The biopic screenplay as a research output: Towards a working definition of narrative fiction filmmaking methodology

What is it about?

Can the making of a biopic or historical narrative fiction film generate and communicate truths about the past? This will be a familiar question for professional filmmakers when defending the truth claims of their work to historians and other scholars working within established university departments. This article seeks to demonstrate the validity of using fiction to access the past by describing and evaluating the processes that took place when writing a biopic about British boxer Randolph Turpin.

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Why is it important?

Writers of historical and biographical fiction are often expected to defend their work on the terms of the historian or biographer. Objections to the use of fiction often conflate fiction with lies. This has profound implications for our understanding of others and our heritage. In response to these objections Hilary Mantel and others have defended the use of fiction as a method of revealing important truths about the lived experience of others, arguing that the kind of knowledge they are generating is different from that of the historian, but no less valid. This article takes a deep dive to gain insights into the intersection of fact and fiction when writing and telling stories about factual events and real people.