The recent release of Baz Luhrmann’s much anticipated Elvis (2022) offers the chance to take a closer look at how filmmakers approach the music biopic…

In some ways, the music biopic is a no-win subgenre, especially when the artist is well-known and/or still alive. Filmmakers who present the standard ‘rags-riches-downfall-resurrection’ narrative with a central performance that mimics the subject risk accusations of unoriginality and poor imitation. However, presenting something innovative in the structure, central performance, or both, risks the ire of fans who want to see their musical hero in a positive and authentic light.

Conventional narrative structure

Music biopics often adopt the simple three-act structure common in most Hollywood movies, which comprises the set-up, conflict and resolution, i.e.:

Act I: Establishes the hero’s humble beginnings, their talent, and the forces working against them, as they struggle for their big break.

Act II: The hero experiences the highs and lows of their burgeoning fame, often including a love interest and an addiction / weakness of some kind, leading to their seeming downfall.

Act III: The hero summons up their inner strength and finds a way to resurrect their career, often with the support of a committed partner.

Films that adopt this structure include Ray (2004) about Ray Charles and Walk the Line (2005), which tells the story of Johnny Cash. More recently, we see a similar structure in play in the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect (2021). While the structure might be (overly) familiar, what these films all have in common is that they were critically acclaimed. Films are essentially about conflict and these performers’ stories are filled with inner and outer struggles that make for compelling viewing when dramatized for the screen and paired with exciting musical numbers.

Innovative approaches

Not all music biopics adopt the conventional structure, and there are plenty of examples of more innovative approaches. Love & Mercy (2014) tells the story of Beach Boy Brian Wilson through twin narratives. We follow 1960s Brian as he struggles with his band’s fame, leaves the group, and creates landmark album Pet Sounds, before succumbing to mental health problems. We also have 1980s Brian, who continues to struggle with his mental demons. However, while the two-eras/two-actors approach makes for an interesting and engaging film, ultimately it retains many of the familiar elements of the music biopic, including (prescription) drug abuse and a hero who is saved by a loving partner.  

A more innovative ‘multiple actors playing one character’ music biopic is I’m Not There (2007), which gives us no less than six incarnations of the somewhat elusive Bob Dylan. Each actor represents a different aspect of the singer-songwriter, offering us a multifaceted look at his life and work.

Another innovative approach is to focus on a small part of a performer’s career to present more of a character study than a full-on ‘life of’ biopic. The ‘end of career’ stories are often bittersweet and ripe for reflection, with the subject revisiting the good (and bad) times. A recent example would be Judy (2019), which focuses on Judy Garland’s series of shows in London in 1968 (sadly just a few months before she died at age 46). The film offers brief but emotive flashbacks to her early career as an exploited child actor, which planted the seeds for her later struggles with addiction and her desire for a stable family life. Alternatively, the ‘early years’ biopic shows us the subject pre-fame, which can illuminate a lesser known aspect of a well-known star’s life. For example, Nowhere Boy (2009) brings us the early years of John Lennon. The film ends in 1960, a full two years before The Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, was released.

Another original take is the Miles Davis ‘biopic’ Miles Ahead (2015). I put biopic in hyphenated commas because director, co-writer and lead actor Don Cheadle essentially uses Davis as the protagonist of a made-up story. A fictitious journalist visits a reclusive Davis for an interview and the two of them embark on a wild New York caper involving stolen demo tapes. The brilliance of the film is the way in which Cheadle incorporates key elements of Davis’ real life to both illuminate the subject and give us a sense of how crazy life with the unpredictable Miles actually was; all of it wrapped in a fictional central narrative. It’s worth noting that the Davis family signed off on Cheadle’s approach.

Going even further, there are music biopics that side-step the traditional approach altogether to present something truly innovative. One of the more extreme examples is Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993), which, as the title suggests, gives us a collection of vignettes about the Canadian concert pianist and composer. The significance of 32 is that it’s also the number of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which Gould performed and recorded.

Central performance

One of the keys to a critically acclaimed and commercially successful music biopic is the central performance. Again, there are central performances that aim to imitate the subject and those that take a more innovative approach. Of the films discussed above, there are examples of each. Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, Don Cheadle as Miles Davis, and Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland all turned in imitation-type performances and were highly applauded for their efforts.

Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and both Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian Wilson (at the different stages of his life) turned in equally acclaimed performances that harness the essence of the character rather than trying to mimic the real life subject. As James Mangold, the director of the Cash biopic Walk the Line said, in order for Phoenix to “channel” the subject, he had to “free himself”, both from expectation and the “pressure of mimicry”.

Elvis (2022)

All of this brings us back to Elvis. While Austin Butler has received high praise for his accurate portrayal of Presley, including from the late star’s family, the film has received a mixed bag of comments. One of the more interesting is this opinion piece in Variety by Owen Gleiberman that critiques the film on the basis that it is insufficiently Luhrmann-esque (i.e. highly stylised and innovative, such as his acclaimed Moulin Rouge! (2001)). Essentially, the piece argues that while it is flashy and theatrical, Elvis is basically a conventional music biopic in terms of structure. However, Gleiberman comments that the film keeps its subject at arm’s length by presenting the story through the eyes of Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’ controversial manager. So, the criticism is not that the film adopts a conventional structure per se, just that it’s been presented in a problematic way.

This is why the makers of the music biopic can face a no-win situation. On one hand, there can’t be many people unfamiliar with the story of Elvis Presley, so what’s the point of presenting a conventional biopic, especially one that features a lookalike performance (albeit a good one)? On the other hand, if Luhrmann used the opportunity to push the envelope even further than simply using Parker’s point-of-view, he risked upsetting die hard Elvis fans who just want to see their hero reborn on screen. Ultimately, when it comes to interpreting and dramatizing the life of an icon such as Elvis Presley, you are never going to please all the people all the time.

Final thoughts

The degree to which a filmmaker feels free to innovate seems to be linked to some degree on the status of the subject. Of all the films discussed above, it’s no co-incidence that the most innovative is about the most obscure artist, Glenn Gould. When we watch a film about a widely known artist, believing we are watching the story of their life may be enough to keep us entertained. Whereas, with a lesser-known subject, the audience is maybe less interested in the biographical details and more willing to embrace an experimental approach.

In the end, it’s about interpreting the life of an interesting subject in a compelling way. How filmmakers fulfil this remit is one of the things that make the movies so enjoyable and the debates surrounding them so lively. Throw in the added joy and creativity involved in harnessing the musical performances and the music biopic in all its forms will surely remain an exciting subgenre. Indeed, whatever people’s individual verdicts on Elvis, Baz Luhrmann’s take on The King of Rock and Roll is still guaranteed to be one of the biggest and most talked about films of the year.