The Passion of the Biographer

It is still Tuesday. Interesting.

Or rather, it is already Tuesday! So let's roll!

We watched Pollock, the movie, this weekend. Big mistake. Huge. And right after we had ordered a Pollock reproduction for on the wall, an unmatched jungle of high-order gravitational strokes, denser than Sven's prickles and Florian's leafy sprawls (that's our other plant). Luckily one of us at least – Mimi – has read Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut and can still appreciate the Abstract Expressionists and their potato barns. Fiction is a much more interesting – not to say, plausible - version of reality than facts. The movie about Jackson Pollock was like a documentary without the voice-over. Biographical movies are prone to this disease. There may be a few things better than a good read or a movie – not many. But there are certainly a lot of movies better than biographical movies.

We've been working on a little theory as to what makes a good biographical movie. One thing is clear, it's not the biographee that makes the movie: There exist perfectly good movies about unknown, mostly fictional people.

Here are some very good movies based on the lives – or important moments in the lives – of real, more or less famous people:

“Amadeus” (W.A.Mozart): Where dedicated musician Salieri is consumed by his envy and admiration towards the repugnant genius.
“The Downfall” (A.Hitler): The last days in the bunker through the eyes of a naïve secretary.
“Last King of Scotland” (Idi Amin dictator of Uganda): A young doctor overwhelmed by the gravitational field of insanity.
“Ali” (Mohammed Ali): Dances like a butterfly, stings like a bee!
“Frida” (Frida Kahlo): The passion of the painter through, well, paintings and wonderful music.
“Marie Antoinnete” (Marie Antoinnette, Last Queen of France): Reckless youth.
“The Hours” (V.Woolf): The writer has to kill, or die, or both.

And here are some embarrassing movies that we wouldn't recommend to anyone we like:

Pollock (Jackson Pollock): An autistic painter, whose paintings somehow make everyone swoon but don't sell?? No? Hmm...
Ted and Sylvia (Sylvia Plath): Sylvia falls in love, cries, cleans up after Ted, cries, is jealous, cries, ...??
Everything about Marilyn Monroe: It always seems to be about a blond with a back problem and a very particular make-up style.
The Aviator: Some epos about somebody.
The Journalist: Cate Blanchet amongst adults is always a bad idea.

So, have you seen any of the above movies? Do you agree with us? Any additions to our lists?

And what's the theory?

Well, right now we have to leave you - we'll continue tomorrow or sometime. This session is open for discussion!