Film Studies Librarian
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Other library resource(s)
Biopics from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286“Biopic” (sometimes spelled “bio-pic”) is the most common term used to refer to films representing any aspect of the lives of famous people from the past or the present. Of unclear origins, the term seems to have originated in the trade papers and then penetrated the consciousness of producers and critics. Its widespread use has replaced the more formal “biographical picture.”
Internet resource(s)
- Biopics (Filmsite.org)"These films depict and dramatize the life of an important historical personage (or group) from the past or present era."
- Biopics redone: the changing face of biographical films
Biopics have been a movie mainstay for over a century, and the genre has undergone plenty of changes since then. ... - History vs. HollywoodThis site compares and contrasts historical events and movies based on those same events.
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
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Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
A quick definition for biographical films
Biopic (biographical picture; biographical film)
A film that tells the story of the life of a real person, often a well-known monarch, political leader, or artist. Thomas Edison’s Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (US, 1895) prefigures the genre but perhaps the earliest biopic is Jeanne d’Arc/Joan of Arc (Georges Méliès, France, 1900). Biopics were popular with audiences in Europe in the early 20th century, including Queen Elizabeth (Henri Desfontaine and Louis Mercanto, France, 1912), Danton (Dimitri Buchowetski, Germany, 1920), Anne Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, Germany, 1920), Napoleon (Abel Gance, France, 1927), and The Private Life of Henry VIII (Alexander Korda, UK, 1933). Beyond Europe and North America, biopics celebrated anti-colonial figures and continue to do so (see Philippines, film in). The biopic was a staple of US cinema during the studio period, with some 300 films released between 1927 and 1960. The work of director William Dieterle, including The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Juarez (1939), and The Life of Emile Zola (1937), is particularly worthy of note. It is common for films from this era to start in media res and proceed by way of flashbacks through a ‘stages of life’ structure, with details from a person’s early life often prefiguring the events they subsequently became known for (see plot/story). This structure allows the biopic to move between public and private knowledge pertaining to the film’s subject: the revelation of a private self is one of the genre’s key pleasures. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941), generally agreed to be one of the greatest films ever made, is a scathing and thinly disguised biopic of newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. US versions of the genre display a shift from celebratory studio-era films to a ‘warts and all’ approach in the late 1960s and 1970s; as, for example, in the Woody Guthrie biopic, Bound For Glory (Hal Ashby, US, 1976). From the 1990s, a number of films, such as 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (François Girard, Portugal/Canada/Finland/Netherlands, 1993) and the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, US, 2007), actively sought to deconstruct the genre. The lives of entertainers, film stars, and artists comprise some 36 per cent of all Hollywood biopics, a tendency that continues in the contemporary cinema with films showing the rise to fame of Freddie Mercury (Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018)) and Elton John (Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)). ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Biopic. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 19 May. 2023
Finding library resources for biographical films
The Jones Media Center has a collection of biographies for viewing. To find them, you can do a subject search for "biographical films." To find books about biographical films, look at the subject headings that contain "history and criticism." These books will discuss historical films in general or those produced in different countries. To find film resources on a specific person, you can do a subject search and add "drama" with your other search terms.
- biographical filmsCall number range PN 1995.9 .B55 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
Bio-pics: a life in pictures by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 C44 2015ISBN: 9780231172059Bio-pics: A Life in Pictures offers a series of case studies which throw light on this most unique of genres. Is the bio-pic a genre in its own right? Or are such films merely footnotes in other more traditional genres such as the western or costume drama, depending on the historical figure under scrutiny. ...
The biopic in contemporary film culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 B577 2014ISBN: 9780415899413The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. ...
Motion picture biographies: the Hollywood spin on historical figures by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 C66 2015ISBN: 9781628941159Hollywood movies are famous for promoting negative stereotypes of all kinds, especially against minorities, women, Southerners, and Christians. To what extent are biographical films selected for production according to certain biases, conscious or unconscious, among the Hollywood elite? An expert on the U.S. film industry gives readers brief synopses of Hollywood biopics produced and/ or released from 1912 through 1994. This survey provides the basis for discussion and analysis.Tracking these one-sided depictions over a longer period of time, the patterns of bias - and the source of the problem - become more clear. the problem appears to be that most of the people who have green-light authority in the U.S. film industry - for either the production and/or distribution of a motion picture - share a common ethnic/religious/cultural background. ...
Whose lives are they anyway?: the biopic as contemporary film genre by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 B56 2010ISBN: 9780813546582The biopic presents a profound paradox--its own conventions and historical stages of development, disintegration, investigation, parody, and revival have not gained respect in the world of film studies. That is, until now. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? boldly proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one--it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person.
Selected book title(s)
Bio/pics: how Hollywood constructed public history by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 C87 1992ISBN: 9780813517551Enhanced by charts, appendixes, notes, and references to approximately 300 movies from 1927 to 1960 (with additional material on the biopics' absorption by contemporary television), this volume analyzes biographical film production, distribution, and exhibition under the constraints of censorship, libel law, producer proclivities, and casting. ...
From split to screened selves: French and Francophone autobiography in the third person by Call Number: Baker-Berry PQ 307.A65 G33 2006ISBN: 9780804753562This book is a study of recent autobiographies by French and Francophone African writers and filmmakers, all of whom reject simple first-person narration and experiment with narrative voice and form to represent fragmented subjectivity. Gabara investigates autobiography across media, from print to photography and film, as well as across the colonial encounter, from France to Francophone North and West Africa. ...
History in the media: film and television by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .H5 N54 2006ISBN: 9781576079539Can films tweak the facts and still be faithful to history? How much of what they present as true is inaccurate or distorted? This volume looks at the growing research exploring these questions.
Royal portraits in Hollywood: filming the lives of queens by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Q35 F67 2009ISBN: 9780813125435Few lives provide as much history or drama as those of monarchs. Filmmakers from the silent era to onward have displayed a deep fascination with the lives of royalty and with queens in particular. Still, the question remains: what do these films really tell us about the women beneath the crowns? ...
Truth and lives on film: the legal problems of depicting real persons and events in a fictional medium by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B55 A78 2005ISBN: 9780786420445From the advent of cinema, Hollywood's acquaintance with the unbridled truth has been passing, at best. Nonfiction has always been standard fodder for filmmakers, but rare is the screenwriter who ever met a story that couldn't use a touch of embellishment. As early as the silent film era, lawsuits were filed against movie studios for their fictitious depictions of purportedly real events. The movie makers claim artistic license; ...
Finding scholarly articles & journal titles
Articles and other writings about movies can be found in many publications. We don't have any periodicals that look exclusively at biographies in our collections. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles. You can also search in America, History & Life or Historical Abstracts depending on which historical figure you want to research.
Celebrity studiesCall Number: Electronic journalThis special issue covers "The Celebrity Biography/Biopic" and is co-edited by Mary Desjardins. (8, 4)
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceCovers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television.
America, History and LifeCall Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive bibliography of articles on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Historical abstractsCall Number: Electronic resourceHistorical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected list of biographical films
Find more biographical films in the online catalog.
Argo by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #15770On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants storm the American embassy in Tehran and capture dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal. There's a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escape and a mid-level CIA agent named Antonio Mendez devises an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them.Batismo de sangue by
Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9307Brazil was ruled by military dictatorship from mid 60's to mid 80's. In the 60's, the Dominican friars Tito, Betto, Fernando and Ivo help leftist organizations, but they are arrested and tortured by the chief of political and security police Fleury, who is trying to arrest the leader Carlos Marighella. Tito and Fernando are submitted to the torture and betray Marighella, who is ambushed and executed by Fleury. In 1973, the exiled friar Tito commits suicide in France.
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1868Experience a lavish epic about love and politics in ancient Rome and Egypt.
Dalton Trumbo's Johnny got his gun by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9420ISBN: 9781603992602After a shell leaves his body mangled on the final day of World War I, young Joe Bonham lies trapped in a hospital bed. He is a fully conscious quadruple amputee who cannot speak, hear or see. He is left to wander within his own mind and goes between his harsh reality and memories of a happier life long gone. Delve into the mind of a man lost somewhere on the edges of sanity and insanity, life and death.
Hyde Park on Hudson by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #15928As Great Britain faces an imminent war with Germany, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, invited the King and Queen of England for a weekend at their home in upstate New York. But during the first-ever visit of a reigning British monarch to America, international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR's domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal trip an unforgettable one.
Ip man by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #13184Set in Fo Shan, China during the Sino-Japanese War, Ip Man vividly brings to life the brutality of the infamous Japanese occupation, where once proud men are forced to fight [to the] death for a precious bag of rice. Defined by courage and humility, Ip Man, whose fighting skills are revered all over China, rises to the fore front. Upon refusing to teach his martial arts to the invading Japanese soldiers, he is forced to fight for the honor of his country in a series of battles that will culminate in a kill-or-be-killed showdown with Japan's greatest fighter.
Made in Dagenham by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #12424In 1968, the female workers at the Ford Dagenham car plant, walked out in protest against sexual discrimination. Their actions played a major role in the battle for equal pay, both nationally and internationally.
The mill & the cross by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #14252Uses digial effects and immersive period detail to transport viewers inside Pieter Bruegel's famous 1564 painting, The Way to Calvary, where Bruegel himself tours the canvas discussing the various images and the meanings behind them, allowing viewers to experience daily life in turbulent 16th century Flanders.
Night catches us by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #11717In 1976, complex political and emotional forces are set in motion when a young man returns to the race-torn Philadelphia neighborhood where he came of age during the Black Power movement.
Zero dark thirty by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #15860Chronicles the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden following the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of Navy SEAL Team 6.
