A Prince Biopic?

BET claims to give ten good reasons that it's not a good idea. (HT to Ann Althouse for putting me onto the BET slide show where they make their case.)

The two biggest reasons they give for not doing a Prince biopic is that biopics are generally not good and that Prince wasn't involved in the anti-hunger supergrouping of the 90's top US musical superstars, We Are the World. Althouse objected to the latter point as a good excuse for not portraying Prince's non-participation in that project, suggesting that exploring Prince's motives for saying no could be interesting.

I reacted over on Althouse's blog:

Movie biopics ARE generally, horrible though, as the BET slideshow points out.

Tonight, I watched the last half-hour of Jersey Boys. Horrible! (Of course, it might have helped if the Four Seasons' music, which I hated while growing up during the sixties, was good.)

But, in any case, the film industry has a way of butchering and pasteurizing their subjects, melding them into [indistinguishable] "musicaleverybodies." Didn't the Johnny Cash and Ray Charles biopics look like they were about the same person, that they led the exact same lives? Biopics have a way of disintegrating into kind of reality TV versions of 'Behind the Music,' every story the same.

When Hollywood went to work on telling George Gershwin's story (1945), almost none of it bore any resemblance to George Gershwin's story.

The same is true of 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (1942), the biopic about George M. Cohan, which at least has the redeeming quality of being entertaining, spiced as it is by James Cagney's extraordinary, all-in dance stylings.

But there have been two more recent movie biopics that seem to have fairly hewn to the actual stories of their subjects' lives and careers.

The most creative of these is Kevin Spacey's 'Beyond the Sea' (2004). It's Spacey's telling of Bobby Darin's life story. There's little fiddling with the facts, though there are interesting flashbacks and flash forwards. You get a clear understanding of Darrin the man. Spacey, a terrific mimic, does a good job channeling his inner Darrin on the latter's catalog. A thoroughly enjoyable film.

Another successful recent music biopic is the 2014 release 'Ragamuffin,' focused on the life of Rich Mullins, an early practitioner of Christian contemporary music. Mullins' music was honest and so is this film. It shows the musician's quest to live a life of authentic Christian faith despite his rising fame. The music is great too. A film both enjoyable and deeply moving.

BET, I think, is wrong for suggesting that Prince's staying away from mass social activity renders him unfit for film treatment. His reasoning [as Althouse suggests] may warrant exploration. What were his reasons for doing big charitable events, while keeping his significant personal philanthropy quiet?

In fact, a similar shying away from association with big causes--in spite of appearances and reputation to the contrary and a few exceptions--will face any prospective producer of a Bob Dylan biopic. Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' was an anthem for many in the 60's civil rights movement. But his connection to the movement or to the protests of the war in Vietnam were limited to non-existent. Dylan wasn't really a cause guy; he was more of a Dylan guy.

In the end, I think it's the music that matters most.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Prince

I'm sixty-two. I probably listened to more of Prince than many people my age. How that happened was sort of happenstance.

Prince's heyday was in the early- and mid-eighties. It was the era of big hair and MTV. I was listening a lot to U2, the Police, Stevie Wonder, a bit of Bruce Springsteen, with whom I became less enamored after Nebraska, and later, Bruce Cockburn. And, of course, I was still listening to Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Queen, and David Bowie.

At that time, I was in seminary. During my senior year, I worked as a janitor, cleaning seminary offices and the library after hours. It was a fun gig and it came with some perks.

One was being able to crank up a stereo in the library basement while dusting and vacuuming. I didn't have much money then either. So, when friends loaned music to me, I would often use said stereo to transfer their music to cassettes I could stick into my boom box at home.

The fourteen year old son of a classmate got wind of this perk of my job and asked me to record a bunch of Prince LPs that a friend had loaned to him. Being into piracy, I recorded all of that material for him and me.

For a while after that, I listened to a lot Prince. I thought his lyrics ranged from vapid to the faux sophistication of an adolescent thinking he knows more about sex than his parents. But his musicianship was undeniable: He had a fine sense of melody and rhythm. He played guitar especially well. And his voice was rangy. For about six months, I was sort of hooked.

But, in the end, I was never moved to buy a Prince LP. In fact, I wasn't moved by Prince at all. His virtuosity could move me to appreciation. But his songs never moved me. They didn't encourage me to see my life or the world differently. They were simply the candy by which he showcased his amazing talents.

In recent years, I was aware that Prince was performing some. But I had no idea that he was still releasing new material--some source today said that he had released four new LPs in the past eighteen months! To me, there were many artists older than Prince--McCartney or Dylan, for example--or artists who were his contemporaries--U2 comes to mind--more current than Prince was over the past two decades.

Reading the other day about his plane making an emergency landing because he was ill was like learning of the reappearance of a ghost from the past, similar to his amazing guitar solo on the collaborative performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.



So, the response to Prince's death I've seen evidenced online and, briefly tonight, on TV, has caught me by surprise.

Prince is being accorded coverage similar to that which greeted the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson, John Lennon, and David Bowie, or, in less heavily mediated days, those of Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and Buddy Holly.

While I would have guessed before today that, in the end, Prince might be viewed as more culturally significant than some of his contemporaries like Madonna or even Queen, I wouldn't have anticipated the reaction we've seen to his passing today. In coming years, I suspect that he'll be remembered more for his stunning musical performances, both recorded and live on stage, than for the quality or meaning of his compositions.

But however you look at it, his sudden death is a tragedy and I pray that all who grieve will be comforted by God.

Yeah, Prince Can Play Some Guitar