Don’t look for actual truth in TV biopics
SERIES five of The Crown is landing soon and there is already a great deal of chatter about the effects on the royal family in the wake of the Queen’s death. Just as Britain is, broadly speaking, supportive of the new King and his queen consort, along comes this bazooka of a storyline: the lead-up to Diana’s death.
Charles, it is said, is not treated any more sympathetically in this new series than in the last. There is more hand-wringing and callous infidelity in this portrayal of the disintegration of his relationship with the late princess. The Crown’s producers and writer Peter Morgan are keen to emphasise that this is their interpretation of events rather than factually exact, and deny that they are intending to undermine anyone.
In the words of the Queen in the aftermath of Meghan’s Oprah interview bombshells, ‘recollections may vary’. The truth, it seems, is anyone’s to play with.
Morgan’s brilliant jigsaw puzzle of events and their consequences is
RATHER than complaining about the BBC being stuffed with presenters with posh voices, Amol Rajan (BBC media editor) should be thrilled. If that weren’t the case, he probably wouldn’t be handed every gig going, with his South-London-on-speed delivery, far more sought-after nowadays than the Received Pronunciation he so hates.
an artistic rather than purely factual endeavour, albeit heavily researched. But it’s hard for most of us to disentangle fact from an imagined narrative. When we watch these series or movies about real-life figures, with their embellishments, suppositions and supporting fictional characters, it deeply stains our perception of what we consider reality.
Blonde, the new film about Marilyn Monroe showing on Netflix, is a classic example of the genre, mining every distasteful and grim detail of her life with its portrayal of a woman who existed, according to the film-maker, only as a victim.
From her abusive childhood onwards, she is shown as a woman with no agency of her own, drifting from one terrible scenario to another. With its hallucinogenic touches and flashbacks, it reminded me of last year’s Spencer, with Kristen Stewart playing a tragic, borderline crazy, self-abusive Princess Diana during her lonely Christmas
at Sandringham. There’s a common theme here – biopics have to have a troubled life at their core.
There’s not much traction in a story where everyone is getting along perfectly well and having a nice
time. Drugs, sexual abuse, mental health issues and family trauma are the bread and butter of the biopic maker.
This England, the six-part Sky drama featuring Boris, Carrie and Britain during the pandemic, is about a dysfunctional institution – the UK government – rather than a family.
I’m rather enjoying it, but as with all these fictional dramas, any artistic merit is drowned out by the obsessive desire to figure out how much and what is really true.