What is it about?
This book explores the intricate challenges screenwriters face when balancing fact and fiction in biopics. As biopics have become synonymous with prestige and award-worthiness in contemporary cinema, they also attract intense scrutiny for their handling of historical facts. The allure of the biopic lies in its ability to use fiction to delve into the interiority of its subjects, yet this raises ethical questions about historical fidelity and narrative truth. What obligations does the phrase "based on a true story" impose on screenwriters? Can a biopic truly capture the essence of its subject, or does it inherently distort reality? Through a self-reflexive case study of a screenplay about British boxer Randolph Turpin, this book seeks to answer these pressing questions. It examines the process of transforming extensive research into a compelling narrative, offering insights into the delicate balance between truth and fiction. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, this work provides a fresh perspective on the biopic genre. Ideal for scholars in screenwriting and film studies, industry professionals, and students of screen production, this book offers a deeper understanding of how biopics reveal truths about historical figures and events.
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Why is it important?
Provides a unique practitioner perspective on the process of authoring the biopic. Includes in-depth discussions on how writers of narrative fiction access the interiority of their biographical subjects. Proposes a new ethical framework that addresses the specific challenges of writing biopics.
Perspectives
Screenwriting the Contemporary Biopic is one of the very few contributions to scholarly research on the biopic that stems from the actual process of making films. By framing the enquiry within the author’s own creative practice as a writer and director, the work fills a significant gap in the existing literature for those scholars studying the biopic form. Topics under discussion include the ethics of representation, and the intersection of fact and fiction when re-presenting the past, framed by a lucid articulation of research-enabled methodological approaches to generating affective knowledge about the biographical subject. Screenwriting the Contemporary Biopic will also be of relevance to professional screenwriters and directors, and students of film produc- tion, by case studying core techniques and strategies used in the creative process of screenwriting (and making) a biopic, while offering a new ethics of screenwriting and screen production that can be applied in practice. For scholars working in other disciplines, this book serves as an invaluable practitioner’s guide on how to apply filmmaking as a powerful methodological tool across a range of interdisciplinary contexts.
Michael Bentham
University of South Australia
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This page is a summary of: Screenwriting the Contemporary Biopic, January 2025, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-97892-0.
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