From Raging Bull to The Founder: Four rules for making a great biopic
Film critic Zak Hepburn guides us through the rules for making a good biopic — and why some are doomed to fail.
By Patrick Wood
There’s a common belief among film buffs that Hollywood has ran out of original ideas and every new production is now either a remake, based on a book, or tells the story of a real person.
Scriptwriters may baulk at such a suggestion, but there’s no doubting the latter of these — the biopic — is an entrenched part of the industry.
In the last two years alone we’ve seen two interpretations of Steve Jobs’ life on screen. This month Mel Gibson premiered war drama Hacksaw Ridge, based on the life of US medic Desmond T. Doss, and this week The Founder opens, telling the story of the McDonald’s dynamo, Ray Kroc.
Film critic Zak Hepburn guides us through the rules for making a good biopic — and why some are doomed to fail.
1: Describe the world, not just the person
The number one thing any good biopic needs is style from the filmmaker, according to Hepburn.
“You can have an amazingly interesting true-life story, but if you just kind of roll it out on screen in a dry point A to point B fashion, I think it’s very dry for the audience to watch,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
“You need to build the world up and make it arresting for the audience.”
Topping his list for stylish interpretations is Martin Scorsese’s productions Raging Bull (based on the life of boxer Jake LaMotta); Wolf of Wall Street (based on disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort); and Goodfellas (based on former gangster Henry Hill).
“They utilise all other elements of history, like pop culture and how that real-life story was playing out in that period,” Hepburn said.
“Interweaving that pop culture element is really important, because it makes it much more relatable for the audience as well.
“They’re not just coming into an antiseptic personal story, they’re being brought into a world that the character is inhabiting.”
Filmmakers should also feel willing to play with the timeline and find interesting ways to explore a historical figure’s personal evolution, Hepburn said.
His standout pick for this is Todd Haynes’ 2007 film on Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, in which six different actors play the musician at various stages of his life.
“That’s style, because you could just present, ‘Well, Bob Dylan, he’s a singer, he became popular’. But no, you’re looking at it in multifaceted ways, again interjected with culture.”
2: Casting is key
This rule applies to any production, really, but when a film is based around a single figure the casting for that person can make or break it.
Hepburn said Charlize Theron was a standout for her portrayal or serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, and Daniel Day-Lewis went to great lengths for Lincoln (roles they both won Best Actor Oscars for).
“All those major Oscar contender films … are centred by a strong performance by a central actor,” Hepburn said.
“[Day-Lewis] was at the point where he was insisting that he be called Abraham off-set; he was actually living like Abraham Lincoln.”
For Hepburn, it’s a matter of “pedigree” for actors, who might be considered a more prestigious performer if they can accurately depict a living figure.
However, it doesn’t always happen.
“I think Ashton Kutcher definitely was after that playing Steve Jobs in that first role, and then you see the far and away better role that Michael Fassbender did — it was an inherently better piece than the other Steve Jobs film,” he said.
“We also had Grace of Monaco with Nicole Kidman, for example, [and] I really struggled to believe her in that role.
“Mick Jagger playing Ned Kelly in 1970 as well.”
3: Don’t get bogged down in detail
The best films are ones that tell of a life, but don’t feel like they go for a lifetime. This means picking only the best bits to include, Hepburn said.
“We see that with literary adaptations a lot where they have this slavish devotion to the source material,” he said.
“Now obviously you want to have an element of truth, because you’re looking at a historical document, really, with the biopic, but at the end of the day you are making a movie, so you have to have it engaging as a narrative.”
At more than three hours, Oliver Stone’s JFK was a culprit (“An interesting film, but it’s so dense”), as was 2014 WWII drama Imitation Game (“It looked at a lot of period details that didn’t really need to be touched on”).
For Hepburn, the biggest trap for filmmakers is to create a chronological biography rather than a biopic.
“That’s a dangerous game to play,” he said.
“We don’t live in a linear life, everything’s kind of all over the shop, people come back into it, you think about the past, you think about the future.
“It’s not just: this happened, this happened, this happened.”
Similarly, less can often be more these days.
“It can just show a small part of someone’s life,” Hepburn said.
“The upcoming film Jackie looks at that crucial period after the assassination of Kennedy, it doesn’t look at her whole life, which I think is also important.”
4: The subject doesn’t need to be famous
This rule might seem the most counter-intuitive, given the film is relying on a central figure to draw in the audience.
However, it splits two ways.
“I think you can do two things: you can have that champion biopic where you’re looking at a historical figure that everyone’s familiar with and they want to see the filmmaker’s take on it; or it’s a filmmaker bringing a new story to the world,” Hepburn said.
Often it’s finding a unique individual within a well-known context that can strike a chord.
“Touching on The Founder, you’re working within that framework, because anyone who has been to a McDonald’s restaurant, the odds of them knowing who Ray Kroc is are very, very slim,” Hepburn said.
“But now this is shining a light on something that is known, but completely unknown, which is very important too.”
Also adhering to this rule is the 2007 biopic Control, which tells the story Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, and arguably introduced his music to a new generation.
“I think Hacksaw Ridge has also done that to an extent, because I certainly hadn’t heard of the central character and obviously that’s been in the media so much it’s become an interesting story,” Hepburn said.
