Biopics

In Cold Blood

Love & Mercy

After a recent viewing of Pablo Larraín’s stunning yet staggering film Spencer, a “fable from a true tragedy”, I felt compelled to further explore the boundless category of biopics. There have been an immeasurable amount of biopics, that offer us a window into the soul of the subject—or, at least, another person’s interpretation of that soul. One’s life story can be intriguing enough, but when an outsider attempts to capture that story, the results are either uncannily accurate or offensively absurd. Angela Bassett as Tina Turner, perfection. Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, pretty accurate. Michael Douglas as Liberace, inspired. Johnny Depp as Ed Wood, fun. Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, you betcha. Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first trans women to undergo a sex change, bad. Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson, offensive. Like what the fuck. The list of biopics is so vast and dense that there are many sub genres within this sub genre: dramatic biopics, comedic biopics, musical biopics—all of which are judged to an even higher standard because they’re attempting to tell a true story. Tonight’s films couldn’t differ more in terms of tone and structure and overall vibe, but you’ll find the significance of music, mental illness, and daddy issues is pertinent in each one. Richard Brooks’ 1967 film In Cold Blood gave new life to the terror of Truman Capote’s book, which was ostensibly one of the first popular American true crime stories. In Cold Blood follows two criminals, Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson), and their plot to rob and kill a wealthy family in Kansas. The book, which I read long ago but still have nightmares about, is written in such a chilling way—in a way that could’ve only been achieved by someone who’d studied this case with precision, and who’d spent time with the actual killers. Such was the case for Truman Capote, who got to know many members of this small community, members of the jury, and the murderers themselves, in order to paint an accurate picture. Way before Funny Games or The Strangers or real-life home intruder serial killers like Richard Ramirez, there were the Clutter family murders—a crime so brutal and unexpected that it inspired many people to finally start locking their doors. Watching the detailed film adaptation was just as haunting as it was reading the detailed account in the book. From the very start of this film I was unsettled, unsure of how a mass murder would be handled by the newly grimy cinematic lens of 1960s. In Cold Blood, even with its ambitious direction and cutting edge editing style, remained to be simply, purely terrifying throughout. Its editing, its story structure, its complicated perspectives of the human condition, all felt incredibly ahead of its time. The lovely, tender musical composition surrounding the idyllic Clutter family disarms you before shifting into the freneticism of the criminals, and a feeling of anxiety descends—not letting up until the final frame. As if the true, gruesome murder this film is based upon weren’t disturbing enough, the imdb fun facts page revealed details within the filming process that proved to be equally unnerving. Like the fact that the director used the actual home the real-life Clutters were murdered in to reenact their murder. Perry and Dick certainly both represent two different flavors of crazy, but Brooks proved to have occupied a third kind of mania in his making of this film. To make matters creepier, Robert Blake, who plays Perry Smith, became an actual murderer decades after his impeccable and believable performance. Knowing this while watching the film probably did subconsciously make his character scarier, despite the film’s attempts to make Perry the more sympathetic of the two. In an almost Fincher-meets-Demme way, In Cold Blood found a balance between the police procedural and establishing the ethos of the killers. Even knowing how this story would turn out, I was sufficiently engrossed and utterly shook by how frightening this adaptation was. I just finished watching The Sopranos for the first time and I’m still recovering from that abrupt ending. And while In Cold Blood’s ending is more resolute, I still felt gobsmacked by the swiftness, matter-of-factness, and overall coldness of this film and its ending. I wanted desperately to follow up this biopic with one that was more lighthearted and less bloody, but it turns out that most biopics are dramatic and sad and bloody. It’s hard to find a happy story in the bunch and I just wasn’t in the mood for alleged girlboss Erin Brokovich, though I’m sure one day I will be. I’d made a list of possible biopics to watch but ended up choosing a film I’d never even heard of, that found its way onto every “best biopics” list I came across: Love & Mercy. In a very odd, but very sweet fashion, Love & Mercy tells the story of man behind The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson. I just watched The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson’s behemoth of a docuseries that shows The Beatles as they prepare for their final live performance. Get Back highlighted three very significant things: 1. Yoko was not the one who broke up The Beatles, 2. Ringo and Billy Preston were the best (even though you have my heart George), and 3. John Lennon was the Ben Affleck of his and Paul McCartney’s creative partnership. I mention this not only because of the influence The Beach Boys had upon The Beatles, but because like Paul, Brian Wilson is and was a methodical, sometimes mad, musician and poet. When someone is that smart, that creative, that pure, that tuned into cosmic symphonies that are both intangible but true, they’re often burdened with more than just talent. Brian Wilson’s burden came in the form of various anxiety disorders, drug addictions, and people who didn’t have his best interests in mind, which, according to the actual Brian Wilson, was portrayed accurately by the film. There have been many attempts to cover the story of Brian Wilson, one of which was “produced” by his former psychologist turned abuser, but it should be noted that Love & Mercy is the only adaptation that the man himself approves of. Paul Dano and John Cusack play Brian at two very different points in his life—during his creation of one of the most revered albums of all time, and during his suffering under a cruel conservatorship—both parts blending together, at times to a disorienting degree, which only added to this film’s psychedelic nature. Maybe it’s because I love Paul Dano and John Cusack, maybe it’s because I love the music of The Beach Boys, but I found this dreamy, compassionate film to be so wonderful. Director Bill Pohlad implants the audience as directly into to the mind of Brian Wilson as possible, utilizing sound in ways that were both heavenly and cacophonous. The pain, the excitement, the meaningful moments of calm amid the calamity, it was all palpable. I’d never even heard of this film before my casual research of biopics, and I’m so glad to have stumbled upon it. Regardless of the fact that John Cusack looks nothing like Brian Wilson, and regardless of the fact that John Cusack’s supposed to be a dick in real life, Love & Mercy delivered on its title and tuned me into a story I’d previously known very little about. Paul Dano’s past as a musician came in handy as he directed his band, and John Cusack’s washed up aesthetic really seemed apt for the point of Brian’s life that he was representing. In a not-so-shocking turn of events, Elizabeth Banks as Brian’s second wife Melinda was spectacular and a source of relief at many points in this film, and Paul Giamatti as Brian’s abusive psychologist was rightfully, viscerally terrifying. It all felt very strange, and somehow less organized than In Cold Blood, but Love & Mercy did more than just transport us to certain moments in time, it brought us into the complicated but beautiful mind of someone who once seemed ethereal and impossible to know. Tonight’s films served as evidence of the simultaneous complexity and universality of the human condition, and how truth is always stranger than fiction. Regardless of how you might feel about these starkly disparate biographies, I do recommend reading Capote’s book, and then listening to Pet Sounds after—either to accompany the haunting quality of the story, or to cure yourself from it.