Whatever your musical tastes, Hollywood has made a biopic to appeal to you. Rockers can pick from “Bohemian Rhapsody” (about Queen), “Rocketman” (about Elton John) and “Elvis”
(about, well, Elvis Presley). Folk fans have “Walk the Line” (Johnny Cash); soul admirers “Respect” (Aretha Franklin); and reggae enthusiasts “One Love” (Bob Marley). This week “Back to Black” arrives in cinemas in Britain. It traces the life of
Amy Winehouse,
a singer-songwriter who died in 2011, aged 27.
In many ways musicians are a natural subject for film-makers, not least because they appeal to an established audience—crucial in an era of safe bets on screen. The stories often follow a recognisable narrative shape: a prodigiously talented and charismatic youngster ascends to the heights of fame, only to find the view dizzying. They may suffer creatively, fall ill or under the spell of a manipulative manager. They may become addicted to alcohol or drugs. Such tales are a variation on a familiar theme: talented people often pay for their gifts.
But the biopic is a tricky genre for precisely those reasons. It is a challenge to compress an extraordinary life and career into a couple of hours. Many portraits end up as caricatures or seem unsatisfactorily incomplete. (This was a shortcoming in both “Napoleon” and “Maestro”.) Most viewers will have a pre-existing idea of the subject that a film will struggle to do justice to.
In the case of music biopics, this is even more pronounced: a film has to try to capture not just what an artist did, but what they and their work means to fans. Some film-makers shrink from that task and settle instead for a faithful depiction of the star’s biography, backed up by a committed turn from the lead actor.
That is what happens in “Back to Black”. Winehouse’s life is colourfully but dutifully rendered, giving the plot an episodic feel. Young Amy (Marisa Abela) is discovered, gets famous, gets married, and is pulled in and out of addiction. I found myself waiting for certain boxes to be ticked: her taxi-driving father, her tempestuous relationship, the paparazzi, her hit songs “Rehab” and “Back to Black”. Except for a few hints, we don’t really ever see Winehouse writing music, though we do see her listening to some of her influences.
The performances in “Back to Black”, particularly Ms Abela’s, redeem some of these sins; the costumes and cinematography impress, too. But, above all, the soundtrack strikes a poignant chord. As it should: the most successful biopics let the music speak for itself.
Thank you for reading Plot Twist. Which is the best biopic of a musician? Tell us at [email protected].
What to listen to: “Serial”. The war on terror, which began after the attacks of September 11th 2001, was a new sort of conflict against a new kind of enemy. In January 2002 the American government opened a prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, in which to detain suspected terrorists. The latest season of “Serial”—a hit podcast which debuted ten years ago—goes to Gitmo. Alongside Dana Chivvis, Sarah Koenig, the original host, interviews those who ran, and endured, the facility. It is a familiar but unfinished story. Of the 780 people who have been held there since 2002, 30 remain.
What to read: “Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God”. The best non-fiction kindles interest in a subject that you were not interested in before. Catherine Nixey—a journalist at The Economist
and frequent contributor to the Culture pages—achieves that in “Heresy”. It’s a book about early Christianity and how, after the conversion of Constantine, emperor of Rome, in the fourth century AD, divergent forms of the faith, and other religions, were brutally suppressed. It tells a moreish intellectual story and shakes up your understanding of Western history. At the same time, somewhat improbably, it supplies at least one good joke per paragraph; you have to keep turning back to enjoy them again.
