Strange Melodies: Unconventional musician biopics

By Kyle Matthies

Has this ever happened to you? You sit down to watch a movie about one of your favorite musicians expecting to see their life glorified on screen and instead what you get is a boring, uninspired slog of a film with a script no different from a PowerPoint of facts about their life? Movies like these come out all the time in Hollywood and while they make money from the artist’s fans who are appeased just by seeing their idol portrayed on celluloid, the movies are either instantly forgotten (remember Bob Marley: One Love from literally three months ago?) or they become a sort of perennial punching bag as an example of how not to dramatize someone’s story (Bohemian Rhapsody, need I say more?).

There’s just so much that goes into being a famous musician that it’s usually necessary to cut aspects of someone’s life to fit it into the time restraint of a theatrical film while also conforming to the three-act structure. But today, I wanted to recommend four music biopics that buck that trend. These are four movies that do things differently painting a picture less of their subjects literal life, but rather a portrait of who they were and the art they made.

I will be starting with the most normal and ending with the weirdest movie of the bunch. Those of you who want to dip their toes into experimental biopics should start off with the first one, but the more adventurous might feel inclined to skip to the bottom, and there’s nothing wrong with either approach as all four are fantastic movies.

Also, I’d like to note that I wouldn’t really consider myself a fan of any of the artists featured in these movies, so being a fan (or even aware of who they are) is certainly not a prerequisite for enjoying these movies.

Love & Mercy (2014) Directed by Bill Pohlad

The dichotomy of an artist is the focus of this unconventional biopic of “Beach Boys” founder Brian Wilson. Switching freely between two periods of time, Love & Mercy juxtaposes Brian Wilson’s abusive conservatorship in the 1980s following a mental health crisis, with his younger days in 1960s creating Pet Sounds, one of the most influential albums of all time. Two actors play Wilson in the film, one for each era. In the 80s, he is played by John Cusack (in what may very well be a career best performance) while the 60s has Paul Dano playing the role. The two actors never interact with each other, and for all intents and purposes are in two separate movies entirely, but it’s through the juxtaposition of these two stories that the film’s meaning comes into view.

John Cusack as Brian Wilson in the 80s an dPaul Dano as Brian Wilson in the 60s. Courtesy of Lionsgate.

The 80s Brian Wilson story features next to no music composing or anything like it, but because you watch Brian make Pet Sounds in the 60s, and the two timelines are interwoven, it is still felt. Knowing who this man was and what artistry he’s capable of makes seeing his battered, helpless state so much more impactful. Similarly, there’s an element of melancholy as you watch his younger self begin to struggle with his failing mental health, knowing it all leads to him ending up in such a horrible place. Aside from its unique execution, one of things that sets Love & Mercy apart is its depiction of Brian’s abusive relationship with Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a psychologist who has Brian under 24 hour supervision. Essentially ruling his life, Landy is exploiting Brian who at this point has become so lost in his own head that he is unaware of how much he’s being taken advantage of. Brian is cut off from his friends, family, or any support and lives his entire life at the discretion of a doctor who claims to be looking out for his patient but clearly is only trying to support himself.

Both versions of Brian feel like completely different people, and that’s exactly why the movie works. You watch present day Brian knowing what he is capable of while also watching young Brian and knowing how poorly things will work out for him once he starts hearing voices in his head. Equal parts tragic and beautiful, this is a biopic I strongly recommend everyone see.

Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) Directed by Francois Girard

Rarely has a title so thoroughly captured what the audience should expect to see in a movie than this one. Modeled after Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a musical piece containing 32 variations of a piece that together paint a cohesive picture, this film uses 32 elements of his life to create a strong, varied portrait of who the famous Canadian pianist Glenn Gould truly was.

These “short films” come in all shapes and sizes. Some are biographical reenactments not unlike most biopics (Glenn Gould is played by Colm Feore in all instances aside from the short film dedicated to his childhood), while others attempt new ways to paint a picture of who Glenn Gould was. Some shorts include interviews with figures who knew Gould both personally and professionally, and their testament of what he was like flesh him out in a different way than the reenactments. From these shorts the audience gets an appreciation for both the public and private life of Gould, but the movie does not stop there.

What Thirty-Two Short Films does better than nearly any other movie of this type is in how it appreciates the artistry of Gould’s work. Multiple short films are dedicated squarely to the music, with shorts including an inside look at Gould’s actual piano while it plays a piece he was known for. Another shows the sound waves emitted from his music, visualizing the sound for the viewer in a way that increases the appreciation for the subtle variations in the music he played. Nearly all the shorts feature piano music performed by Glenn Gould in the background, always giving new examples of what kind of artist he was.

The back of my laserdisc copy of Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, giving a list of each short film and the music featured in each. Also included is a picture of Colm Feore as Glenn Gould.

This film doesn’t sanitize the image of Glenn Gould either. Later shorts begin to emphasize his dependence on drugs and the effect it had on him. One highlight short features an actual diary of one day’s drug usage from Gould set to X-ray footage of the effects of drugs on the body, all while of course playing one of his piano tracks as the soundtrack.

Glenn Gould was a complicated man, so much so that his life necessitated a movie like this in order to properly convey his nuances. A normal biopic would not work nearly as well, and I’m very thankful the filmmakers were aware of this and crafted a worthy movie in his image.

I’m Not There (2007) Directed by Todd Haynes

Essentially Love & Mercy taken to an even further degree (the fact that the two films share a writer is very obvious), I’m Not There distills folk legend Bob Dylan into six different elements, each played by a different actor. Conceptually it is a very difficult film to describe as each character is representative of Dylan but features a different name, and is sometimes modeled after a different person entirely, on top of being a standee for Bob Dylan. The narrative is a compound of each of the characters’ stories told on top of one another. Like with Love & Mercy the meaning of the picture is not found in any one specific story but instead in how each story relates to one another.

Since this film is very difficult to explain in the one page I have allotted myself, I am going to leave you with a brief description of each Bob Dylan featured in the movie and let that speak for itself as to what exactly this movie is and how it characterizes the Folk legend.

The six Bob Dylans. Top row left to right: Marcus Carl Franklin, Cate Blanchett, and Christian Bale. Bottom row left to right: Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

• Christian Bale as Jack Rollins- The early years and the spiritual side of Dylan. Representing Bob Dylan’s early days as a “voice of a generation” protest singer and later conversion to Christianity, through Bale we see how Bob Dylan is never immune to evolution

• Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn- The Don’t Look Back era of Bob Dylan. Blanchett’s performance as a frequently scrutinized rock star putting in so much work to appear unfazed by the world resulted in an Oscar nomination for the actress.

• Marcus Carl Franklin as Woody Guthrie- Bob Dylan as a traveling troubadour. Young Marcus Carl Franklin, an African-American child, plays Bob Dylan as a train-hopping folk artist/man of the people, unable to stay in one spot as he spreads his music across the land like the folk singers of old.

• Richard Gere as Billy the Kid- Bob Dylan as an outlaw. Combining a real historical figure with that of Bob Dylan, Gere’s character is the equivalent of modern-day Dylan, a near mythical figure whose name has been deified while he lives a private life of seclusion

• Heath Ledger as Robbie Clark- Dylan as an icon. Playing a movie star who got famous for playing Bob Dylan, Ledger is a stand-in for Dylan’s Hollywood days and his divorce plotline is reminiscent of the Dylan’s tumultuous relationships throughout the 1960s.

• Ben Whishaw as Arthur Rimbaud- Dylan as a poet. Modeled after the real life poet, this variant is being interrogated and gives cryptic answers to all questions, echoing Bob Dylan’s propensity for never being tied down to one thing, and much like how the movie itself portrays him

Lisztomania (1975) Directed by Ken Russell

Lisztomania (n): the intense fan frenzy directed toward Hungarian composer Franz Liszt during his performances.

I said I’d save the weirdest one for last and if you can find a weirder biopic than this, I’d love to hear it. Ostensibly a biopic of the 19^th century showman and composer Franz Liszt, Lisztomania becomes a vessel for director Ken Russell to channel all the 70s weirdness he can into one feature film. Imagining Liszt as the rockstar of his generation, Russell captures that essence by casting Roger Daltry of “The Who” in the lead role, alongside supporting roles from Rick Wakeman of “Yes” and “The Beatles” own Ringo Starr as the Pope.

Lisztomania primarily focuses on two elements of Liszt’s life, his marriage the Russian Princess Carolyn and a fictional rivalry (with some factual basis) with fellow composer Richard Wagner. As with all aspects of this movie, everything is exaggerated and done in a kitschy, campy way that is focused on the audience’s enjoyment and surrealism instead of being factually accurate.

Princess Carolyn for example is shown as a succubus, living in a palace of phallic shaped structures, whose alluring presence is enough to sway Liszt away from his wife. In Carolyn he looks for a way to revitalize his composing career, and one lengthy dance sequence including a ten-foot penis and a guillotine later, he finds it, but at what cost?

Since there’s so few good pictures of this movie, a gif of Sara Kestleman as Princess Carolyn. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The main conflict of the movie is between Liszt and Richard Wagner, who here is portrayed as a vampiric Nazi, seeking to corrupt Liszt’s music as a way of creating an Übermensch to conquer the world for the Aryan race. Wagner uses his vampire powers to seduce Liszt’s daughter Cosmia to marry him and convert to Nazism (which is something that actually happened, minus the vampire element).

This movie is absolutely insane and I’ve only scratched the surface for the kind of things that happen in this movie. But the weirdest thing is, despite how many anachronistic or just plain not true elements are present in this movie, I still walked away with a much better understanding of who Franz Liszt was compared to before. I really wish there were more movies like this because I thought it was incredibly enjoyable, but outside of the other two composer biopics Ken Russell made in a similar vein, there are not any movies on the same wavelength of Lisztomania.