Following the release of Sam Taylor-Johnson's Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black, Cinema Paradiso explores how popular singers have been depicted on screen.
Ever since the coming of sound in 1927, film-makers have fixated on famous singers. The early 'soundies' featured some of the biggest names of the day crooning their hits for the camera. A century later, films about singers are just as popular as they ever were, with biopics of stars from across the musical genres ringing box-office tills and drawing nominations at the major award ceremonies.
Classical and Theatrical
Perhaps the earliest historical singer in the Cinema Paradiso vaults is Blondel de Nestle, who was played by Iain Gregory opposite Dermot Walsh in the BBC series, Richard the Lionheart (1962-63). However, the celebrated voices of the centuries prior to the Victorian era have seldom interested film-makers, although there are plenty of intriguing stories to be told about the likes of I7th-century Italian castrato, Baldassare Ferri, and Letitia Cross, the Drury Lane star who was the mistress of Peter the Great during his stay in London.
However, we take up the story again with Jenny Lind, whose career was celebrated by Grace Moore in Sidney Franklin's A Lady's Morals (1930). Wallace Beery played P.T. Barnum in this early talkie and, when he reprised the role in Walter Lang's The Mighty Barnum (1934), Virginia Bruce essayed the Swedish Nightingale. More recently, of course, Hugh Jackman starred as Barnum in Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman (2017). But, while Rebecca Ferguson appeared as Lind, it's Loren Allred's singing voice you can hear on 'Never Enough'.
Swedish diva Helga Görlin portrayed Lind in Gustave Edgren's period drama, John Ericsson, Victor of Hampton Roads (1937), while Erna Berger did the singing for Ilse Werner in Peter Paul Brauer's wartime biopic, The Swedish Nightingale (1941), which traced the singer's romance with Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. He was played here by Joachim Gottschalk and by Kieran Bew, opposite Flora Montgomery's Lind in Philip Saville's Hans Christian Andersen: My Life As a Fairytale (2003).
Rumour has it that Lind made a recording for Thomas Alva Edison's Phonograph. But the first singer of note to leave a sizeable legacy of recordings was the Italian lyric tenor, Enrico Caruso. He was also among the first singers to become a film star, with Paramount's Jesse Lasky paying him $100,000 to headline the Edward José duo of My Cousin and The Splendid Romance (both 1919). However, the first flopped so badly that the second was never released. Mario Lanza took the title role in Richard Thorpe's The Great Caruso (1951). Sadly, few of his films are available on disc - in spite of his pivotal role in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994) - and it's a shame no one has thought to bring his tempestuous life story to the screen. However, you can learn more about him in Alan Byron's documentary, Mario Lanza: The Best of Everything (2017).
We've already mentioned Grace Moore, who can be glimpsed in Hollywood Singing and Dancing: The 1930s (2008). More of her work should be available on disc, however, as should Gordon Douglas's biopic, So This Is Love (1953), which stars the wonderful Kathryn Grayson. The same goes for Robert Z. Leonard's Beautiful But Dangerous (1955), a life of Italian opera soprano Lina Cavalieri that earned Gina Lollobrigida the prestigious David di Donatello Award for a performance that got the custodians of the Hollywood Production Code hot under the collar because of a particularly passionate love scene.
As we switch from opera to musical theatre, we should just mention some of the splendid songwriting biopics that Hollywood produced in the middle of the last century. Too few are available to rent, as musical tastes have changed so much, but do keep an eye out for Don Ameche as Stephen Foster in Sidney Lanfield's Swanee River (1939), Robert Alda as George Gershwin in Irving Rapper's Rhapsody in Blue (1945), Robert Walker as Jerome Kern in Richard Whorf and Vincente Minnelli's Till the Clouds Roll By, Cary Grant as Cole Porter in Michael Curtiz's Night and Day (both 1946), Tom Drake and Mickey Rooney as Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in Norman Taurog's Words and Music (1948), and Nat King Cole as W.C. Handy in Allen Reisner's St Louis Blues (1958).
We hark back to the period after the American Civil War to see how a small-town girl (played by the ever-watchable Alice Faye) took Broadway by storm in Irving Cummings's Lillian Russell (1940). But many of the Golden Ages's showbiz biopics centred on the Great White Way in the heyday of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, whose career is celebrated in the Robert Z. Leonard duo of The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Girl (1941). Among those to get their start in the Follies was Ruth Etting, who is played by Doris Day opposite James Cagney as gangster manager Moe 'The Gimp' Snyder) in Charles Vidor's Love Me or Leave Me (1955). For a full survey of Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff's remarkable career, see Cinema Paradiso's article, Getting to Know Doris Day.
Cagney had won the Oscar for Best Actor for his vigorous turn as vaudeville legend George M. Cohan in Michael Curtiz's Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Larry Parks was nominated for the same award for miming along to Al Jolson's inimitable vocals in Alfred E. Green's The Jolson Story (1946). This fanciful variation on fact was followed by Henry Levin's Jolson Sings Again (1949). But only Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer (1927) is available on disc for Cinema Paradiso members to see a showbiz icon at his zenith.
Curiously, while we can offer you Lillian Roth in Victor Heerman's Marx Brothers gem, Animal Crackers (1930), and in Howard Bretherton and William Keighley's prison drama, Ladies They Talk About (1933), we currently can't get hold of Daniel Mann's biopic, I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), which saw Susan Hayward add an Oscar nomination to her Best Actress triumph at Cannes.
Also off limits for now are Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan as Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth in David Butler's Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944), June Haver as Marilyn Miller in David Butler's Look For the Silver Lining (1949), and Susan Hayward as radio sensation Jane Froman in Butler's With a Song in My Heart (1952). But how about clicking on Michael Curtiz's The Helen Morgan Story (1957) to see Ann Blyth play the singer/actress alongside Paul Newman as bootlegger Larry Maddux? You could also double it up with Morgan reprising her famous stage role of Julie LaVerne in James Whale's Show Boat (1936).
Perhaps the pick of these old-style biopics is William Wyler's Funny Girl, which saw the debuting Barbra Streisand share the Oscar for Best Actress with Katharine Hepburn for her performance in Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter (both 1968). Omar Sharif co-stars as gambler Nick Arnstein, while James Caan played songwriter-cum-impresario Billy Rose when Streisand returned to the role of Fanny Brice in Herbert Ross's Funny Lady (1975). We can't help with Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Crime Without Passion (1934), but Brice did cameo in each of the aforementioned Ziegfeld pictures.
Also on the books is Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones (1954), which features a stellar title performance by Dorothy Dandridge, who is played by Halle Berry in Martha Coolidge's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (aka Face of an Angel, 1999). It's disappointing that no one has released Sidney Lumet's Lady Sings the Blues (1972), as Diana Ross is superb as Billie Holliday, as is Andra Day in Lee Daniels's The United States vs Billie Holiday (2021), which focusses on the 'Strange Fruit' singer's victimisation by the Federal Department of Narcotics, an episode also covered in James Erskine's documentary, Billie (2019). This would make a harrowing double bill with Liz Garbus's What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), although you could also watch Zoe Saldana in the title role of Cynthia Mort's biopic, Nina (2016).
If you're in the mood for something a little off-key, there's always Meryl Streep picking up her 20th Oscar nomination in Stephen Frears's Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), which could be paired up with either Donald Collup's Florence Foster Jenkins: A World of Her Own (2007) or Xavier Giannoli's Gallic variation on the story, Marguerite (2015), which contains a poignant performance from Catherine Frot. Compatriot Marion Cottillard won the Oscar for Best Actress for her work as Édith Piaf in Olivier Dahan's La Vie en Rose (2007). The Little Sparrow can be seen in Jean Renoir's French Cancan (1954), but Édith et Marcel (1983), Claude Lelouch's account of the romance between Piaf (Évelyne Bouix) and boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jacques Villeret), is proving a little elusive for now. The same is true for Joseph Vilsmaier's Comedian Harmonists (1997) and Alberto de Zavalía's The Life of Carlos Gardel (1939), which stars Hugo del Carril as the tango king whose name is appropriated by José Coronado's character in Victor Erice's unmissable drama, Close Your Eyes (2023).
Bending the rules slightly, we're going to include Michael Radford's The Music of Silence (2017), as Andrea Bocelli clearly based the character of Amos Bardi (Toby Sebastian) in the 1999 source novel inspired by his own youth. But there's only one place to end this section, as Cinema Paradiso has numerous features, concerts, and TV specials showcasing the one and only Judy Garland. Renée Zellweger won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her interpretation in Rupert Goold's Judy (2019), which combines the events surrounding Garland's sold-out shows in London in 1968 and her recollections of making Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) at MGM as a teenager (played by Darci Shaw). What's more, Zellwegger does all her own singing, with her Garland matching that of Jane Horrocks in Mark Herman's Little Voice (1998), although she can also do Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe, and Gracie Fields, whose career we covered in Topping the Music Hall Bill.
Country Folk
Woody Guthrie was one of America's most influential singer-musicians, as his Dust Bowl songs of the 1930s helped popularise hillbilly and folk. The Oklahoma troubadour is played by David Carradine in Hal Ashby's adaptation of Guthrie's semi-fictionalised autobiography, Bound For Glory (1976), which was notable because Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler supervised the first Steadicam shots in a Hollywood feature. The same year saw the release of Gordon Parks's Leadbelly (1976), which starred Roger E. Mosley as Huddie Ledbetter, who used the name Lead Belly when fusing gospel, folk, and the blues with his 12-string guitar.
Sadly, this is out of reach for the moment, as is Gene Nelson's Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), one of three biopics of the Country and Western pioneer, Hank Williams. George Hamilton essayed the Hillbilly Shakespeare on screen, but his vocals were provided by Hank Williams, Jr. The singer's problems with drink and pills are addressed more rigorously in two recent pictures, Harry Thomason's The Last Ride (2011) and Marc Abraham's I Saw the Light (2015). Henry Thomas headlined the former, while Tom Hiddleston came to the fore in the latter, which not only chronicles Williams's meteoric rise to the top, but also his troubled marriage to Audrey Mae Sheppard (Elizabeth Olsen) and his tragically sudden death at the age of 29.
Thirty year-old Patsy Cline also came to an untimely end, when her plane crashed in March 1963. She was one of the first great female country stars, although her success placed severe strain on her relationship with second Charlie Dick (Ed Harris), as is revealed in Karel Reisz's Sweet Dreams (1985), which earned Jessica Lange an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She lip-synched to original recordings. But, having been personally chosen by Loretta Lynn, Sissy Spacek did her own vocals in winning the Oscar for Michael Apted's Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), which featured Beverly D'Angelo as Cline. Charting Lynn's life from its humble origins as one of eight kids in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, the film turns around her struggle to balance her musical commitments with raising a family with Doolittle Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones).
Lynn continued singing until 2017, holding her own against such newcomers as Barbara Mandrell (Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story, 1997), Tammy Wynette (George and Tammy, 2022), Helen Reddy (I Am Woman, 2019), and Dolly Parton (Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors, 2014). Cinema Paradiso has a good Dolly mixture from which to choose, including Colin Higgins's 9 to 5 (1980) and Herbert Ross's Steel Magnolias (1989), as well as several musical showcases. By all accounts, Parton is also planning a biopic and has mentioned Kristin Chenoweth as a possible lead.
We have even more Johnny Cash on offer for discerning users, with concert pictures and documentaries sitting alongside such acting gigs as Bill Karn's Five Minutes to Live (1961) and Lamont Johnson's Gunfight (1971). However, Joaquin Phoenix proves almost as good as the Man in Black himself, as he plays and sings all his own numbers in James Mangold's Walk the Line (2005), which not only charts Cash's breakthrough at Sun Records, but also his romance with fellow singer, June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, but Phoenix lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman for another biopic performance in Bennett Miller's Capote.
Cash was a huge influence on Bob Dylan and they share the bill in Murray Lerner's concert picture, Festival! (1967), which was released the same year as D.A. Pennebaker's seminal Dylan doc, Don't Look Back. Cinema Parasido's extensive Dylan collection includes actualities and concert classics like Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978), as well as acting excursions in the likes of Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) and Larry Charles's Masked and Anonymous (2003). Such an eclectic selection is topped off by Todd Haynes's I'm Not There (2007), which has Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett covering different aspects of Dylan's storied career.
Scorsese brushed shoulders with Dylan again in Rolling Thunder Revue (2019). But he won't be helming the forthcoming biopic, as James Mangold will direct Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, which will centre on the controversy that erupted when Dylan went electric in 1965. Cinema Paradiso users will have to be patient for this one and share our frustration that we can't currently bring them either Daniel Algrant's Greetings From Tim Buckley (2012), which stars Penn Badgley, or Ethan Hawke's Blaze (2018), which sees Ben Dickey take on the role of Blaze Foley, who was a leading light in the Texas Outlaw Music movement before he was shot dead at 39. The best-known singer from this cabal must be Willie Nelson, who has yet to be given the biopic treatment. However, Cinema Paradiso has plenty of documentaries on its books, along with acting turns in the likes of Burt Kennedy's Once Upon a Texas Train (1988) and David Mamet's Wag the Dog (1997). Another country stalwart with some fine acting credits to his name is Kris Kristofferson, who can be seen opposite Barbra Streisand in Frank Pierson's A Star Is Born (1976) and Isabelle Huppert in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980).
Goodness Gracious
The closest that rock'n'roll will get to an origins story is Darnell Martin's Cadillac Records (2008), which harks back to Chicago in 1947, as Polish immigrant Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) sets up a record label. Among those who would record for Chess Records were Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker), and Chuck Berry (Yasiin Bey). A biopic of the latter is long overdue, but the same is true of Fats Domino, Bill Haley, and Little Richard. Beau and Jeff Bridges and John Ritter were all linked in the 1970s with playing the kiss curl crooner who can be seen in the Fred F. Sears double bill of Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock (1956).
The same year saw Little Richard steal Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It. Leon Robinson played Richard Penniman in Robert Townsend's 2000 teleplay, Little Richard. As a couple of recent documentaries have revealed, the flamboyant rocker had a troubled private life and the same goes for Jerry Lee Lewis, the Ferriday Fireball who ramped up the tempo in Jack Arnold's High School Confidential! (1958). The Killer was played to the hellraising hilt by Dennis Quaid in Jim McBride's Great Balls of Fire! (1989), which co-starred Alec Baldwin as Pastor Jimmy Swaggart and Winona Ryder as Myra Gale Brown, the cousin Lewis married when she was 13 years old.
Hard as it may be to imagine now, there was a time when Jerry Lee seemed set to become more popular than Elvis Presley. Cinema Paradiso has already covered the musical movies that The King made for MGM in 'Elvis Presley on Screen'. This article also touched on classic moments like the 1968 Comeback Special and the many documentaries available about the hip-swinging truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi. There are also plenty of biopics, starting with John Carpenter's Elvis (1979), which featured Shelley Winters as mother Gladys and Pat Hingle as Colonel Tom Parker, opposite an electrifying Kurt Russell as Presley.
Since we posted this piece, however, two more insights into Presley's public and private lives have been released to considerable acclaim. Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022) landed eight Oscar nominations, including those for Best Picture and Best Actor for Austin Butler, who excels opposite Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom. The Australian connection continued when Jacob Elordi was cast as Elvis alongside Cailee Spaeny in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (2023), which reveals that all was not sweetness and light at Graceland.
Priscilla Presley had an acting career of her own, notably spending five years as Jenna Wade in Dallas (1978-90). She might have been a Bond girl had her schedule not clashed with the shooting of John Glen's A View to a Kill (1985). But, while Priscilla was denied the chance to co-star with Roger Moore, she did get to team three times with Leslie Nielsen as Jane Spencer and Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988), The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), and Naked Gun 33?: The Final Insult (1994).
According to Don McLean's 'American Pie', 2 February 1959 was the day the music died, as Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson perished in a plane crash at Clear Lake, Iowa. The latter is yet to be the subject of his own biopic, but he was respectively played by Gailard Sartain and Stephen Lee in Steve Rash's The Buddy Holly Story (1978) and Luis Valdez's La Bamba (1987). Gary Busey earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the bespectacled genius from Lubbock, Texas, while Lou Diamond Phillips excelled as the 17 year-old Chicagoan who had a hit with a Mexican folk song. Stuart Benjamin, who produced La Bamba, is currently working with Mario Van Peebles on a new Buddy Holly biopic, That'll Be the Day, which shouldn't be confused with the 1973 Claude Whatham 50s rite of passage of the same name that teamed David Essex and Ringo Starr.
Roy Orbison nearly lost his life in a motorbike accident. But he bounced back and even starred in Michael D. Moore's comic Western, The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967). The Big O is well overdue a biopic (although sons Alex, Roy, and Wesley were working on one a few years ago), as are Don and Phil Everly, whose sublime singing style is celebrated in George Scott's The Everly Brothers: Harmonies From Heaven (2016). But we can bring you Beyond the Sea (2004), which shows how Walden Robert Cassotto overcame childhood health problems to become bobbysoxer idol, Bobby Darin. Kevin Spacey directs himself. But do tap in Darin's name to see how he developed into a decent actor in the likes of John Cassavetes's Too Late Blues (1961) and Pierre Rouve's Stranger in the House (1967). Cut from the same crooning cloth, Pat Boone could also act, as can be seen from Henry Levin's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959). Boone turns 90 on 1 June 2024, so there's plenty of time to get round to that biopic.
Sixties Swingers
The music scene was transformed by British beat groups in the 1960s, although there was little sign of a global takeover during the late 1950s, as we saw in 'The Golden Age of British Pop Musicals'. There's much to love about such singers as Adam Faith, Cliff Richard, Billy Fury, and Marty Wilde, who all followed Elvis's example by starring in cosy movies like Edmond T. Gréville's Beat Girl (1959), Sidney J. Furie's The Young Ones (1961), Michael Winner's Play It Cool (1962), and Michael Carreras's What a Crazy World (1963), which also featured Joe Brown.
As you'll see from the Cinema Paradiso searchline, Tommy Steele also made a number of films. But he's the only singer from this period to have starred in a biopic while still in his twenties, with Gerard Bryant's The Tommy Steele Story (1957) taking the Bermondsey Boy from his humble roots to the Café de Paris. Although the subject of Nick Moran's Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2008) was a producer, he was briefly a force to be reckoned with, as he worked with the likes of The Tornadoes, Billy Fury, Gene Vincent, Jess Conrad, John Leyton, and Screaming Lord Sutch. Given that the latter founded the Official Monster Raving Looney Party and enlivened British politics for 15 years, he would seem to be eminently worthy of his own biopic.
Since we brought you 'The Beatles in Film', much has happened where the screen careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are concerned. Most notably, Peter Jackson unleashed his bag of editorial tricks on the footage shot in January 1969 to produce the epic documentary, The Beatles: Get Back (2021). News has since come through that Paul and Ringo have agreed with Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison to restore Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original Oscar winner, Let It Be (1970). This should be available from Cinema Paradiso later this summer, but we'll all have to be patient for the interconnected biopic quartet that Sam Mendes is currently planning.
In the wake of Sean Ono Lennon's involvement in the Oscar-winning animated short, War Is Over (2023), there are also rumours of a new drama about John and Yoko to go with the many TV-movie versions referenced in the above article. Be warned, however, this may well vary from May Pang's account of events in the early 1970s contained in Eve Brandstein, Richard Kaufman, and Stuart Samuels's compelling documentary, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story (2022). In the meantime, we'll point you in the direction of Sam Taylor-Johnson's Nowhere Boy (2009), which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the young John Lennon, and Iain Softley's Backbeat (1994), which recreates the thrill of early Fabs performances at The Cavern and Hamburg venues like The Star Club thanks to an off-screen band comprised of Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, Mike Mills, and Greg Dulli.
Ian Hart played Lennon here and in Christopher Münch's The Hours and Times (1991), which explored his relationship with manager Brian Epstein. His often troubled life will be the subject of Joe Stephenson's forthcoming Midas Man (2024), which features Darci Shaw as Cilla Black. The onetime Cavern cloakroom attendant was superbly played by Sheridan Smith in Paul Whittingham's Cilla (2014), in which Epstein was played by Ed Stoppard. Whither, however, the films about Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Sandy Denny, and Mama Cass Elliot?
Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson were born two days apart in June 1942. The tortured genius behind The Beach Boys is played by Paul Dano and John Cusack in Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy (2014). In addition to showing Wilson crafting the 1966 masterpiece, Pet Sounds, the film also covers his struggle to escape from the controlling grip of therapist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) in the 1980s. Hopefully, we'll soon be able to bring you Disney's new documentary on the Californian combo, Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny's The Beach Boys, which is due to premiere on 24 May.
Emerging around the same time as The Beach Boys, albeit on the opposite coast, The Four Seasons enjoyed whirlwind success during the early 60s. Adapted from the four-time Tony-winning play, Clint Eastwood's Jersey Boys (2014) follows the fortunes of Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young), Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda), and Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza). As their star waned, the manufactured quartet of Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork found fame as The Monkees. Their cult TV series (1966-67) is available from Cinema Paradiso, along with a couple of documentaries and Bob Rafelson's Head (1968), a mind trip that boasts cameos by Victor Mature and Annette Funicello, the former Disney Mousketeer who had joined Frankie Avalon in the beach romps directed by William Asher, who was also behind the much-loved sitcom, Bewitched! (1964-72).
Such were the restrictions placed on television broadcasts at the time that The Rolling Stones and The Doors were each asked to tweak song lyrics to avoid giving offence to the armchair audience. As the Stones are still very much a working band, who prefer the documentary to the dramatic format, there has yet to be a biopic. Cinema Paradiso users can access over 60 Stones-related titles via the searchline, including Michael Lindsay-Hogg's The Rolling Stones: Rock and Roll Circus and Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy For the Devil (both 1968). They can also catch profiles like Danny Garcia's Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones (2019), but they'll have to wait for Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill's Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg (2023) to end its theatrical run before it comes to disc. Mick Jagger has acted in several features, including Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance (1970), while Keith Richards took an amusing cameo in Rob Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).
Also available is The Doors and The Rolling Stones, which pairs two 1969 films, The Doors Are Open and The Stones in the Park. While Jagger acquiesced in singing 'Let's Spend Some Time Together' on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967, Jim Morrison refused to say 'Girl, it couldn't get much better' instead of 'Girl we couldn't get much higher' in performing 'Light My Fire'. This episode is recreated with relish by Val Kilmer in Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991), which centred on the provocative frontman's relationship with Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan).
In dying in Paris in 1971, Morrison joined the infamous 27 Club, whose members also include Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, as Simon Napier Bell recalls in 27: Gone Too Soon (2018). Joplin's brief flirtation with fame is recalled in Amy Berg's Janis: Little Girl Blue, which appeared around the same time as Mavis! (both 2015), Jessica Edward's compelling portrait of Mavis Staples.
Jimi Hendrix was the same age when he overdosed in London in September 1970. Events leading up to this tragic demise are corralled by Leon Ichaso in Hendrix (2000) and John Ridley in Jimi: All Is By My Side (2013), in which the Seattle-born guitarist is respecively played by Wood Harris and André Benjamin. Cinema Paradiso also has several Hendrix documentaries to view, but he's at his peak in D.A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop (1968) and Mike Wadleigh's Woodstock (1969).
Whole Lotta Soul
Dudley Smith's W.C. Handy celebration, St Louis Blues (1929) included the only screen appearance of the great Bessie Smith, who was played by Queen Latifah in Dee Rees's estimable HBO biopic, Bessie (2015). Neither this nor George C. Wolfe's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020), starring Viola Davis as 'the Mother of the Blues', is currently available on disc. But Cinema Paradiso can bring you Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance as blues icon Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's Ray (2004), which traces the battle against the odds of a singer who lost his sight at the age of nine. Foxx lip-synched to recordings, but he captured Charles's distinctive gait and head-rolling singing style.
Regina King also impresses as Margie Hendricks, a key member of Charles's backing group, The Raelettes. King directed Leslie Odom, Jr. as Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami... (2020), which was the subject of one of Cinema Paradiso's What to Watch Next articles. But a decade has passed since anyone heard about Carl Franklin's Cooke biopic or Romeo Antonio's account of his motel shooting at the age of 33. Jonathan Majors legal problems seem to have put paid to a proposed Otis Redding biopic, while What's Going On, the Marvin Gaye biopic announced in 2021, appears to have stalled because director Allen Hughes has opted to move on to a Snoop Dogg drama, instead.
Back in 2020, Kat Graham was linked with a biopic of tragic Motown singer Tammi Terrell, who duetted with Gaye on 'The Onion Song'. However, she has since signed up to play Diana Ross in Michael, Antoine Fuqua's biopic of Michael Jackson, which is due for release in April 2025. Despite nephew Jaafar Jackson taking the title role, Fuqua has promised that his profile will cover the 'the good, bad, and the ugly' aspects of the singer's complex life and career. Controversy also ripples through Karen Arthur's The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992), which was based on Katherine Jackson's 1990 autobiography, My Family, and contains archive performance clips between the dramatic re-enactments.
The seedier side of life was also evident in Tate Taylor's Get On Up (2014), as Chadwick Boseman excels in showing how James Brown pulled himself up from poverty and prison to become 'the Godfather of Soul' and 'the Hardest Working Man in Show Business'. Boseman's physical impersonation of Brown is exceptional and the same is true of Angela Bassett, who embodies Tina Turner's all-energy stage style in Brian Gibson's What's Love Got to Do With It? (1993). For all her success, however, Tina had to cope with the controlling violence of musician husband, Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne), as she testified in Daniel Lindsay's Tina (2021). And Aretha Franklin (Jennifer Hudson) also had to negotiate an abusive situation with her preacher father, C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker), as Liesl Tommy reveals in the biopic, Respect (2021). However, the tense nature of the relationship is also evident in Sydney Pollack's Amazing Grace (2018), a long-suppressed record of a 1972 concert at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Note the unexpected arrival of Mick Jagger, who would go on to co-produce Get On Up.
Angela Bassett went behind the camera to direct Whitney (2015), which examines the relationship between Whitney Houston (Yaya DaCosta) and Bobby Brown (Arlen Escarpeta). The roles would be taken Naomi Ackie and Ashton Sanders in Kasi Lemmons's Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022), which centres on Houston's bond with Arista Records boss Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci). Also among Cinema Paradiso's Houston titles is Nick Broomfield's Whitney: Can I Be Me? (2017), which would make for a fine double bill with either Kurt and Courtney (1998) or Biggie and Tupac (2002). There has yet to be a biopic of Kurt Cobain, although Gus Van Sant came close with Last Days (2005), n which Michael Pitt's Blake bore an eerie resemblance to the Nirvana singer.
Also worth catching is David Heilbroner and Dave Wooley's documentary, Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over (2021), which includes a section on Warwick's relationship with her niece. Houston also acted in the likes of Mick Jackson's The Bodyguard (1992) and Forest Whitaker's Waiting to Exhale (1993). Prince also starred in Albert Magnoll's Purple Rain (1984) and the self-directed trio of Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Sign 'o' the Times (1987), and Graffiti Bridge (1990). But we will have to wait a while for the biopic based on first wife Mayte Garcia's record of their relationship that now appears to have Ryan Coogler attached to direct.
The Glam Brigade
Two pop cultures collided when Ringo Starr directed Marc Bolan in the offbeat documentary, Born to Boogie (1972). With his corkscrew hair and glittery make-up, Bolan was the leading light in what came to be known as Glam Rock. Cinema Paradiso carries several documentaries about the T.Rex frontman, the most recent being Ethan Silverman's Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T. Rex (2022).
James Cade played Bolan in Gabriel Range's Stardust (2020), which stars Johnny Flynn as David Bowie. Few pop icons can boast the socio-cultural impact that Bowie had following his appearance singing 'Starman' on Top of the Pops in 1972. We have dozens of documentaries about 'the Thin White Duke', as well as such concert gems as D.A. Pennebaker's David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust (1972). Members can also check out such acting assignments as Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983), which co-starred Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose remarkable career is recalled in Stephen Nomura Schible's documentary, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017).
Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno were among those who followed in Bowie's footsteps, with the latter collaborating on the epochal 1977 album, Low, which was produced during a sojourn in Berlin that is shortly to be the subject of Gabriel Range's Lust For Life, which will also centre on Bowie's friendship with Iggy Pop. We have a decent selection of Iggy discs, too, including his underrated acting gig in Toby Tobias's Blood Orange (2016).
Todd Haynes put his own spin on Bowie's heyday in Velvet Goldmine (1998), which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the flamboyant Brian Slade and Ewan McGregor as outrageous American rocker, Curt Wild. More intriguingly, at the start of his career, Haynes used Barbie dolls to make Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1988), a 43-minute experimental treatise on the pressures of fame that was blocked by Richard Carpenter because the combo's music had been used without permission. Karen Carpenter had one of the purest voices in pop history and her 1983 death from an eating disorder at the age of 32 was tragic in the extreme.
Reg Dwight has survived his share of scares down the years, as Elton John redefined the word 'flamboyant' with his stage costumes in the 1970s. His life story is told with executive produced approval in Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman (2019), which stars Golde Globe winner Taron Egerton as Elton and Jamie Bell as his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin. Cinema Paradiso has plenty of Elton titles to choose from, including his Oscar-winning contribution with Tim Rice to Disney's The Lion King (1994). But we feel duty bound to point you in the direction of his turn as the Pinball Wizard in Ken Russell's Tommy (1975).
Elton wasn't the only keyboard king in the 1970s, however, as Edgar Wright reveals in The Sparks Brothers. This splendid documentary about Ron and Russell Mael should be watched in tandem with Leos Carax's Annette (both 2021), which features the siblings (who also wrote the script) in the opening segment teeing up the relationship between stand-up comic Adam Driver, wife Marion Cotillard, and their uniquely gifted daughter.
Reggae legend Bob Marley was played by Kingsley Ben-Adir in Reinaldo Marcus Green's Bob Marley: One Love (2024), which has been riding high in the British box-office charts. Following the Jamaican's rise from the early 1970s to his death at the age of 36 in 1981, the film uses original recordings and co-stars Lashana Lynch as wife Rita Marley and James Norton as Chris Blackwell, the founder of the groundbreaking Island Records label. Susanne Rostock has already made the admirable documentary, Sing Your Song (2011), but let's hope that someone gets round to making a biopic of calypso king and Civil Rights activist Harry Belafonte, whose acting credits include Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) and Sidney Poitier's Buck and the Preacher (1972).
Cinema Paradiso members just need to tap names into the searchline to find DVDs and Blu-rays relating to such prog rock bands as Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Yes, as well as heavy metal titans like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. Fronting the latter was Ozzy Osbourne, who is surely due a biopic to follow on from Mike Fleiss's documentary, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne (2011). This would go down well alongside Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski's Lemmy (2010), which profiles the Hawkwind and Motorhead bassist, Lemmy Kilmister. Another biopic begging to be made would examine the love triangle involving George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, and Eric Clapton, who gets a touch of the confessionals in Lili Fini Zanuck's Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars (2017).
Female rockers of the 1970s owe much to Suzi Quatro, who is the subject of Liam Firmager's documentary, Suzi Q (2019). Sister Patti Quatro pays tribute to a pioneering all-girl group in Bobbi Jo Hart's Fanny: The Right to Rock (2021), who also influenced rebellious Californian teenager Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), whose no-nonsense band is celebrated in Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (2010), which also features Michael Shannon as record producer Kim Fowley.
It would be nice if Bill Pohland's Dreamin' Wild (2022) became available, as it tells the remarkable story of Donnie (Casey Affleck) and Joe Emerson (Walton Goggins), who became famous three decades after they had recorded an album as teenagers. But more than adequate compensation comes in the form of Bryan Singer's Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), which brought Ramy Malek the Academy Award for Best Actor for his strutting turn as Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of glam's greatest band, Queen. With Gwilym Lee as guitarist Brian May, Joe Mazzello as bassist John Deacon, and Ben Hardy as drummer Roger Taylor, this fitting, if fitfully formulaic tribute does leave one wondering how it might have turned out had it been made in 2010, when Sacha Baron Cohen was slated to play Freddie.
Punk and Rap
It's getting on for half a century since punk rocked the British establishment in the mid-1970s. Pivotal provocateurs John Lydon and Joe Strummer feature in Don Letts's The Punk Rock Movie (1978), while Johnny Rotten is also front and centre in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), which was directed by Julien Temple, who returned to life at the sharp end of a safety pin in the 2007 documentary, Sex Pistols: There'll Always Be an England. The story ended tragically, however, as Alex Cox recalls in Sid & Nancy (1986), in which Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb excel as the combustible duo of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
Derek Jarman captured the spirit of the times in Jubilee (1978), which starred Toyah Willcox (who has an impressive array of acting credits) and is available from Cinema Paradiso along with several documentaries featuring such punk stalwarts as The Ramones, The Clash, The Stranglers, New York Dolls, Siousie and The Banshees, and The Slits, who are remembered in William E. Badgley's Here to Be Heard: The Story of The Slits (2017). Debbie Harry has identified Miley Cyrus as the perfect person to play her in a Blondie biopic and they are bound to be queuing up to essay the X-Ray Spex singer profiled in Celeste Bell and Paul Sng's Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (2021).
Record shop owner Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer) is the subject of Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn's Good Vibrations (2012), which paints a thrilling picture of Belfast at the height of punk - a topic that also informs Richard David's On Resistance Street, which features Hooley in a discussion of punk's political aspects that is just about to his UK cinemas. Speaking of Irish rock, keep an eye out for Emer Reynold's wonderful Phil Lynott: Songs For While I'm Away (2020) and J.J. Abrams's forthcoming series on U2. Also expect biopics of Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O'Connor following their untimely deaths and the documentaries, Crock of Gold (Julien Temple, 2020) and Nothing Compares (Kathryn Ferguson, 2022).
Andy Serkiss will forever be associated with Gollum in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings trilogy' (2001, 2002 and 2003). But he gives one of the best performances of his career as Ian Dury in Mat Whitecross's Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010), which flashes back to recall a childhood struggle with polio that features Ray Winstone as Dury's dad and Toby Jones as a detested doctor. Equally quirky when it comes to lyrics is David Byrne, the Talking Heads frontman, whose ideas inspired the self-directed True Stories (1986) and whose songs are showcased to perfection in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984) and Spike Lee's David Byrne's American Utopia (2020), which is essential viewing for any fans of live music.
Although Culture Club had their chart success, Boy George let his fashion sense do much of the talking in making himself a national treasure in the 1980s. George O'Dowd's long and winding road is followed Douglas Booth (with Mark Gatiss's Malcolm McLaren as a travelling companion) in Julian Jarrold's Worried About the Boy (2010) and rumour has it that a second outing, entitled Karma Chameleon, is also in the pipeline. Gary and Martin Kemp from New Romantic icons Spandau Ballet had acted as kids and they acquit themselves capably as Ronnie and Reggie in Peter Medak's The Krays (1990). Luke Goss has also proved to be a solid actor, although his rivalry with brother Matt makes for much more entertaining viewing in Joe Pearlman and David Soutar's Bros: After the Screaming Stops (2018). When it comes to simmering sibling feuds, however, they have much to learn from Noel and Liam Gallagher, who just about kept a lid on their animosity during their Oasis heyday, as Mat Whitecross recalls in Supersonic (2016).
The punch-up on the red carpet alone would justify the making of a Gallagher biopic. But Madchester has already furnished us with some memorable musical moments, most notably in Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People (2002), which stars Steve Coogan as TV personality-cum-impresario Tony Wilson, whose Hacienda Club and Factory Records label brought Joy Division to the fore. Photographer Anton Corbijn turned his hand to film directing with Control (2007), which seeks to fathom the demons that haunted the band's singer-songwriter, Ian Curtis, who is poignantly played by Sam Riley opposite Samantha Morton as wife Deborah. Corbijn would also direct the Depeche Mode documentary, Spirits in the Forest (2019), which is as frustrating a miss on disc as Steve Read and Rob Alexander's Gary Numan: Android in La La Land (2016).
Indie rock gets its moment in the spotlight in Nick Moran's Creation Stories (2021), which was scripted by Irvine Welsh and fronted by his Trainspotting mucker, Ewen Bremner, who captures the pugnacity of Glaswegian Alan McGree, whose Creation Records was home to Primal Scream, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and Oasis. And before you throw your arms up and curse because your favourite singer or band hasn't had a mention, type their names into the searchline. There may not be a biopic, but you'll be surprised by what else can be found among Cinema Paradiso's 100,000 titles.
The same goes for rap, with the four-part series Through the Years of Hip Hop (2001) providing a decent introduction to its socio-cultural evolution. This is a boom sector in documentaries, although there are also a number of must-see biopics. First up is F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton (2015), which chronicles the emergence from South Central Los Angeles of NWA. Ice Cube is played by his son, O'Shea Jackson, Jr., with Corey Hawkins as Dr Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Neil Brown, Jr. as DJ Yella, and Aldis Hodge as MC Ren. Paul Giamatti also appears as manager Jerry Heller in a picture that boasts Ice and Dre as producers, Ren and Yella as creative consultants, and Eazy-E's widow, Tomica Woods-Wright, as a co-producer.
Jamal Woolard was cast as Christopher Wallace (aka gangsta rapper The Notorious B.I.G.) in George Tilman, Jr.'s Notorious (2009), which co-stars Angela Bassett as his Jamaican mother, Violetta. With Anthony Mackie as Tupac Shakur, Derek Luke as Sean 'Puffy' Combs, and Naturi Naughton as Lil Kim, this account of Biggie's meteoric rise culminates in his senseless killing on 9 March 1997 at the age of 24. Six months earlier, Tupac had been slain at the age of 25 in a drive-by shooting. He's portrayed by Demetrius Shipp, Jr. in Benny Boom's All Eyez on Me (2017), which saw Woolard reprise the role of Biggie Smalls, alongside Kat Graham as Jada Pinkett and Dominic L. Santana as Suge Knight, the founder of Death Row Records who takes centre stage in Nick Broomfield's Last Man Standing (2021).
Johnny Depp plays LAPD detective Russell Poole investigating Biggie's murder in Brad Furman's City of Lies (2018). But we'll end our hip-hop survey with Charles Stone III's CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story (2013), which stars Keke Palmer as Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas, Drew Sidora as Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins and Lil Mama as Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, who was killed in a car crash at 30, while volunteering with a children's charity in Honduras. Very much a film that should be on disc in the UK.
All Together Now
Two winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature encapsulate the trials of the jobbing singer. The members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus get to enjoy the spotlight in Allie Light and Irving Saraf's In the Shadow of the Stars (1991), while backup singers like Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Jo Lawry, Claudia Lennear, and Tata Vega tell it as it is in Morgan Neville's 20 Feet From Stardom (2013). But film-makers tend not to make biopics about backing vocalists, while Bollywood has so far resisted making movies about such legendary playback singers as Mohammed Rafi, Ahmed Rushdi, and the sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.
Fleeting sensations are a different matter, of course, with Belgian Jeannine Deckers being the subject of two biopics. Debbie Reynolds played Sister Ann in Henry Koster's The Singing Nun (1966), while Cécile de France took on the role of the 'Dominique' chanteuse in Soeur Sourire (2009), which was directed by Stijn Coninx, who also made Marina (2013), which stars Matteo Simoni as Rocco Granata, who moved Italy as a small boy and became a huge star in Belgium.
Thanks to 'Je t'aime...moi non plus', his notorious 1969 hit with Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg will be much better known to Cinema Paradiso users. He's played by Eric Elmosnino in Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg (2010), which co-stars Lucy Gordon as Birkin and Laetitia Costa as Brigitte Bardot, for whom the saucy ditty was originally written. Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir have lined up Tahar Rahim to headline the forthcoming biopic, Monsieur Aznavour, and Cinema Paradiso members can sample a handful of Charles Aznavour's films while waiting, including François Truffaut's Shoot the Pianist (1960). No one has yet biopic'd Maurice Chevalier, Charles Trenet, Sacha Distel, or Jacques Brel. But showman Claude François has been played by Jérémie Renier in Florent-Emilio Siri's Cloclo (2012).
Everyone will be familiar with his most famous song, 'Comme d'habitude', which was reworked by Paul Anka as 'My Way'. This became a late-career anthem for Ol' Blue Eyes, whose ups and downs are charted with Francis Albert's own narration in Alex Gibney's impeccable documentary, Frank Sinatra: All or Nothing At All (2015). This is on a par with Peter Bogdanovich's Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (2007) and Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011). Scorsese has long been trailing a Sinatra biopic with Leonardo DiCaprio, although he seems to have been distracted by the prospect of having Jonah Hill play Jerry Garcia in a picture about The Grateful Dead. Maybe he will also get round to profiling regular collaborator Robbie Robertson, whose time in The Band is recalled by Daniel Roher in Once Were Brothers (2019).
There are many singer biopics currently in the works. Angelina Jolie and Valeria Golino are due to play Maria and Yakinthi Callas in Pablo Larraín's Maria, which will follow on from Franco Zeffirelli's Callas Forever (2002), Tony Palmer's Callas (2007) and Tom Volf's Maria By Callas (2017). Director Lee Daniels is lining up Elijah Kelley to headline an eight-part series on Sammy Davis, Jr., which one can only hope makes it to disc in this country after the failure to do so of Tom Donahue's Dean Martin in King of Cool (2021).
Maimouna Doucouré is preparing to write and direct a biopic about the dynamic Jazz Age icon, Josephine Baker, while Eddie Murphy is in talks to play the 'Godfather of Funk', George Clinton. Elsewhere, Ridley Scott has taken over from Kenneth Branagh in being linked with a currently untitled Bee Gees biopic, while Roger Daltrey is said to have finished work on a life of Keith Moon, the hard-partying drummer of The Who, who was going to be played by Mike Myers in a 2005 picture that never reached the studio floor. Adam Ripp is also attached to write and direct Piano Man, in spite of the fact that Billy Joel has refused permission to use any of his music.
Who knows whether Robbie Williams will get to entertain us in Michael Gracey's Better Man (2024), which will see the onetime Take That member share the lead with Jonno Davies. But, in January 2023, George Michael's estate quashed Daily Mail tattle about Theo James signing up to play the non-Andrew Ridgeley side of Wham in an £85 million biopic. Sadly, we can't bring you Donald Austin's George Michael: Freedom Uncut (2017) or Chris Smith's Wham! (2023). But there are other docs, concert recordings, and greatest hits compilations to pick from.
A regular in documentaries about the Chelsea Hotel and The Velvet Underground (such as Todd Haynes's 2021 profile ), German singer Christa Päffgen is better known by her stage name, Nico. She is played with quiet tenacity by Trine Dyrholm in Susanna Nicchiarelli's Nico, 1988 (2017), which is well worth a UK release. But we can bring you Bradford May's Madonna: Innocence Lost (1994), a TV-movie that casts Terumi Matthews as the force of musical nature making her way from Detroit to the pinnacle of pop. Insights into the Ciccone character abound in Alek Keshishian's In Bed With Madonna (1991), but it will be fascinating to see how much she chooses to reveal of herself if she ever gets round to making Little Sparrow, which Madonna has co-written with Erin Cressida Wilson after an initial draft by Diablo Cody. Florence Pugh, Julia Garner, Alexa Demie, Odessa Young, and Emma Laird have all been linked with the lead.
Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is the subject of Gregory Nava's Selena (1997), which sees Jennifer Lopez on Golden Globe-nominated form, as the action flashes back from the Houston Astrodome to chart a rise from a family band and a tragic fall at the hands of former fan club president, Yolanda Saldívar (Lupe Ontiveros). Lopez is equally impressive in Leon Ichaso's El Cantante (2007), in which she plays Puchi, the wife of 1960s Puerto Rican Salsa sensation Hector Lavoe, who is played with style and spirit by Marc Anthony.
Lee Daniels is currently seeking the right actress to play Maria Carey in a teleplay, but Christine Ghawi and Natasha Bassett failed to hit the right notes as Céline Dion and Britney Spears in Jeff Woolnough's Céline (2008) and Leslie Libman's Britney Ever After (2017). Similarly unavailable at the moment is Michael Showalter's The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), in which Jessica Chastain nails the idiosyncratic singing style of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Those in the mood for a little inspirational music can, however, turn to Andrew and Jon Erwin's I Can Only Imagine (2018) and Andrew Erwin's I Still Believe (2021), which respectively star Michael Finley and K.J. Apa as Christian music legends, Bart Millard and Jeremy Camp.
Having played producer-turned-murderer Phil Spector in David Mamet's 2013 teleplay, Al Pacino took on the title role in Dan Fogelman's Danny Collins (2015), which reveals how a 1970s rocker picks himself up off the canvas after his manager (Christopher Plummer) discovers a letter written to Collins four decades earlier by none other than John Lennon. What a pity we can't also offer Eric Appel's Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022), which gives Daniel Radcliffe free rein as the pop parody merchant who hit the charts by ribbing Madonna and Michael Jackson with his trusty accordion. Fingers crossed we can bring it to you soon, so Cinema Paradiso users can double it up with James Corden as Britain's Got Talent winner, Paul Potts, in David Frankel's One Chance (2013).
All of which brings us Back to Black (2024). Following Asif Kapadia's Amy (2015) was always going to be a big ask. But Sam Taylor-Johnson's Amy Winehouse biopic boasts a screenplay by Control and Nowhere Boy's Matt Greenhalgh, a score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and musical production by Giles Martin (the son of Fifth Beatle, George Martin). Moreover, Marisa Abela looks and sounds the part. So, even though the critics have been underwhelmed, we can guarantee that this will be in huge demand when it comes to DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K some time in the near future.
