me:Keith Moon Naked for Your Pleasure: Mike Myers, 44, will play Keith Moon, the drummer with The Who, who was 32 when he died of an overdose, in a biopic to be produced by the band's lead singer, Roger Daltrey.
Miles Davis:Oscar nominee Don Cheadle will play the jazz icon in a movie he also directs.
Kiss an Angel Good Morning:Reuniting with Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer, Terrence Howard will portray Charley Pride, the baseball player who become the first black country music star in the 1960s.
James Brown:After he plays Pride, Terrence Howard is tipped to star as the Godfather of Soul. Spike Lee will direct.
Milli Vanilli:Jeff Nathanson's film will deal with record producer Frank Farian's grooming of Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus to front Milli Vanilli, lip-synching to other singers. When their first album sold millions, the duo demanded to sing on the follow-up. Farian refused and blew the whistle.
The best music biopics . . .
Bound for Glory (1976):Some historical inaccuracies do not detract from Hal Ashby's lovingly crafted portrait of Woody Guthrie's early life in the Depression era. David Carradine admirably doubles as singer and actor in the central role.
The Buddy Holly Story (1979):In his first major role, Gary Busey earned his only Oscar nomination for his affecting portrayal of the bespectacled rock'n'roll star killed in a plane crash when he was 22.
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980):Sissy Spacek deservedly collected the best actress Oscar for her touching portrayal of singer Loretta Lynn, who was born into poverty, married at 13, had four children during her teens and became a country music star. And Spacek sings all the songs.
Sid and Nancy (1986):Director Alex Cox delves through the wreckage to form an authentic picture of the short lives of Sex Pistols guitarist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, portrayed in scarily credible performances by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb.
Bird (1988):Jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood charts the troubled life of jazz legend Charlie Parker, played by Forest Whitaker in a breakthrough performance that earned him the best actor award at Cannes.
. . . and the worst
Great Balls of Fire! (1989):Dennis Quaid makes a valiant, energetic attempt at playing Jerry Lee Lewis, but is defeated by a simplistic screenplay in Jim McBride's sanitised film.
The Doors (1991):Val Kilmer heroically immerses himself in the role of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's patchy biopic, laden with pretentious symbolism.
Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998):Taking its title from a 1950s chart-topper for Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Gregory Nava's picture is more interested in the courtroom battle between Lymon's three wives (one played by Halle Berry) after he died at 25.
Beyond the Sea (2004):Kevin Spacey (below) doubles as director and star for a self-indulgent biopic on singer-actor Bobby Darin, who died in 1973 at 37. Misconceived, cliche- ridden and overacted.
