Oppenheimer was awarded seven Oscar’s this past weekend, celebrating J. Robert Oppenheimer in the ever-growing landscape of historical figures being immortalised on the silver screen– from Napoleon to Lady Diana, from the Von Erich brothers to Amy Winehouse, Hollywood’s silver screen surge has completely shifted the spotlight away from fictional characters and brought real people centre stage. But with the announcement of Sam Mendes adding to the cast with four new Beatles biopics, audiences have started to feel the fatigue – is cinema’s trendiest genre just Oscar bait?
Now, biographical films are not new by any means. The first biopic believed to have been released chronicled Joan of Arc in 1900, and since then, a quarter of all nominations in Oscar history have been dedicated to the genre, with some critics even arguing that the Academy have a bias towards rewarding films based on real people. But with the 2018 release of Bohemian Rhapsody garnering a $900 million box office and earning Rami Malek the title of Best Actor, the wildly successful Queen recount undeniably drove a spike in audience appetite for seeing their favourite stars honoured– and since then, we’ve watched blockbuster hits narrate the lives of Elvis, Elton John, and even the Gucci family. And the schedule for the next few years is booked with upcoming projects following suit, chronicling Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, and even Shirley Chisholm– as well as four new Beatles biopics.
For the first time ever, Apple Corps, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of George Harrison and John Lennon granted full life story and music rights for Sam Mendes (1917, Skyfall) to direct four individual perspectives of each Beatle, estimated to be released in 2027 by Sony Pictures, adding The Beatles to the Hollywood Hall of Biopics. With the film being in its very early infancy, there’s a lot of room for audiences to discuss its potential execution and cast, and with the cultural impact that the Fab Four have had across multiple generations, the film is bound to draw in demographics of every age. But beyond the excited anticipation, audiences are feeling the fatigue for the almost-oversaturated genre, with a term aptly referred to as ‘biopic fatigue’, fearing that the new biopic addition will just blend into the background.
if a film attempts to cover the entire, complex timeline of a long particular event or lifetime, it’s difficult to effectively portray everything without the entire 90 minutes/2 hour duration feeling like a simplistic overview
The difference between a biopic and a narrative film is that with biopics, audiences are technically already established prior to the release, purely down to pre-existing fanbases. The appeal behind biopics is having an exclusive insight into the real people behind the public personas of influential figures and how their mannerisms will be portrayed by actors. This is usually to a backdrop of nostalgic times that audiences will either be able to reminisce on or experience for themselves expressed, allowing for digestible educational value on culture and eras. The nuances required with biopics are often what attracts their buzz, with the actors being refined to a real person showcasing their talent and the design endeavours needing to adhere to different backdrops, as well as the general humanity often depicted to famous figures that hadn’t been exposed before.
Some biopics do it really well, others don’t. The genre can be a slippery slope in terms of their storytelling depth: for instance, if a film attempts to cover the entire, complex timeline of a long particular event or lifetime, it’s difficult to effectively portray everything without the entire 90 minutes/2 hour duration feeling like a simplistic overview (sorry, but I’m looking at you, Priscilla). Whereas others that deep dive into one particular short period in a timeline, are able to be executed with more profundity from essentially having less to work with (I’m looking at you, Love and Mercy 2014). And in a time of market saturation, directorial giants obtaining the rights to direct them can understandably feel Oscar-baity, especially considering the recognition the Academy hails to films regarding real people. Furthermore, the pre-existing fanbase demand of biopics perhaps posing as a catalyst for the production of these films, with the directors themselves falling into the crowd of people with having pre-existing interest themselves.
But despite whether biopics are Oscar buzz or Oscar bait, biopics will be in the cinemas for as long as people exist. People are interested in people, and the wealth of biopics on our screens at the moment is concrete evidence.