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My Five Favorite Music Biopics
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The release of the Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere this past weekend got me thinking about my favorite music biopics. I did not see the Springsteen film on opening weekend and likely won’t for a few weeks (you can read Simon Dillon’s excellent review here) and thus it will not be included in this list even if it does break into my top five (which will be hard even if it is about the man whose music has been the soundtrack of my life for 50 years).
For a biopic to become a favorite of mine a few things have to happen. Typically, though not always, I already have to be a fan of the artist. Second, if the actor or actress is doing their own singing, it needs to be at least in the same ballpark as the subject of the film; for example, if Jeremy Allen White is playing Springsteen but sounds like Morrissey, I’m giving the thing a pass, no matter how much I like Moz (and would love to hear his version of “Born to Run”). Third, the story the film tells needs to be more than what you get in the “About” section of the artist’s website.
Finally, and this doesn’t happen often, if after seeing the film I start picturing the actor when I think of the musician, it’s definitely a winner. It’s true of at least one of the films here, though the one where the actor has completely replaced the real person in…
