‘Deliver me from nowhere’ is the title of a new biopic about the popular singer songwriter Bruce Springsteen. ‘The Boss’, as he is known, is played by Jeremy Alan White (nor me), who apparently is convincing as the tortured rock star. As an admirer of Springsteen, maybe even a fan, I really don’t need to see this movie, not least because I have read the great man’s autobiography Born To Run, which I found to be a cracking read. He was not played by Jeremy Alan White, but by himself. Clearly, there must be a demand for biopics but from whom and why?
I have seen excerpts from many of movies of this genre and at the front of my mind is that I am not watching the star around whom the movie is based. Rocketman’s Elton John is played, very obviously, by an actor, Taron Egerton, Austin Butler played Elvis in Elvis, Rami Malek played Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Joaquin Phoenix played Johnny Cash in Walk The Line and … well, the list goes on forever. There are biopics about The Beach Boys and The Monkees, too, and I have tried – and failed – to watch the latter movies because I am watching actors and not always terribly good ones.
I was almost, though only almost, tempted to go and see the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown but in the preview all I could see was Timothée Chalamet pretending to be Dylan. Perhaps, if I had gone along to the cinema myself to watch the full movie, I might have somehow convinced myself that Chalamet was actually Dylan. I doubt it, though.
I find it even harder to take seriously those biopics of people who are still with us. Some of them, like Dylan and Springsteen himself, are still touring. Why would you want to spend money on going to see someone pretending to be your favourite singer when you could spend, admittedly, considerably more seeing the real thing? Anyway, Springsteen’s autobiography is excellent, surely better than anything Jeremy Alan White could ever be?
As ever, it’s all about nostalgia. It’s why we like tribute acts and I am as guilty of that as anyone. I am a huge fan of T. Rextacy and have seen them on numerous occasions and later this year I am going to see the Bootleg Beatles. Both are “just like being in the room” with one’s heroes, even though you know, obviously, it’s not really Mr Bolan or the Fab Four in front of you. And I’m not sure that in truth it’s that much different from going to the pictures to watch a fake Elton, Queen or Springsteen.
In the end, it’s just business. Biopics are there to make money off the back of music legends, tribute acts exist in order to make a living by impersonating famous acts. They aren’t really tribute acts at all, any more than Rory Bremner, John Culshaw and Mike Yarwood (one for the teenagers, there) are tribute acts. One difference, I will argue unconvincingly, is that tribute acts can at least play their own instruments and sing.
Either way, I cannot stand the music biopic or indeed stage shows based upon pure dross like Meatloaf, Tina Turner and, of course, worst of all, Queen. I am glad you do, of course, because you keep actors and musicians in work. But please don’t deliver Deliver me to nowhere to me. If I want to see Bruce, I’ll go and see him, not some Hollywood actor, thank you very much.
