Friday, November 9, 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody


Well, I caught Bohemian Rhapsody at the IMAX the other night and I must say that the best part, in my opinion, was the 20th Century Fox credit which occurs before the movie’s opening scene — to my delight, its famous orchestral theme got the Brian May wire choir treatment.

It was a Queen version of a classic piece of music we all recognize. Sadly, the movie that followed wasn’t able to sustain that level of excitement as the story unfolded.

By now, it’s obvious that the movie has its hardcore fans and its detractors. iMDB viewers are giving it very high ratings (8.4 at last count) but if you dare to read a random sampling of the external reviews, they’re pretty unanimous in panning it for being, well, not faithful to the band’s timeline or trying to shoehorn too many landmark moments into a 134-minute movie.

The scenes that stood out for me were:

  • Freddie’s interactions with his family, which were both humorous and touching;
  • Mike Myers playing the EMI executive who’s having trouble understanding the whole opera thing;
  • The last 20 minutes where they re-enact their Live Aid performance 

In addition to Brian’s rendition of the 20th Century Fox theme, no one's commented on the Marlene Dietrich poster that Freddie walks by in one of the early scenes. I remember watching a Mick Rock documentary where he talks about his inspiration for the harsh lighting and iconic poses depicted on the Queen II cover photo...he more or less admitted that he borrowed the aesthetic from old Marlene Dietrich photos.

So while that small detail is probably lost on the casual movie-goer, my hat goes off to whoever decided to put that poster in the shot. Too bad the rest of the details in the movie didn’t have that same fundamental grounding in reality.

I’m disappointed in Brian and Roger for letting the script dismantle the integrity of the band’s history. By allowing blatant mistakes in their chronology, they are endorsing these fabrications. As stewards of their own legacy, they’ve taken extreme measures in the past to ensure quality and accuracy in everything Queen Productions has put out since Freddie’s death, so why would they rubber stamp a project with obvious errors even if it falls under creative license for a movie adaptation?

Beyond the liberties the script takes with the band’s history (i.e., Fat Bottomed Girls playing over a montage of their 1974 US tour, or Freddie learning he has AIDS in 1985), I would argue the portrayal of conflict is perhaps the film’s greatest weakness. I counted at least seven elements of conflict going on simultaneously:

  • Freddie’s relationship with Mary and how it evolves (devolves?) over the years
  • Freddie’s relationship with Paul Prenter
  • Freddie’s relationship with Jim Hutton
  • Freddie’s relationship with his Parsi family
  • The band’s fighting with the record label to retain the vision for their music
  • Freddie being confronted with a solo record deal which puts him at odds with the band
  • Freddie learning he has HIV so time is now against him 
Did the film studio simply push to get it done, especially given the setbacks that Sasha Baron Cohen and Bryan Singer brought to the movie's development and production? In hindsight, the two-minute trailers for Bohemian Rhapsody were actually more effective at capturing the spirit and essence of Freddie and Queen than did the 134-minute film itself.

Did I like it at all? Sure. I’m over the moon whenever the band and Freddie make it into mainstream media and their achievements are recognized by the masses. But in my opinion it came off as sanitized and a bit cowardly. I have heard, however, that that was the stated intention of Brian and Roger from the beginning, which, of course, led to their falling out with Sasha Baron Cohen. Were they protecting Freddie’s parents’ honour? Did they simply want to avoid an “R” rating? Having Bryan Singer’s departure come at a time when he was called out during the #metoo movement certainly didn’t help.

Now I’m left wondering what a Sasha Baron Cohen interpretation would have looked like. There’s no question that Freddie did lots of drugs, chain-smoked, and could be as lewd as the next rock star. However, if Cohen managed to balance out Freddie’s debauchery with his fondness for Shakespeare, Liza Minnelli, Cecile B. DeMille, ballet, art history (Dadd, anyone?), and Jim Croce, then I think we’d be closer to understanding the man who was fearless in living life to the fullest.

#BohemianRhapsody 
#BohemianRhapsodyMovie 
#FreddieMercury
#queen