Biopics of any sort are always risky in that they
are inevitably predictable. Such is the nature of a rather tame beast. After
all, the life and events of the film’s subject matter tend to be already etched
in the minds of the audience before ticket is even bought. Moreover, because
the story is not only known but known to be real, the genre is often overly
conservative in how predictable it is, relying on imitation over innovation.
Thus, the success of biopics often hinges upon their
plot’s ability to package some historical figure or pop culture icon into a
superhero’s origin myth. In both Ray (2004)
and Walk the Line (2005), the plot of
the film’s universe expanded from a singular event(s) in the protagonist’s
childhood.
The opening sequence of Ray is all black and white piano keys, brass cymbals, fast fingers,
and cuts to a black and white tuxedo. Then the camera zooms out to reveal these
images reflected in Ray’s sunglasses; what the audience can see is external to
him. The camera then cuts to glass bottles on tree branches and his mother attending
to the laundry line.
The white sheets float in the hot sun like ghosts,
and the notes of Ray’s music are noticeably absent. The past is still and
silent, except for the cicadas, those sheets, and his mother’s haunting advice:
“Don’t let no one turn you into no cripple.” Then the film moves to a scene
where Ray lies to a bus driver so that he can ride out of the South and to
Seattle, followed by multiple scenes and montages of both Seattle and The
Chitlin’ Circuit.
These travel scenes, the playing in honkytonk bars,
and being discriminated against are clearly Ray’s memories. They happened. But
the vision of his mother at the laundry line is something else. It happened,
and it did not. It is ethereal. About a half hour into the film is the memory
of how Ray’s brother died. Present in the memory are the colored bottles
hanging from the tree branches, the laundry on the line, and Ray’s mother.
There is the memory, and there is the vision. They intermingle in Ray’s mind,
behind the sunglasses, as he plays the piano throughout time.
Similarly, Walk
the Line (2005) begins in a prison with Johnny Cash fingering a
circular saw blade before going on stage. The saw becomes significant as the
film reveals that Cash’s brother died in a buzz saw accident. Like Ray, Cash is
eternally haunted by this loss, feeling both guilt and responsibility. Music
becomes an escape for both men, as drugs become both a punishment and an
escape.
These films, in their circular shapes, expand like
nonlinear versions of the classic Spider-Man narrative. There is the bite of
the radioactive spider and the death of Uncle Ben. Every effect, emotion, and
delivery comes back to these early childhood moments, specifically the pain of
these early moments. And yet, without this pain, the films suggest neither man
could have become a successful musician, much less an iconic force. These are
films that tend to render the consumer’s blessing in direct correlation with
the artist’s curse.
And Bill Polhad’s Love & Mercy (2014) is not that different, except that it plays
more of a shell game with Brian Wilson’s origin myth than these two previously
discussed biopics. Instead of featuring one adult Brian Wilson and one
childhood Brian Wilson, the film utilizes two adult Brian Wilsons. One played
by Paul Dano and the other by John Cusack.
While most biopics, such as Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992) rely on a singular performance,
like Denzel Washington’s ability to embody Malcolm’s confidence throughout all
of his life’s metamorphoses, Love &
Mercy splits the fragility of Brian Wilson’s genius between the
performances of Dano and Cusack. Unlike a more experimental biopic like I’m Not There (2007), which featured
approximately seven Bob Dylan avatars, this
act of fission requires not only each man convincing the audience that he is Brian
Wilson but that each man is the same Brian Wilson.
The acting in biopics exists somewhere between
caricature and Daniel Day-Lewis as anything. Of course, because none of us ever
knew the real John Proctor or Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis is the real
thing in a way that can never be disproved. Whereas David Oyelowo had to become
Martin Luther King, Jr. in a way that could be proven, and the same could be
said of Jamie Foxx’s turn as Ray Charles and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as
Johnny Cash. The more visual footage and audio recordings that exist of a
biopic’s protagonist the less any performance can be understood as authentic.
And there is a great deal of Beach Boys footage with
which the recent film Love & Mercy
must contend. Is it Surfin’ USA or Pet Sounds? Or, is it some hybrid in
between, like Smiley Smile? In other
words, when Love & Mercy encounters
the real footage and memories, it must confront the issue of authenticity. When
the film splits its narrative between Dano’s Brian Wilson and Cusack’s Brian
Wilson, it does so without suggesting one is more present than the other. The
film is something other than flashbacks and memories, marking its concept of
time more circular and ongoing than either Ray
or Walk the Line.
When Love
& Mercy fuses its Brians and its tormented bedrooms, it aims for Pet Sounds. When Wilson (Cusack) and
Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) stand in the tortured artist’s old neighborhood,
with an overpass obliterating the site of his childhood home and a sign that
reads “THE END” marking the end of the road, the film attempts to make something
new out of its genre, but, in that moment, is when one remembers the washtub,
the buzz saw, and all the old tales.
Bryan Harvey can be followed @LawnChairBoys.
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