The Biopic Is Laundering Its Subjects

I wrote an essay a few months ago about the anti-biopic, arguing that specific films like I’m Not There (2007), Velvet Goldmine (1998), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964) use the biographical form to interrogate rather than celebrate their subjects. That essay made a general case. I want to make a more specific case here, which is that the dominant biopic form of the last five years is doing the opposite: it is specifically, consistently, functioning as a reputation-management instrument for its subjects and their estates.

This is not an accidental effect. It is the specific consequence of how contemporary biopic productions are funded, controlled, and shaped. I want to describe the mechanism.

What the mechanism is

A contemporary mainstream biopic is, typically, a production in which the subject’s estate, heirs, rights-holders, or corporate representatives have specific creative control. The control is usually contractual and is usually substantial. The estate must approve the script, the casting, the music rights (if the subject is a musician), and specific sensitive content.

This specific arrangement exists because the estate controls specific assets the biopic needs. A music biopic needs the rights to the subject’s catalogue. The catalogue is controlled by the estate. The estate will grant the rights only if the estate approves the film. The film, therefore, is specifically constrained by the estate’s preferences.

The preferences of estates are predictable. Estates want their subjects depicted as specifically sympathetic, specifically heroic, specifically redeemable. Estates do not want their subjects depicted as specifically difficult, specifically cruel, specifically damaged in ways that might affect the subject’s ongoing commercial reputation. The specific marketability of the subject’s legacy (ongoing album sales, continued streaming revenue, licensing deals) depends on the subject’s public reputation remaining positive.

The biopic, as a form, is therefore structurally constrained toward the hagiographic. The specific films that emerge from this process are, almost uniformly, doing the specific work of making their subjects look good.

The specific recent cases

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). The film was produced with specific approval from the surviving members of Queen, who controlled the music rights. The film’s specific depiction of Freddie Mercury sanitises specific aspects of his life (the specific sexual adventurism, the specific personality difficulties, the specific final-years conflicts with the band) in favour of a specifically heroic arc culminating in the Live Aid performance. The film grossed over $900 million. Specific music-catalogue revenue for Queen surged following the release. The film functioned exactly as the estate would have wanted.

Elvis (2022). Baz Luhrmann’s film was produced with substantial involvement from the Presley estate. The specific framing device (the film is narrated by Colonel Parker, not by Elvis) allows the film to present specific criticisms of Elvis’s management without specifically criticising Elvis himself. Elvis’s specific personal difficulties (the prescription drug issues, the specific Priscilla relationship dynamics, the specific late-career isolation) are presented as things done to Elvis rather than as choices Elvis made. The specific effect is to leave Elvis’s reputation enhanced.

Bob Marley: One Love (2024). The film was produced in partnership with the Marley family. The specific sensitive aspects of Marley’s life (his specific religious commitments, his specific attitudes toward women, his specific political positioning) are presented in the specific ways the Marley family prefers. The film presents Marley as a specifically unified political and spiritual figure in a way that specific biographical evidence does not entirely support.

Maestro (2023). Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein film was produced with specific approval from the Bernstein estate, including specific involvement from Bernstein’s children. The specific depictions of Bernstein’s bisexuality, his specific marriage, and his specific family dynamics are handled in the specific ways the estate could accept. The film’s specific claims about Bernstein’s interior life are the claims the estate is willing to let the film make.

Back to Black (2024). The Amy Winehouse biopic, produced with the participation of Mitch Winehouse (Amy’s father, whose specific role in her life has been contested in critical biographical work), presents Mitch’s perspective on Amy’s life in ways that are specifically sympathetic to him. The film’s specific depiction of Amy’s relationships, her specific decisions, and her specific decline reflects the specific narrative the estate is willing to authorise.

A Complete Unknown (2024). The Dylan film has Dylan’s participation (specifically, through the estate that controls his music catalogue). The film’s specific depictions of Dylan’s early-career behaviour are filtered through what the Dylan specific estate is willing to authorise. Critical biographical work on Dylan has documented specific difficult behaviour from the early-1960s period. The film handles this material carefully, which is to say partially and selectively.

What the mechanism costs

The specific consequence of the estate-controlled biopic form is that the biopic has become, as a genre, substantially unreliable as biographical information.

Specific complications get smoothed. Subjects who were, in their actual lives, specifically difficult people (most artists are, in some specific way) get depicted as specifically less difficult than they were. The difficulty is either eliminated, displaced onto supporting characters, or contextualised as product of circumstance rather than character.

Specific failures get redeemed. Subjects whose actual lives ended badly get depicted with redemptive arcs that their actual lives did not contain. The film insists on specific meaning that the actual biographical record does not support.

Specific complexity gets reduced. Subjects whose actual lives contained specific ambiguities, contradictions, or unresolved ethical questions get depicted with those ambiguities specifically resolved in favour of the subject. The specific complexity that serious biographical writing is interested in is specifically what the estate-approved biopic cannot accommodate.

Critical engagement gets pre-empted. Because the biopic has specific commercial and prestige weight, its specific version of the subject’s life becomes the widely-circulated version. Critical biographical work that contradicts the biopic’s claims has to operate against the specific cultural memory the film has installed. The specific epistemic effect is that the biopic becomes the specific version of the life that most people know, even when that version is substantially false.

The specific exceptions

A small number of contemporary biopics have evaded the mechanism, and their specific exits are instructive.

Pablo Larraín’s films. Jackie (2016), Spencer (2021), Maria (2024). Larraín has specifically refused estate cooperation on these films, working from public biographical material without seeking the specific approvals that the more commercial productions require. The specific cost is that his films have reduced access to specific archival materials. The specific benefit is that his films have specific interpretive freedom that the estate-controlled films structurally cannot have. Spencer’s specific depiction of Diana’s interior life is specifically possible because the film is not trying to please the specific Windsor estate or the specific Spencer family.

Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There (2007). I wrote about this at length in the anti-biopic essay. Haynes specifically avoided the structural constraint by refusing the conventional biopic form, using multiple actors to play aspects of Dylan rather than one actor playing Dylan. The film’s specific refusal of the hagiographic form is partially enabled by its specific refusal of the biopic form itself.

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023). The film adapts Priscilla Presley’s memoir and is made with Priscilla Presley’s cooperation, but the cooperation is specifically adversarial: the film’s perspective is specifically Priscilla’s, and Elvis is depicted as a specifically difficult figure in her specific experience. The film demonstrates that specific estate cooperation can produce specific truths when the cooperation comes from a party who wants the difficult truths told.

What would fix the problem

The specific fix for the biopic problem is structural. Filmmakers who want to make serious biographical films about specific subjects need to either secure specific material rights in ways that do not require estate approval (which is often specifically impossible for music biopics) or abandon the specific ambitions that require those materials.

Criticism can help by naming the specific mechanism. A review that engages with a biopic should specifically note the estate’s involvement in the production, should specifically identify which aspects of the subject’s life have been smoothed or redeemed, and should specifically hold the film accountable for the biographical claims it makes. The specific critical practice has, in the last decade, been insufficiently alert to the specific laundering function the biopic routinely performs.

Audiences can help by reading serious biographical work alongside biopic viewing. The biopic should not be the specific source of information about its subject. It should be treated as an interpretive work, often an interested one, that can be enjoyed while held in specific critical suspension.

The biopic form is not inherently corrupt. It is a specific form with specific capabilities. At its best, it can deliver specific emotional truths that biographical writing sometimes cannot. At its current dominant mode, it is functioning as a specific reputation-management instrument for the estates that control its subjects.

The form deserves better. The subjects deserve better. The audiences deserve better. The specific change requires that everyone involved acknowledge what is actually happening.