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Drama » Biopic [feature]
Nicknamed the "biopic," this type of film features an actor (or actors) portraying a real person in entertainment, politics, and/or history. Whether epic or intimate in scope, the film usually starts with the person's childhood and details their struggle and/or rise to power, fame, and glory. The most popular subjects tend to be Presidents and leaders of a movement, such as the namesakes of the films Nixon, Gandhi, Evita, Wilson, Young Mr. Lincoln, Lawrence Of Arabia, and Malcolm X, although military men (Patton, MacArthur, PT 109), inventors (The Story Of Louis Pasteur, Young Tom Edison), sports personalities (Knute Rockne, All-American, The Pride Of The Yankees) and filmmakers (Chaplin, Ed Wood) have also seen their life stories projected onto the silver screen. There are also "auto-biopics" in which a famous person plays him/herself, such as To Hell And Back, The Greatest, and Private Parts. These movies play on the fascination an audience has on seeing an extraordinary life unspool before their very eyes, be it sensationalized or treated with a worthy reverence, as well as attempting to show the human beings behind the legends. The irony is that an actor and their biographic subject often meld in the eyes of the general public; who can think of Roosevelt, Patton, or Lincoln without seeing in the mind's eye Ralph Bellamy, George C. Scott, or Henry Fonda, respectively? Such is the significance a biopic often has on the general public's perception of that public or historic figure.
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