Talk:Biographical film

Dispute

The article defines a biographical film as a movie based on an event that actually happened. If this is the way we define it, then we should remove the faith-based ones. I noticed Jesus of Nazareth, but I might have missed others. We could also simply redefine biographical film. Teply 20:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

It also says "These may present the events as they actually happened, or may alter the truth for other purposes." and it looks like the Jesus film was removed. --68.198.246.166 14:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, someone did that just recently. I'll remove the dispute. Teply 00:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about this. If Alexander is considered a biopic, then Jesus of Nazareth could also be considered the same. Both men are historical figures. 66.109.99.18 18:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if Jesus of Nazareth was an historical figure (and that's not at all clear; doubts seem to surround the historicity of most ancient religious founder figures, but Jesus is by far the most prominent and discussed case), scholars seem unable to agree on just about anything about his life, since it is so heavily mythologised (even if there was an historical personality at its core). So I must agree with the original poster that a film based on Jesus' purported life is as faith-based as one about Moses (now thought to be purely mythical) or Buddha (also suspected to be ahistorical).

When Jewish scholars reject the historicity of Abraham and Moses, when even a Buddhist scholar can admit uncertainty about the historicity of the founder personality of Buddhism, and an Islamic theologian, despite remaining Muslim, outright states that he has come to the conclusion that "Prophet Muhammad likely never existed", plainly asserting that "[b]oth [Alexander and Jesus] are historical figures" without a shadow of doubt, despite all arguments to the effect that this conclusion does not at all follow from the available evidence in the case of Jesus, in stark contrast to Alexander's case, is simply ridiculous. In fact, the difference between these exact two cases has been pointed out time and again: Jesus is nowhere as securely historical as Alexander, he is nowhere close to be as well documented as a historical person with a consensus biography. Most scholars do believe that a historical person lies behind the Gospel narrative (or narratives), but they also agree that the Gospels cannot be treated straightforwardly as a biography, and thus, not enough is known about Jesus as a historical figure to write a biography, let alone a biographical film; in fact, films about Jesus seemingly (almost?) invariably include various supernatural elements of his story (as related in the Gospels), which disqualify any such film as historical drama. (An impartial observer could never conclude that there is any certainty about any biographical details regarding Jesus given that there is not even a consensus definition of Jesus of Nazareth as a historical person in the first place. Every scholar has their own version of Jesus, suspiciously apparently always created in their own image. There is no need to have any firm opinion on the matter of historicity to admit as much!) In short, the Gospels are not history, and therefore a film based on them is not historical. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

2/2/06 edits

I deleted many pictures when I redid the list of significant films, either because they were historic films that did not tell one character’s life story (Good Night and Good Luck, Schindler‘s List) or merely films based on true events (Catch Me if You Can, Erin Brokovich, Mar adentro). I also made the list more exclusive to films of significant acclaim or historic value; I got rid of the many 2000s-era films on the list that are more recent than significant .

I am not a film scholar nor have I seen every film I deleted (I went based on synopsis from that film’s page some of the time) so if anyone has a good reason to add or re-add a film, please do.

Pronunciation.

How about a line or two about differences in pronunciation? Is it a bi-o-pick or does it rhyme with myopic? 67.39.182.93 06:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I am also curious about the pronunciation...does anyone know?

This is the reason i came here. should definitely be addressed. 71.110.68.228 17:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree. it's why I'm here. Nearly and year and still not addressed. This term must be used in Hollywood conversations. anyone? Scarykitty 21:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I just listened to the audio commentary for Gods and Monsters, and director Bill Condon pronounced it the same way Merriam Webster's 11th Edition dictionary did. Sadly, IPA is far beyond my comprehension, but much to my chagrin, the "o" was long. Drakkenfyre 04:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It's absolutely got to be long, etymologically. And I'd say Merriam-Webster's is a good enough source to justify at least removing the incorrect pronunciation currently given on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.5.71.121 (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I also came here looking to clarify the pronunciation. From what I can tell there may be a British English vs American English divide. My English friends insist is pronounced to rhyme with myopic. However i have heard Americans on television pronounce it bio-pic. For what is it worth as a linguistician there clearly are two approaches to the pronunciation. 1. Based on the etymology it should be stressed on the letter "i" because it comes from "biographical picture". 2. The pronunciation stressed on the letter "o" seems to be by analogy with scientific terms such as myopic or biotic or even biology.

In my opinion the former should be preferred however both pronunciations are clearly in usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.247.226 (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC) I have observed both pronounciations in common usage. --Replysixty (talk) 01:10, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I wonder too about the pronunciation. I think it should be bio-pik. As it really is a contraction or the words biograpical and picture. To me biopic rhyming with myopic, makes it sound like two (bi) opics, almost like two views. Also, how long has this word been in use? I am just recently coming across it. And originally thought it meant two views or a second view of something. Flight Risk (talk) 02:09, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Manchurian Canidate

I havn't seen Manchurian Canidate, but I've read that it is a biopic. Anyone know?--24.137.137.204 05:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

yeah. it isn't.

No. It's not --Replysixty (talk) 01:11, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved.

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was - Biographical film → Biopic not moved as no consensus. Keith D (talk) 21:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Biographical film → Biopic — "Biopic" is by far the more commonly used phrase for a film whose subject is an individual person, as evidenced by a Google search.

Google search results

• Google Search: 2,310,000 hits for biopic; 88,800 for "biographical film"
• Google News:731 hits for biopic; 13 for "biographical film"
• Google Scholar:1,170 hits for biopic; 366 for "biographical film"

—Skomorokh 21:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose — I think that this term is too casual for use as a title of an encyclopedia article, and also not widely enough recognized outside of a cinematic context. ENeville (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose – The term "biopic" is more current film lingo than anything else, and we should stay away from "fad" words. Reject "Biopic" is a "slang term". FWiW, it is tantamount to speaking in "industryspeak." Bzuk (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC).
  • As the search results show, it is by far the most commonly used term not only in general, but also in news media and academic discourse. Hardly "industryspeak". Skomorokh 17:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Using Google searches can always provide interesting results, but are hardly conclusive, nor authoritative. We can soon use potboiler, mic, gross, clapper loader, etc. BTW. IMDb lists: Biographic Picture, AKA: Biopic, A filmed story of a person's life story. FWiW Bzuk (talk).
      • Interesting point, thanks. I wonder what other film-orientated publications currently use. Skomorokh 23:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. A classical case of Google not representing common English. Andrewa (talk) 14:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

From WP:RM:

• Biographical film → Biopic —(Discuss)— "Biopic" is by far the more commonly used phrase for a film whose subject is an individual person, as evidenced by a Google search. —Skomorokh 21:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Relist to get some input on move. Keith D (talk) 22:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Reject "Biopic" is a "slang term". FWiW, it is tantamount to speaking in "industryspeak." Bzuk (talk) 22:05, 12 April 2008 (UTC).

Relisting as requested. Andrewa (talk) 14:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

biography films 41.114.175.160 (talk) 22:31, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Deception

Alexander the Great almost certainly was bisexual - certainly the ancient sources depict him as such. It seems deceptive on our part to imply that a bunch of homophobic Greek assholes are the ones who have accuracy on their side here. Stone's movie may have had some historical inaccuracies, but depicting Alexander as bisexual was not one of them. john k (talk) 13:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

NPOV of controversies section

I have some issues with the way the"Controversies over veracity" section describe some of the controversies such as:

• "...a team of Greek lawyers threatened to sue the makers of Alexander for implying that Alexander the Great was bisexual" wrongly implies that most historians agree that he was not bisexual which is not what I understand to be the case.
• Regarding the the movie Hurricane, the line "Several details were altered to enhance the image of Carter and details about the police procedures that lead to the conviction conflicted with court records." has a couple of issues. First, I'm concerned that the line "Several details were altered to enhance the image of Carter" could be read as "they covered up horrible deeds in Ruben Carter's past to make him look like total victim of racism" due to it's extreme vagueness. Also the part about the details of the investigation as shown in movie conflicting with the court records suffers from the problem that there is still a major controversy over exactly what how the police conducted the investigation and as I understand it the court records are not necessarily considered to be in accurate source for details on the police procedure by supporters "Carter was framed by a racist cops" view.
• Finely, in regards to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, When it says "Some biopics purposely stretch the truth. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was based on game show host Chuck Barris' widely debunked, yet still popular, memoir of the same name, in which he claimed to be a CIA agent,..." my issues resolves around the issue of whether he was a CIA assassin or not. The issue of whether his claim to be an CIA assassin is one that impossible to prove or disprove and as far as I know no one has ever definitively debunked the claim though it's widely considered to be most likely made up. Berris himself made contradictory statements both supporting and denying the truth of the claim. While the CIA denies he ever worked for them, it is standard policy at the CIA to never confirm someone as having been an assassin for them so that means nothing. While I'm doubtful of his claim myself, I think it's probably more accurate to describe the claim as having been discounted or disbelieved by most people rather then debunked which implies definitely proof his claim was false. It is also inaccurate to say that the movie "...purposely stretch the truth" since it was based on the Barris' memoir and just simply repeated the claim from the book so it's not like writers of movie script made up that claim themselves.

--Cab88 (talk) 00:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Article for deletion?

It's not clear that this article has encyclopedic value at all. There's considerable uncited conjecture, including a History section that I just deleted, making the wild claim that pictures have more money now (not necessarily true), and therefore can be more accurate (definitely not true). The idea that a biopic is somehow more difficult to act seems dubious. That two scholars should be picked out for their theories that verge on fandom seems possibly WP:BIAS.

The comments just above by Cab88 demonstrate how there is no clear, standard and stable opinion on how "true" each film is. In this sense, the material is contrary to what Wikipedia wants.

Even more broadly, one of the first lessons from historiography is that there can be many legitimate points--of-view about what are regarded as facts. Biographies, biopics, and fantasies are more-or-less representational. There's no reason for an encyclopedia to indulge in constrasting the factuality of pictures that may have largely been intended simply as entertainment.

As a whole, then, the article isn't much more elevated than fandom, and could be reduced by about 50% with no harm to meaning. 98.210.208.107 (talk) 02:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I must disagree with your proposal there. This particular article has many issues in its writing, but a "biopic" is a widely used term, and even has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary http://www.wordreference.com/definition/biopic

Perhaps there truly is not enough information out there to write a well researched and thoughtful encyclopedia article on biographical films but to not acknowledge their existence is far less responsible.

I certainly agree that this is a difficult article, but our response to that should be a desire to work more perniciously and in tandem to research and logically present the information, not to eliminate the article entirelyEdOByrne (talk) 04:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm deleting the "Criticism" section as my contribution. I see no value in it as is. Maybe if it was a thoughtful analysis from someone with a degree in film studies or something, but a famous loudmouth who's known for spouting moronic shit apropos of nothing isn't someone we want to hear from, and the quote itself doesn't add anything substantive regardless of who it's from. -ShorinBJ (talk) 23:07, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Notable film portrayals of Nobel laureates

It seems that this article use to include a list of notable film portrayals of Nobel laureates. The list appears to have been removed because it didn't belong here. However, some good arguments were made about the importance of such a list. (Note, I wasn't involved with any part of this discussion or process). Would anybody oppose me making a separate article to host such a list? Webster100 (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Information Literacy and Scholarly Discourse-2002

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2023 and 18 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): VetNurseJess (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jneezy504 (talk) 03:05, 8 April 2023 (UTC)