Celebrities Go Real
Earlier this year we saw great American actor Ed Harris playing the imitable
composer Beethoven in Copying Beethoven; post-Virginia Woolf in The Hours,
there is Oscar-buzz again for Nicole Kidman in Fur, playing another female
artist who took her own life tragically early, photographer Dinae Arbus. And
Fantastic Four’s Ioan Gruffudd is also earning accolades for his portrayal of
real life historical figure William Wilberforce, an English gent turned
anti-slavery crusader, in Michael Apted’s bio-pic Amazing Grace.
Bio-pics (from “biographical pictures”) are as consistent a staple in our
cinematic diet as book adaptations and romantic comedies. Every year sees the
release of a good number of such movies based on the lives of others, with some
awesome performances turned in by ‘brand name’ and ‘no name’ actors alike…
Perhaps one of the most underrated is Basquiat (1996), a bio-pic about the life
and times of New York graffiti artist-turned-80s-art-star, Jean-Michel
Basquiat. Actor Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale, Broken Flowers) gives a
career-defining performance as the young artist struggling with fame, substance
abuse and a life that exceeded his dreams. David Bowie also gives a hilariously
eccentric performance as disaffected art-superstar Andy Warhol, rivalled only
by that of Crispin Glover as Warhol in The Doors, an equally accurate an
imitation of life. (Let’s see how Guy Pearce goes playing the late pop art
‘celeb’ in Factory Girl, out later this year).
Basquiat works so well because an artist directed it; painter Julian Schnabel
made his directorial feature debut with Basquiat. His follow up was another
biographical depiction of an artist - this time a writer - and was lauded
further. Before Night Falls (2000) depicted the life and early death of Cuban
poet and novelist Reynaldo Arenas. Graceful, poetic, moving and so colourful,
it earned Spanish actor Javier Bardem a Best Actor Oscar nomination, and made
the Best Film Lists of just about every critic for that year. Audiences also
loved it.
Aside from Beethoven, Ed Harris has also played his fair share of real life
characters on the big screen. In Philip Kaufman’s superb space-race epic The
Right Stuff (1983), Harris space-suited up as real-life astronaut John Glenn.
Sweet Dreams (1985) has him swap his helmut for a stetson as country singer
Patsy Cline’s husband Charlie Dick, and Pollock (2000) – which Harris directed
and starred in – won him a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the ‘king of
drip’, pioneering modernist painter Jackson Pollock. Go Ed.
Musicians and their brilliant yet sordid lives have often made for eccentric
bio-pics and performances from their stars. Val Kilmer is famously known for
saying he was visited by the spirit of Jim Morrison playing the “lizard king”
on the set of Oliver Stone’s 1991 bio-pic The Doors (where he was as famously
out-acted by Crispin Glover in the scene mentioned earlier). Jessica Lange gave
it her all in Sweet Dreams (1985) playing Patsy Cline as did Sissy Spacek as
Patsy’s sister country singer Loretta Lynn in Michael Apted’s beautiful Coal
Miner’s Daughter (1980), winning her a Best Actress Oscar…
And lest we forget punk; Sex Pistols front man John Lydon decried Sid and Nancy
(Alex Cox’s 1986 imagining of the life of bass player Sid Vicious and his
girlfriend Nancy Spungen), as “nonsense” and “the lowest form of life”. Be that
as it may, the scene where they’re kissing in a back alley with garbage falling
from the heavens is a stellar cinematic moment where the filth and the fury of
Vicious’ existence transcended into poetry, even for those brief few moments.
Long live artistic license I say…
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
