ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
This week, we're talking one of Hollywood's recent obsessions, the music biopic.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MICHAEL")
NIA LONG: (As Katherine Jackson) Michael, I knew you were different the moment you were born. You have a very special light.
SCHMITZ: (Laughter) Which parent does not tell their kid that? This is from the trailer for "Michael" about the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson. It's making its long-anticipated arrival to the big screen. It's just the latest in a stream of films made about musical artists like last year's Bruce Springsteen film, "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE")
PAUL WALTER HAUSER: (As Mike Batlan) So this song got a name?
JEREMY ALLEN WHITE: (As Bruce Springsteen) I was going to call it "Starkweather." But now I'm thinking "Nebraska."
SCHMITZ: The year before that, there were films about Bob Marley, Bob Dylan and Maria Callas, and there will always be more musical biopics to come. Is that a good thing? Our guests today are not so sure. Joining us to discuss is NPR Music's Stephen Thompson, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who produces our Cineplexity segments. Welcome to you both.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: It's great to be here.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Good to be here, Rob.
SCHMITZ: Why has this type of film become so appealing to Hollywood?
RIVERS: Explain it to us, Stephen.
SCHMITZ: Please.
RIVERS: Solve this.
SCHMITZ: It's a mystery to me (ph).
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
RIVERS: This enduring pop cultural problem.
THOMPSON: I mean, look, the reason this type of film has become so appealing to Hollywood is money. They...
SCHMITZ: What?
THOMPSON: A lot of these movies make a ton of money. You talk about "Bohemian Rhapsody." That movie made so, so, so...
RIVERS: Over $900 million at the box office.
THOMPSON: ...So much money. Essentially, they're using famous people as intellectual property. If that person has died, their estates treat their identities like brands. If they're still alive, their identity is still a brand to them. And these movies not only make a lot of money at the box office, but they can prop up a brand. If you look at "Bohemian Rhapsody" and what it did to Queen's catalog on the charts, it did wonders. And so there's a ton of money to be made. "Michael" is expected to make...
RIVERS: It's going to break bank.
THOMPSON: ...Bank. And these movies win awards. You know, Oscars love nothing more than celebrity impersonation and historical drama, and music biopics can check both boxes. And there are a number of music biopics that have produced Oscar-winning performances. What do Oscars translate to? Money.
RIVERS: I like to think of them as almost like Disney films for baby boomers.
THOMPSON: Right. It's intellectual property.
SCHMITZ: Now, you guys both saw the film "Michael" this week.
RIVERS: We were at the same screening. Yeah.
SCHMITZ: OK. Do I - dare I ask what you thought?
RIVERS: It's a con job, man. It's like...
SCHMITZ: (Laughter).
RIVERS: Picture a Michael Jackson fan page come to life doing karaoke, and that's what this movie was. Just - it's the most sand down (ph), by the numbers, no imagination, Bobbie, you can imagine.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MICHAEL")
JAAFAR JACKSON: (As Michael) Just have all these songs in my head.
(As Michael, singing) Don't wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man.
(As Michael) Just got to get them out.
RIVERS: A good test of a biopic and whether it's bad or not is - if you took the music out, would there be a movie?
THOMPSON: Oh, boy.
RIVERS: And there's no movie.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
RIVERS: There's no movie without this music.
SCHMITZ: Really?
RIVERS: And the...
SCHMITZ: I mean, there's like no plot or what? It just went from one...
RIVERS: I mean, it's a Wiki page. You know, we're just kind of hitting all the beats.
SCHMITZ: Hitting all the hits.
RIVERS: And the filmmakers here, you can tell they know they don't have to do much.
SCHMITZ: Right.
RIVERS: The second you hear that baseline to "Billie Jean," they know they've got the audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL JACKSON SONG, "BILLIE JEAN")
SCHMITZ: I mean, this and - you know, we mentioned "Bohemian Rhapsody."
RIVERS: Same producer who did "Bohemian Rhapsody" also did "Michael."
SCHMITZ: That is very interesting.
RIVERS: And, like, both movies start and end basically the same exact way as well.
SCHMITZ: OK, so I could not stand "Bohemian Rhapsody." I sort of cringed throughout that film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY")
MIKE MYERS: (As Ray Foster) Bohemian...
GWILYM LEE: (As Brian May) Rhapsody.
MYERS: (As Ray Foster) Rhapsody - what is that?
RAMI MALEK: (As Freddie Mercury) An epic poem.
MYERS: (As Ray Foster) It goes on forever, six bloody minutes.
MALEK: (As Freddie Mercury) I pity your wife if you think six minutes is forever.
SCHMITZ: I felt like it was canned. I felt like it was sanitized. It was super formulaic. I felt like it was one of these films that these days, you would put a - like, a synopsis in AI, and it would spit that film out to you.
THOMPSON: Complete with many historical inaccuracies (laughter).
SCHMITZ: Right, right. Really, yeah (ph).
RIVERS: Many errors. Yeah.
SCHMITZ: So in "Michael," what were the inaccuracies that y'all noticed?
RIVERS: Well, it's not necessarily about the inaccuracies, though there are certainly plenty. I mean, Janet Jackson did not want to be a part of this film.
SCHMITZ: Right.
RIVERS: So Janet Jackson is just not in it.
SCHMITZ: Right.
RIVERS: It's just like she never existed.
SCHMITZ: The sister is gone.
RIVERS: Yeah.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
RIVERS: And the movie ends sometime in the late 1980s when Michael Jackson is going on this final tour with his brothers. It doesn't even go into all the sexual abuse allegations and controversies that would come in the '90s. This was largely due to legal reasons with the Jackson estate.
SCHMITZ: Right.
RIVERS: One of the problems with movies like this is that the estate is often involved. You're not only trying to placate or please the fanbase. You have to please the family, the estate (ph).
SCHMITZ: So this is like a piece of brand propaganda in many ways.
RIVERS: In a lot of ways, yeah, a brand whitewashing in some cases.
SCHMITZ: Resurrection, yeah.
THOMPSON: I often say on Pop Culture Happy Hour - this is a phrase I've used so many times over the years - that the only thing worse than an unauthorized biography is an authorized biography.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: And that really pervades this film. It leaves out anything potentially unsavory. It leaves out anything potentially controversial.
SCHMITZ: So, Stephen, tell me some examples of maybe films, music biopics, that were actually good, in your opinion.
THOMPSON: Well, music biopics are not necessarily my favorite genre.
SCHMITZ: OK.
THOMPSON: I think when they work well, they work well because of a confluence of strong source material and extremely strong performances. A very magnetic performance at the center of music biopic is going to elevate it. You talk about a movie like "What's Love Got To Do With It" with that, you know, great Angela Bassett performance...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT")
ANGELA BASSETT: (As Tina Turner) I'll give up all that other stuff, but only if I get to keep my name. I worked too hard for it.
RIVERS: And Laurence Fishburne, too, as Ike Turner.
THOMPSON: And Laurence Fishburne, these great performances at that film's center...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT")
LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Ike Turner) The name is mine. The name got my daddy's blood on it. Now, she want to go. She can go wherever she want to go, but the name belong to me.
RUDOLPH WILLRICH: (As Judge) Mr. Turner.
THOMPSON: I actually liked the Bruce Springsteen movie.
SCHMITZ: I love that film, actually.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEBRASKA")
WHITE: (As Bruce Springsteen, singing) They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void, my soul'd be hurled.
SCHMITZ: And I actually don't like Bruce Springsteen that much, but I love that album.
RIVERS: "Nebraska."
SCHMITZ: And I feel like that film, the way - the approach, that it was just based on just one snippet...
THOMPSON: A sliver.
SCHMITZ: ...Of his life.
RIVERS: Yeah.
SCHMITZ: Yeah. And it didn't really explain too much. And it just - like, you were suddenly immersed in his world, which was pretty painful at that time. And it was the making of a really beautiful album, and I kind of liked that. It was just - it wasn't - it didn't try to tell you too much.
THOMPSON: Well, it's not pure hagiography, either.
SCHMITZ: Right.
THOMPSON: It's not trying to elevate him as bigger than he was. And it's also a film about male friendship. It's a film about mental health and kind of how important it is to surround yourself with good people. And so, to me, that's not a simple jukebox musical of the greatest hits of Bruce Springsteen. And that's why I like that film.
RIVERS: And I think of the - going in the opposite direction...
SCHMITZ: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...A film like "Amadeus" from Milos Forman, which was - that's about male rivalry, right?
SCHMITZ: That's right.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "AMADEUS")
RODERICK COOK: (As Count Von Strack) Mozart, you are not the only composer in Vienna.
TOM HULCE: (As Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) No, but I'm the best.
COOK: (As Count Von Strack) Mozart, a little modesty, it might suit you better.
RIVERS: And what I love about that film is that, you know, it doesn't treat history as some kind of, like, you know, stuffy painting to hang up on a wall. Like, it is - he kind of modernizes Mozart in this film.
SCHMITZ: It was very vivid.
RIVERS: Very - yeah.
SCHMITZ: Yeah.
RIVERS: And like, he's kind of like a Mick Jagger type. And F. Murray Abraham plays his wonderful fellow composer Salieri, and his torment, you know, his great pain is that he knows that Mozart is a genius, and he's like, the only one who knows, but he also knows that he's not as good as Mozart.
SCHMITZ: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "AMADEUS")
F MURRAY ABRAHAM: (As Antonio Salieri) Why would God choose an obscene child to be his instrument? It was not to be believed. This piece had to be an accident.
SCHMITZ: Just a great dramatic tension there.
RIVERS: Exactly, yeah.
THOMPSON: Right. That is not a filmed Wikipedia entry. And of course, it is taking a fair bit of historic license, but it's doing so...
RIVERS: There's no Mozart estate to sue Forman.
THOMPSON: Right, exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: And it's doing it for the sake of a larger and more universal story.
RIVERS: Yeah.
SCHMITZ: I wasn't even thinking about "Amadeus" to put in this genre because...
THOMPSON: That's how you know it's good (laughter).
SCHMITZ: Yeah, that's right. So I mean, in many ways, I guess what we agree on here is that a good biopic doesn't try to tell too much. It's not this hagiography. And also, it does obviously require an extremely outstanding lead performance.
RIVERS: And I think also - thinking about a film like "Amadeus," too - is that Forman brings such a creativity and imagination to the subject. And I think about all these more standard biopics, even some of the good ones, where the directors don't try to match the creativity or imagination of their subject, right? They don't even try to aspire to the artistry of a Michael Jackson or a Bruce Springsteen, right? I think, for the most part, these films amount to karaoke with Hollywood production values.
THOMPSON: Right.
SCHMITZ: That is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers and NPR Music's Stephen Thompson. Thanks to you both.
THOMPSON: Thank you, Rob.
RIVERS: Thanks, Rob.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINA TURNER SONG, "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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