Where does the music biopic go from here?

by Josh Rosenthal

When the 97th Academy Awards were held in early March, I was a bit surprised when “A Complete Unknown”—a biopic about Bob Dylan that I actually quite enjoyed—didn’t win any of the eight awards it was nominated for. 

Even when bolstered by Timothée Chalamet’s electrifying performance as Dylan, the film was rejected by the same Academy that bestowed accolades upon other films of a similar caliber, like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Judy” in the late 2010s.

Despite being more prolific than ever, are music biopics finally falling out of favor?

Just in the past few years, an onslaught of movies have been released that dramatize the lives of everyone from Elvis Presley to Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse to Robbie Williams, and Bob Marley to Whitney Houston. 

Most of these movies fit into a tired formula that makes for an underwhelming watch, especially when that formula has already been skillfully satirized by comedies like “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.”

I feel like this over-saturation has completely exhausted me when it comes to musician-centered films, even when it comes to artists whose music I really enjoy—and I can imagine that I’m not the only one who shares this sentiment. 

What can these movies do to ensure that prospective viewers don’t reject them at face value?

Personally, I find that I am most interested in music biopics that center around a specific period of time in an artist’s life—whether that entails diving into their recording process behind a popular album or their preparations for a certain concert.

This approach allows music biopics to avoid the pitfalls of simply regurgitating a chronological string of facts about an artist’s life that any viewer could just easily glean from their Wikipedia page. 

Another way these movies can stand out is by challenging the formulaic tendencies that audiences have come to expect through experimentation. For example, I was impressed by the fascinating stylistic choices in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” that allowed the viewer to step directly into the haunted psyche of Maria Callas in her final days. 

Furthermore, music biopics should make the most of the valuable opportunity they have to highlight an artist’s lesser-known music instead of just playing their greatest hits. When it comes to musicians that possess such extensive and unique discographies, it’s frustrating when films about them fail to include any of their deep cuts.

While music biopics aren’t going away any time soon, if they hope to continue captivating audiences and vying for awards season attention, the least they can do is aspire to match even a shred of the creativity of the artists they are capturing.