30 Biopics Without Pop Stars In The Lead

1. Napoleon (Bonaparte), Abel Gance, 1927--FR
2. Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker), Arthur Penn, 1967
3. My Left Foot (Christy Brown), James Sheridan, 1989
4. Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick), David Lynch, 1980
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy (George M. Cohan), Michael Curtiz, 1942
6. Lawrence of Arabia (T.E. Lawrence), David Lean, 1962
7. Coal Miner’s Daughter (Loretta Lynn), Michael Apted, 1980
8. The Gospel According to St. Mathew (Christ), Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964--IT
9. Birdman of Alcatraz (Robert Stroud), John Frankenheimer, 1962
10. Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), Alexander Korda, 1936
11. Dead Man Walking (Sister Helen Prejean), Tim Robbins, 1995
12. Camille Claudel (same), Bruno Nuytten, 1988--FR
13. Samurai I, II, III (Miyamoto Musashi), Hiroshi Inagaki, 1954--JAP
14. Basquiat (Jean-Michel Basquiat), Julian Schnabel, 1996
15. Vincent (Vincent de Paul), Maurice Cloche, 1947--FR
16. Capote (Truman Capote), Bennett Miller, 2005
17. Andrei Rublev (Andrey Rublyov), Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966--USSR
18. Sid and Nancy (Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen), Alex Cox, 1986
19. La Vie en Rose (Edith Piaf), Olivier Dahan, 2007--FR
20. Childhood of Maxim Gorki (Maxim Gorki), Mark Donskoy, 1938--USSR
21. Rosa Luxemburg (same), Margarethe Von Trotta, 1986--GER
22. Man for All Seasons (Thomas More), Fred Zinnemann, 1966
23. Queen Margot (Marguerite de Valois), Patrice Chereau,1994--FR
24. Lumumba, (Patrice Lumumba), Raoul Peck, 2000--FR
25. Ivan the Terrible I & II (Ivan Groznyy), Sergei Eisenstein, 1944, 1958--USSR
26. Queen Christina (Queen Christina of Sweden), Rouben Mamoulian, 1933
27. Edvard Munch (same), Peter Watkins, 1974
28. Amadeus (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), Milos Forman, 1984
29. The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova), Sergei Parajanov, 1968—USSR
30. Rise of Louis XIV (Louis XIV), Roberto Rossellini, 1966—FR

The list above is a group of biopics filmed without need of Pop Stars embarrassing themselves in the leading roles, a modern American trend. Perhaps a current film maker ready to embark on another biopic should watch some of those titles again as a refresher before making the next deal. Let's see, how about packaging The Benazir Bhutto Pakistani Express? We get Freida Pinto, last seen in Slumdog Millionaire, to play the lately assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto. But assassinations are depressing, so we can turn it into a musical. Lots of Pakistani Salsa in Urdu with subtitles that everyone can sing along to. Instead of following the bouncing ball we can use the little icon of a bomb which bounces across the screen landing on each new subtitled word. Oh, you say we can't get Freida Pinto because she's in London doing the new Woody Allen untitled movie? Don't worry, how about Beyonce in a burqa? Bad for the close-up? Okay, we get the costumer to run up some thin hijab coverings and backlight her. Nothing as sexy as a silhouette. I can smell money my friends. Wonder if Bin Laden would do a cameo? Nothing too difficult, just a short dance number in a cave using an AK47 like Fred Astaire might use a cane. How about Bono as the foreign journalist/CIA contact? Someone talk to Cedric The Entertainer, see if he's good at languages? He can be her piano playing bodyguard, we'll beef up his part, a duet or two. Cast lots of kids from the Pakistani or Indian version of Pakistani Idol. Maybe we make it bi-religious: animated sequences in which 3-D characters of Ganesha and Krishna dance alongside Maulana Abdul Aziz, cleric of the Red Mosque. I see dance numbers my friends. Throw in some traditional religious music, something slow, maybe we get Norah Jones in a sari? How about M.I.A. as one of the hip daughters? Hindu and Moslem tracks, two billion potential customers right there. Maybe we can tie it all together as a peace mission, tap the United Nations for placement money. Tax breaks perhaps. The soundtrack will sell like hot chapatis. What's that smell? That is popcorn my friends, sprinkled with rupees.

And maybe she doesn't need to die in a fiery bomb blast at all. History can be very fickle. It's our movie after all. I think anything is preferable to all that carnage and black smoke. How can the audience hear the tunes if there's wailing and screaming on screen. No, I see it differently. Lets call it "enlightened history." Benazir Bhutto escapes the bomb and mounts a stage to sing to the throngs one final song. A love song. Picture Evita in Islamabad, that's where I think we should be steering this thing. As the end credits roll we wait one beat and then hit them with a reprise of all our best songs. Then pray dear ones that it takes off. Because I can see us two years from now, sitting right here talking . . . sequel.

In case you were afraid the trend in biopics will curtail soon, you can rest assured. Wikipedia lists these actors as playing historical roles in movies due for release this year: Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel, Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin, Meryl Streep as Julia Child, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Brendan Gleeson as Winston Churchill, Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, Javier Bardem as Pablo Escobar, Al Pacino as Salvador Dali, Christopher Plummer as Leo Tolstoy, Dita von Teese as Mata Hari, Paul Giamatti as Philip K. Dick, Elijah Wood as Iggy Pop, Sally Hawkins as Bernadette Devlin, Mike Myers as Keith Moon, Don Cheadle as Toussaint Louverture, Keshia Chante as Aaliyah, Shabana Azmi as Benazir Bhutto and Wesley Snipes as James Brown.

You're right, I didn't know who Pablo Escobar was either, the one Javier Bardem will be immortalizing on film (do they still call it film or should we be saying pixels?). Pablo Escobar was a Columbian drug lord listed in Forbes Magazine in 1989 as the 7th richest man in the world. He was killed in a "hail of bullets" delivered by an undercover assassination team called Seach Bloc trained and coordinated by the U.S. Special Forces and allied with Los Pepes, a vigilante group manned by members of the rival Cali cartel, run by Carlos "Cocaine" Castano. What . . . the United States government armed and trained cocaine cartel forces in Columbia? Another black eye for our already Lon Chaney-like foreign policy face? Gotta see the movie to find out!

Sounds interesting, but remember Johnny Depp's turn as a drug kingpin in Blow? Not many people do. It was a miserable movie which not even star power (Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths) could save. I think the director, Ted Demme died of a cocaine-induced heart attack not long afterward while playing a pick-up game of basketball. The bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is named after him, "Teddy's." That's immortality. I'm beginning to feel like a slimey gossip columnist--say Burt Lancaster's J.J. Hunsecker in The Sweet Smell of Success. Hmmm. Hey, I could use a job.
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