Here’s a little more “inside AudioPhix” to start your day. You get an idea for an article – let’s just say “ten great musical biopics.” Your first step is to jot down all the titles that immediately leap to mind. Then, you do a bit of internet scouring, looking to see what you’ve missed – what others have routinely cited as the best in the field. You filter that new information through your own lens and come up with a long list of titles.
Then the fun begins. You curate. Maybe you rule out a couple of extremely popular, well-known candidates because they are already at the top of about a hundred other lists. I mean, do you really need to read another listicle that tells you Jerry Rice was the greatest receiver of all time, or that Seinfeld was the best sitcom? (The first example, by the way, is inarguable. The second – I’m beginning to have my doubts.)
So maybe you give some bonus points to some entries a bit off the beaten path. Mongrels and mutts that deserve a little more love. Then, if you’re lucky, maybe you even find a theme. Maybe you find a common thread that links the individual components so that you may end up with something more than a random collection of titles linked under a broad umbrella. Maybe you find meaning.
10 excellent musical biopics you definitely need to watch
Sadly, but not the least bit surprisingly, the common thread I found when putting together my list of greatest musical biopics is madness. There may be an exception or two – a subject who perhaps didn’t struggle with mental health issues, but whose life was nonetheless tragic. I’m not a trained health professional – nor have I read enough random internet articles (I believe the requisite minimum number is currently set at one) – to offer any worthwhile opinion about the nature of the madness.
In the movies I will be writing about, madness appears to have at times been brought on by external factors, such as poverty or substance abuse. Other times, it appears to have been stitched directly into the genes. Perhaps the furthest I can go is to say that creating great art often requires the artist to confront demons, and if that artist has a few chinks in the psychic armor, or maybe just some bad luck, that process can result in tragic results.
Here are ten great musical biopics, some of which you may know, but many which may be new to you. At least I hope so. I hate to be…you know…obvious.
POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPPING (2016)
The brilliant, incisive, and tragic story of Connor Friel told by Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer takes a deep dive...Sorry, I’m just funning you. Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island boys did make a great music biopic, but since it is about an entirely made-up figure and played for outlandish comedy, I guess it doesn’t qualify. If it did, I’d have to also include Dewey Cox, Stillwater, and the granddaddy of them all, Spinal Tap, on my list.
DRAMA No. 1
CONTROL (2007)
The thing that plagues musical biopics more than anything else is the producer. Oftentimes it is someone intimately involved with the subject who in turn tends to clean up and soften said subject. That was a major complaint about Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s why Sacha Baron Cohen dropped out of the Freddie Mercury project. It’s why Dr. Dre’s early issues with women never show up in Straight Outta Compton. It’s why David Helfgott practically comes off as cute in Shine.
I don’t think any of those are bad movies, but I have a hard time calling any of them great because of how they sanitize their subjects.
This is decidedly not true of Anton Corbijn’s tragic account of the life of Ian Curtis, frontman of Joy Division before his suicide at age 23 in 1980. Even though the film was based on Ian’s ex-wife Debbie’s book, and even though Debbie served as a co-producer, the movie remains brutally honest about the demons that hounded one of the most important innovators of post-punk. Sam Riley made his film debut and won awards across the board for his performance as Curtis. Samantha Morton played Debbie.
DRAMA No. 2
BORN TO BE BLUE (2015)
Born to Be Blue, Robert Budreau’s stirring biography of jazz legend Chet Baker, came out in the States on the same day as Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis movie. Miles Ahead got more attention. Born to Blue is a significantly better movie. Ethan Hawke gave the best performance of his career to that point in portraying Baker as he attempted a comeback after heroin addiction derailed his career.
His Baker is infinitely charming and infinitely selfish, almost completely reliant on the devoted members of his inner circle to see him through his troubles. That inner circle is mostly comprised of Carmen Ejogo (in a dual role) and Callum Keith Rennie as his friend and producer.
True to the jazz at the heart of his story, Budreau jumps around in time, mixing black & white flashbacks seamlessly into the narrative. It was a technique Cheadle also attempted in the Miles Davis movie, but it didn’t work as well, in part because of a rather cumbersome cops and robbers plotline stitched into Miles Ahead.
By the way, Davis shows up as a character in the Baker movie, rather ominously as it turns out, played by Kedar Brown. (By the way, pt 2 - there’s a very good documentary about Baker from 1988 called Let’s Get Lost – just in case you prefer that kind of thing.)
DRAMA No. 3
BLAZE (2018)
Speaking of Ethan Hawke, a few years after starring in Born to Be Blue, he took to the director’s chair to tell the story of Blaze Foley, a lost hero of the country singer/songwriter community. Hawke, who is himself a musician, had already directed a documentary about reclusive classical pianist Seymour Bernstein four years earlier. In that movie, Hawke could not seem to resist inserting himself into the story. He does a much better job of remaining detached in Blaze, despite having a brief cameo.
Foley was a large man with a soft heart who could never seem to catch a break. He was barely recognized outside his small circle of friends during his lifetime. Bad luck seemed to follow him like a stray dog, right up until the time of his death, when he was shot and killed while trying to intervene in a dispute between a friend and the friend’s son. Despite that hard life, Foley’s songs show off his outstanding warmth for the common folk, along with some laugh-out-loud wit.
Singer Ben Dickey, whose only acting had been a small role in another Hawke film a dozen years earlier, does an outstanding job as Foley, and Hawke called on a host of friends for cameos, including Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn, and director Richard Linklater. Alia Shawkat plays Foley’s lover, and Charlie Sexton plays Townes Van Zandt, one of Foley’s close friends who nonetheless displayed a degree of callousness to Foley’s struggles.
There’s a great story associated with Foley that is not part of the movie. John Prine did not know who Foley was when he heard his most famous song “Clay Pigeons.” Prine loved it and wanted to record it – which he did in 2005. When he said that had never heard of Blaze Foley, he was told by a friend that he in fact did know him. Prine knew him as “Deputy Dawg,” a big old friendly dude Prine occasionally hung out with at clubs and bars back in the mid-70s. Prine had no idea Deputy Dawg had the wherewithal to write a song as good as “Clay Pigeons.” Seems that people overlooked Blaze Foley his entire life.
DRAMA No. 4
BOLDEN (2019)
Bolden is not an easy movie. Then again, Buddy Bolden’s life was not easy. Bolden, who was instrumental in the early development of the jazz cornet, suffered from acute alcohol psychosis and spent the last 24 years of his life in an asylum. At least, that’s the common belief.
Dan Pritzker’s movie about Bolden’s life calls some of that into question. There is no doubt that Buddy Bolden was highly gifted and deeply troubled. An institution may have been the best place for him. But he was done no favors by a society that had no clue how to deal with this troubled genius and a legal and medical system that didn’t have much interest in him.
As with the Chet Baker movie, Bolden attempts to incorporate jazz rhythms into its very structure. The movie jumps around. A lot. This put off some viewers who had trouble following the narrative. So did the drab, almost unbearable asylum scenes that play like a horror film. But the film has an intoxicating power, especially if you are eager for stories of musicians that don’t follow a cookie-cutter chronology.
From the asylum, Bolden’s memories are frequently triggered by a radio broadcast of some young kid named Armstrong playing his horn, and there is the definite suggestion that Buddy Bolden opened the door for Louis Armstrong to walk through. It’s hard to know since there are no extant recordings of Bolden’s cornet. Gary Carr stars, in a tour de force performance.
DOCUMENTARY No. 1
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSON (2005)
There may have never been a movie that examines the line between artistic genius and mental illness as effectively as Jeff Feuerzeig’s deep dive into the life and times of the barely recognized Daniel Johnson. It is something that the fictional account of Brian Wilson’s life, Love & Mercy, attempted to do and got about half right. Bill Pohlad’s 2014 movie about the genius behind the Beach Boys struggles in a way that is all too common for movies that skip around in time. One part of Love & Mercy (the Paul Dano sections) is excellent. Another part (with John Cusack) is less successful.
Feuerzeig doesn’t have that problem because he’s got all Daniel Johnson, practically from birth. The prolific artist appears in a seemingly endless supply of home movies from his youth to his present. We see the progression from a skittish young man to a skittish recluse, tormented by religion-themed nightmares that may have fueled his art, but simultaneously crushed his psyche. You can hear Johnson’s quirky tenor on many of his own recordings, or you can hear the hundreds of covers from artists big and small, including Tom Waits, Wilco, Beck, and Yo La Tengo (who accompany Daniel’s vocals on “Speeding Motorcycle.”)
Then there is a haunting Death Cab for Cutie take on Johnson’s “Dream Scream.” The Devil and Daniel Johnson may not convince you Johnson was the genius his fanbase believes him to be. It did not convince me of that. But it remains a fascinating account of a unique artist while raising serious questions about the interplay between creation and madness.
DOCUMENTARY No. 2
MARLEY (2012)
The recent dramatic film Bob Marley: One Love fell victim to what often plagues biopics. It seemed to please fans of the reggae legend by sticking to a broad palette, playing as a greatest hits album often does. For anyone looking to go deeper – to gain a better understanding of the icon than you could simply get by reading an internet article or two, check out Scottish director Kevin McDonald’s documentary.
McDonald was fortunate to get cooperation from Marley’s family, so that his wife Rita, and several of his children, including son Ziggy, offer their insights into his life. There is a wealth of personal material – photos and film footage – to supplement the talking heads. But even though Ziggy and Bunny Wailer do serve as producers on the project (along with eight other people not affiliated with Marley), McDonald is able to maintain an even-handed perspective. He clearly admires Marley as both a performer and a public influencer, but this never becomes hagiographic.
And of course, there is plenty of great music. The movie runs almost two-and-a-half hours, but with the music and the performance, as well as the fascinating insights we get into Marley’s life, it never feels long.
DOCUMENTARY No. 3
A BAND CALLED DEATH (2012)
In early 2013, a movie about a long-lost Detroit musician won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. It was called Searching for Sugar Man. There was another documentary about a long-forgotten Detroit band the same year, and it tells an equally fascinating story.
But the movie A Band Called Death, about – as you have no doubt guessed – a band called Death, never got the same attention. Death was comprised of three brothers, Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney. They loved the hard rock music of the Who and the Rolling Stones and set out to do their own version, even louder and faster than their heroes. There was just one problem. The Hackney brothers were black.
Black musicians in the mid-70s didn’t play rock and roll. In fact, since the death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970, very few black musicians played rock and roll anywhere. In Detroit, home of Motown, it was even more daunting. But the Hackneys persisted.
During the lifetime of the oldest brother and guitarist David, they mostly failed to gain attention. Then decades later, they were rediscovered. Directors Mark Covino and Jeff Howlett use archival footage and extensive interviews with Bobby and Dannis to make a fairly convincing case that Death was as much a proto-punk godfather as the Sex Pistols or Ramones. David died in 2000, but thanks to the movie, Death lives on.
DOCUMENTARY No. 4
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? (2015)
Liz Garbus’ penetrating exploration of Nina Simone’s life and career is a very bold document. The movie was authorized by Simone’s family, and her daughter Lisa offers some very pointed commentary on the mother she loved and struggled to understand. The movie begins in Switzerland in 1976 as we watch Nina Simone’s attempted comeback from a partly self-imposed purgatory. She is a fascinating character – very guarded, and nervous, yet still fierce and formidable. Much of the rest of the movie sets out to explain how she came to this point.
Simone speaks a lot in the movie, and we see very clearly how she tended to respond confrontationally – even violently – to provocation. She had difficult, abusive relationships throughout her life. She also had extraordinary musical gits, apparent from an early age.
As she developed her own brand of blues-jazz fusion, she also willingly dove into political conflict, knowing full well that it would likely damage her career. And damage it did. Which is why we find her with shields up in Switzerland in the mid-1970s. Garbus’s movie does a remarkable job of peering behind those shields at a fascinating musician and a fascinating life.
EXPERIMENTAL No. 1
SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1987)
Fresh out of Brown University, and pursuing his Masters at Bard College, Todd Haynes got this odd notion. He would chronicle the life and tragic death of pop superstar Karen Carpenter in a short film, and he would use Barbie dolls to portray the characters. Now, part of this was purely practical. After all, who are you going to get to portray Karen Carpenter? But the gimmick suited the story to a tee.
Karen, as you may know, was a drummer. She preferred sitting hidden behind her kit. She didn’t necessarily object to singing, but she was never comfortable standing out in front. That was not permissible in the 1970s (and it still may not be today), so she was effectively forced to be something she was not. The parallels to the way Barbie was force-fed into the culture are apparent.
To this day, it remains difficult to see Haynes’ 43-minute movie. The Carpenter family didn’t like it. Haynes didn’t bother with music releases. (Music releases, by the way, are the single most complicated legal issue in any movie. If you ever hear of a film’s release being delayed, the culprit is invariably music releases.) It keeps popping up on YouTube and then being pulled. If you do come across it, watch it. It is well worth the 43 minutes.
EXPERIMENTAL No. 2
THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD (1993)
A lot of the movies on this list have been about jazz musicians. In attempting to capture something as visceral, and messy and improvisational as jazz, filmmakers often resort to oddball structures, eschewing linear narratives. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Glenn Gould was not a jazz player. He was a classical pianist who revolutionized both performance and theory throughout the middle of the 20th century.
Director Francois Girard, whose subsequent films would star Peter Gabriel (Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live), and a violin (The Red Violin), uses varied techniques through a series and interlinked vignettes to capture the unique artistic essence of the man. Colm Feore portrays Gould as a man of eclectic interests and tastes, and Girard understood full well that traditional narrative structure could not do him justice.
Incidentally, twenty years after Superstar, and fourteen years after …Glenn Gould, Todd Haynes tried a similarly fragmented approach in his Bob Dylan movie, I’m Not There. That film, which is adored by many critics, does not make my list, and it isn’t simply because I think it is already fairly well known. I just don’t think it works all that well. It seems very uneven to me, with some of the vignettes hitting home runs and others barely managing foul tips. It just goes to show that this kind of experimental structure is very difficult to pull off, even for a filmmaker as talented as Todd Haynes.