The biopic continues to thrive not only in the cinema but also on TV, on the Arts and Entertainment Network and the Biography Channel, and in docudramas about celebrities, royals, and politicians, as well as on the Internet. By far the most biographized contemporary figure is Princess Diana. But very few celebrities escape media treatment. There is an emphasis on their private lives, highlighting their troubled childhoods, struggles to succeed, fame, marriages and divorces, illnesses, and deaths. The televisual biopic proffers the lives of the famous and infamous by means of "documentary" footage of their lives and times, commentary by their biographers, family members, colleagues, and friends, and, in the case of film stars, clips from their films. The biographies benefit from controversial material, scandals, and conflicts with the law. Thus it seems that the "biopic" is alive and well: the unabated flow of media biography is testimony to its continuing popularity, its profitability, and its responsiveness to changing cultural and social conditions.
SEE ALSO Genre ; Historical Films ; Stars
Altman, Rick. Film/Genre . London: British Film Institute, 1999.
Anderson, Carolyn. "Biographical Film." In Handbook of American Film Genres , edited by Wes D. Gehring, 331โ353. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
Bingham, Dennis. "I Do Want to Live: Female Voices, Male Discourse, and Hollywood Biopics." Cinema Journal 38, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 3โ26.
Custen, George F. Bio/pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.
Davis, Natalie Zemon. "'Any Resemblance to Persons Living and Dead': Film and the Challenge to Authenticity." Yale Review 76, no. 4 (Summer 1987): 457โ482.
Elsaesser, Thomas. "Film History as Social History: The Dieterle/Warner Brothers Bio-pic." Wide Angle 8. no. 2 (1986): 15โ32.
Hanson, Cynthia. "The Hollywood Musical Biopic and the Regressive Performer." Wide Angle 10, no. 2 (1988): 15โ23.
Higson, Andrew. English Heritage/English Cinema . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Landy, Marcia. Cinematic Uses of the Past . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Mann, Glenn, ed. "The Biopic." Biography 23, no. 1 (Winter 2000): vโx.
Neale, Steve. Genre and Hollywood . London: Routledge, 2000.
Schulte-Sasse, Linda. Entertaining the Third Reich: Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi Cinema . Durham, NC: Duke University, 1996.
Stringer, Julian. "Center Stage: Reconstructing the Biopic." Cineaction 42 (1997): 28โ39.
Marcia Landy
Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: