Screening Life: Within the Formula of Filmic Biography
Elżbieta Durys
e.durys@gmail.comUniversity of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3545-3160
Abstract
Filmic biography enjoys continued popularity among viewers. Its status, however, remains paradoxical. Filmmakers make biopics while openly distancing themselves from the formula, researchers, in turn, avoid theorizing about them. The article identifies and discusses a number of issues related to biopic as a genre that are overlooked or ignored in critical reflection. It focuses on the definition, characteristics, internal differentiation of the formula, cycles that evolved out of it, references to other genres and the cultivation of the idea of the Great Man. Recalling and highlighting those issues allows to address less know contexts of the functioning of film biography.
Keywords:
biopic, film genre, genre cinemaReferences
Adamczak, M. (2019). Kapitały przemysłu filmowego. Hollywood, Europa, Chiny. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Google Scholar
Altman, R. (2012). Gatunki filmowe (tłum. M. Zawadzka). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Google Scholar
Bingham, D. (2010). Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Genre. New Brunswick, New Jersey – London: Rutgers University Press.
Google Scholar
Bingham, D. (2016). The Lives and Times of Biopic. W: R. A. Rosenstone, C. Parvulescu (red.), A Companion to the Historical Film (ss. 233-254). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley Blackwell.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118322673.ch12
Google Scholar
Carlyle, Th. (2008). On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1091/1091-h/1091-h.htm
Google Scholar
Cheshire, E. (2015). Bio-pics: A Life in Pictures. New York: Wallflower.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231172059.001.0001
Google Scholar
Connor, W. (1990). When Is a Nation?. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13 (1), ss. 92-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1990.9993663
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1990.9993663
Google Scholar
Custen, G. F. (1992). Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Google Scholar
Durys, E. (2019). Film jako źródło wiedzy historycznej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Nauki o Polityce.
Google Scholar
Follows, S. (2018, 18 lutego). How the Genre of Film Production Changes Around the World. https://stephenfollows.com/genre-film-production-changes-around-world/
Google Scholar
Hendrykowski, M. (2007). Biografizm jako dążenie kina współczesnego. W: T. Szczepański, S. Kołos (red.), Biografistyka filmowa: Ekranowe interpretacje losów i faktów (ss. 11-24). Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek.
Google Scholar
Hendrykowski, M. (1994). Słownik terminów filmowych. Poznań: Ars Nova.
Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (2008). Wprowadzenie. Wynajdywanie tradycji (tłum. M. Godyń, F. Godyń). W: E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (red.), Tradycja wynaleziona (ss. 9-23). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Google Scholar
Katafiasz, O. (2003). Biograficzny film. W: T. Lubelski (red.), Encyklopedia kina (s. 104). Kraków: Biały Kruk.
Google Scholar
King, G. (2016). Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Film. London – New York: I. B. Tauris.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755694983
Google Scholar
Kołos, S. (2018). Film biograficzny – gatunek progresywny. Geneza, genologia, strategie narracyjne. Toruń: Oficyna Wydawnicza Kucharski.
Google Scholar
Kowalczuk, U. (2019). „Album biograficzne zasłużonych Polaków i Polek wieku XIX”. Warsztatowe studia przypadków. Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka, 35, ss. 164-192. https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2019.35.8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2019.35.8
Google Scholar
Lee, H. (2009). Biography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199533541.001.0001
Google Scholar
Mastalerz, L. (2011). W poszukiwaniu homo haecceitas. Strategie biografii nieoczywistych. Dwutygodnik.com (49). https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/1819-w-poszukiwaniu-homo-haecceitas-strategie-biografii-nieoczywistych.html
Google Scholar
Neale, S. (2009). Genre and Hollywood. London – New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Pérez-Simón, A. (2014). Conceptualizing the Hollywood Biopic. Theatralia, 17 (2), ss. 50-60.
Google Scholar
Polaschek, B. (2013). The Postfeminist Biopic: Narrating the Lives of Plath, Kahlo, Woolf and Austen. Houndmills, Basingstoke – New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137273482
Google Scholar
Przylipiak, M. (1994). Kino stylu zerowego. Z zagadnień estetyki filmu fabularnego. Gdańsk: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.
Google Scholar
Vidal, B. (2014). Introduction: The Biopic and Its Critical Contexts. W: T. Brown, B. Vidal (red.), The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture (ss. 1-32). New York – London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Authors
Elżbieta Duryse.durys@gmail.com
University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3545-3160
Dr hab. is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Warsaw (Poland). Her research interests focus on film and gender issues, genre theory, methods and approaches to cinema, American and Polish cinema and film education. She is the author of numerous articles on film that have appeared in journals and anthologies. She coedited two volumes on American cinema (2006, 2007) and two volumes on gender issues (2005, 2014). She published three books: Mieliśmy tu mały problem… O twórczości Johna Cassavetesa [Just a Little Problem That Came Up… The Works of John Cassavetes] (2009), Amerykańskie popularne kino policyjne w latach 1970–2000 [American Cop Cinema 1970-2000] (2013) and Film jako źródło wiedzy historycznej [Film as a Source of Historical Knowledge] (2019).
Statistics
Abstract views: 343PDF downloads: 270
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Elżbieta Durys
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Elżbieta Durys, On Three Tendencies of the Cinema of National Remembrance , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 125 (2024): Cinema as a Memory Machine
- Elżbieta Durys, Cinema Genres and Film Cycles , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 97-98 (2017): Wandering Motifs
- Elżbieta Durys, Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” – the Paradoxes of Interpretations , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 93-94 (2016): American Cinema
Similar Articles
- Ian Inglis, Popular Music History on Screen: The Pop/Rock Biopic , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 91 (2015): Film Between Pop Music and Pop Culture
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.