Misplaced Pages

#675324

17-539: Young Cassidy is a 1965 British biography drama film directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Rod Taylor , Julie Christie , and Maggie Smith . It is a biographical drama based upon the life of the playwright Seán O'Casey . Set in 1911 and the growing protest against British rule in Ireland , young John Cassidy ( Seán O'Casey ) is a labourer by day and a pamphleteer by night. When the pamphlets he has written incite riots, Cassidy realizes he can do more for his people with

34-533: A Fairytale (2006), and Howard Stern in Private Parts (1997). In 2018, the musical biopic Bohemian Rhapsody , based on the life of Queen singer Freddie Mercury , became the highest-grossing biopic in history at the time. In 2023, it was surpassed by Oppenheimer , based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II. Rick Altman Rick Altman

51-527: Is soon acclaimed as Ireland's outstanding young playwright. As early as 1907, performances of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World resulted in riots by theatergoers, which had to be quelled by police. The real W. B Yeats, a friend of both authors, said similar words at or after both riots. Young Cassidy brings this parallel history (the riots of The Plough and the Stars and The Playboy of

68-1156: The 1983 TV miniseries Sadat . Also, some objected to the casting of Jennifer Lopez in Selena because she is a New York City native of Puerto Rican descent while Selena was Mexican American . Because the figures portrayed are actual people, whose actions and characteristics are known to the public (or at least historically documented), biopic roles are considered some of the most demanding of actors and actresses. Warren Beatty , Faye Dunaway , Ben Kingsley , Johnny Depp , Jim Carrey , Jamie Foxx , Robert Downey Jr. , Brad Pitt , Emma Thompson , Tom Hanks , Eddie Redmayne , and Cillian Murphy all gained new-found respect as dramatic actors after starring in biopics: Beatty and Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi (1982), Depp as Ed Wood in Ed Wood (1994), Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on

85-448: The 2009 issue of Cinema Journal . Roger Ebert defended The Hurricane and distortions in biographical films in general, stating "those who seek the truth about a man from the film of his life might as well seek it from his loving grandmother. ... The Hurricane is not a documentary but a parable ." Casting can be controversial for biographical films. Casting is often a balance between similarity in looks and ability to portray

102-759: The Moon (1999), Downey as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992) and as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer (2023), Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004), Thompson and Hanks as P. L. Travers and Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014), and Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Some biopics purposely stretch

119-692: The Warner Archive DVD-on-demand system available through Amazon. Biographical film Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis . Custen, in Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era , and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck . On

136-427: The Western World ) to vivid life, tied together by the character of Yeats. Based on Seán O'Casey's autobiography Mirror in my House (the umbrella title under which the six autobiographies he published from 1939 to 1956 were republished, in two large volumes, in 1956), the movie began production in 1964, changing his name in the film to John Cassidy. O'Casey had read earlier drafts of the movie, and gave his approval to

153-651: The characteristics of the person. Anthony Hopkins felt that he should not have played Richard Nixon in Nixon because of a lack of resemblance between the two. The casting of John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror was objected to because of the American Wayne being cast as the Mongol warlord. Egyptian critics criticized the casting of Louis Gossett Jr. , an African American actor, as Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in

170-495: The film intersperses footage from Young Cassidy with footage of the actors preparing for their roles. John Simon of The New Leader wrote that Young Cassidy is 'a well-meaning but fairly lackluster pseudo-or-screen biography' and 'There is one very effective scene of a street riot and its bloody suppression, but the Easter Rising falls flat'. Young Cassidy was released to DVD by Warner Home Video on 6 September 2012 via

187-430: The former generally dealing with great accomplishments, the latter generally dealing with female victimization. Ellen Cheshire's Bio-Pics: a life in pictures (2014) examines UK/US films from the 1990s and 2000s. Each chapter reviews key films linked by profession and concludes with further viewing list. Christopher Robé has also written on the gender norms that underlie the biopic in his article, "Taking Hollywood Back" in

SECTION 10

#1732884945676

204-400: The other hand, Bingham's 2010 study Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a similar trajectory as that shown by Rick Altman in his study, Film/Genre . Bingham also addresses the male biopic and the female biopic as distinct genres from each other,

221-505: The pen than with the sword. He writes a new play, The Plough and the Stars , which he submits to the Abbey Theatre (which had already rejected another of his plays, The Shadow of a Gunman ), and is surprised when W. B. Yeats , the founder of the Abbey, accepts and produces his new play. The opening of the play causes the audience to riot, and he loses many friends; but he is undeterred and

238-524: The script, as well as to the choice of lead actor, Rod Taylor . Rod Taylor stepped in when the original choice for the role, Sean Connery , had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts with the James Bond movie Goldfinger . Prior to Connery, Richard Harris was attached. The movie was initially directed by John Ford (who had already directed a movie version of The Plough and the Stars in 1936), but he fell ill about two weeks into production and

255-474: The truth. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was based on game show host Chuck Barris ' widely debunked yet popular memoir of the same name, in which he claimed to be a CIA agent. Kafka incorporated both the life of author Franz Kafka and the surreal aspects of his fiction. The Errol Flynn film They Died with Their Boots On tells the story of Custer but is highly romanticized. The Oliver Stone film The Doors , mainly about Jim Morrison ,

272-1056: Was highly praised for the similarities between Jim Morrison and actor Val Kilmer , look-wise and singing-wise, but fans and band members did not like the way Val Kilmer portrayed Jim Morrison, and a few of the scenes were even completely made up. In rare cases, sometimes called auto biopics , the subject of the film plays themself. Examples include Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Muhammad Ali in The Greatest (1977), Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back (1955), Patty Duke in Call Me Anna (1990), Bob Mathias in The Bob Mathias Story (1954), Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant (1969), Fantasia in Life Is Not

289-408: Was replaced by Jack Cardiff . Filming was held up for two weeks. Only one member of the cast was replaced – Sian Phillips came in for Siobhán McKenna . O'Casey died shortly before production on the film finished. During the making of the film, a behind-the-scenes documentary, Sean O'Casey: The Spirit of Ireland , was filmed looking at the making of Young Cassidy . Narrated by Herschel Bernardi ,

#675324