HOLLYWOOD has long had a love-hate relationship with biographical movies, which dominate this fall’s release schedule – no fewer than seven major titles fronted by such major stars as Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio.
On the one hand, movies about real people and real events are often subject to brutal factual scrutiny by critics and historians, who invariably complain about omissions and distortions (see “A Beautiful Mind”).
But biopics also carry considerable cachet, leading to Oscar nominations and wins (see “A Beautiful Mind”).
And so we have Depp, who received his first Academy nomination for “Pirates of the Caribbean,” playing the Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie in “Finding Neverland” (Nov. 12).
Delayed for more than a year because of contractual obligations involving last Christmas’ remake of “Peter Pan,” this film focuses on Barrie’s relationships with the real-life brothers who inspired Peter, and their widowed mother (Kate Winslet).
Already there are grumblings that the film ignores some suspicions that Barrie’s behavior with the boys may not have been entirely . . . well, think of Michael Jackson’s Neverland.
Meanwhile, gay historians are fretting that Oliver Stone’s “Alexander”(Nov. 5) -with a blond-bewigged Colin Farrell walking in the sandals Richard Burton once trod in for a terrible earlier biopic of the late, great Macedonian emperor – will give short shrift to Al’s sexual relationship with Hephaistion (Jared Leto).
Though the film is reportedly not as straight-arrow as “Troy,” Farrell has told fans not to expect any guy-on-guy makeout scenes.
And what of the reputedly bisexual leanings of eccentric billionaire
Howard Hughes, whom DiCaprio plays in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” (Dec. 17)?
All we know at this point is that Scorsese’s film focuses on Hughes’ earlier career, when he made aviation history and movies and romanced Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett.)
Of course, this was long before he became a recluse confined to a hotel in Las Vegas.
We have it on extremely good authority that there is steamy gay sex in “Kinsey” (between Liam Neeson -as the groundbreaking ’50s sex researcher Alfred Kinsey – and the always terrific Peter Sarsgaard as Mr. K’s bisexual assistant, Clyde Martin.
A whole different set of credibility issues arises with “Beyond the Sea” (Nov. 24), in which Kevin Spacey, 45, plays singer Bobby Darin, who was 37 when he died in 1973 of a heart condition.
Spacey also directed this labor of love, which depicts Darin’s troubled marriage to Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth), and does his own singing on such Darin classics like “Dream Lover” and “Mack the Knife.”
On the other hand, Jamie Foxx, who portrays singer and composer Ray Charles in “Ray”(Oct. 29), lip-syncs to the recently deceased master’s recordings – and the “Collateral” star is said to give a breakthrough performance as Charles, who challenged Jim Crow laws in the ’50s.
A more controversial icon is the subject of “The Motorcycle Diaries” (Sept. 24), which recounts the true adventures of young medical student named Ernesto Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) as he and a pal encounter the oppressed during an epic road trip through South America in the 1950s. Guevara, of course, later became Fidel Castro’s right-hand man and a Communist martyr, as portrayed by Omar Sharif in the notorious 1969 bomb “Che!” It’s safe to predict that “The Motorcycle Diaries,” which played to universal acclaim at the Sundance and Cannes festivals, is going to fare much better than “Che!”
