(Paris) Back To Blackaround Amy Winehouse, which will soon be released on the big screen, after the biopic on Bob Marley and before those on Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, demonstrates a lever sought by the music industry.
This feature film about the singer of Rehab appears on April 12 in the United Kingdom, April 24 in France and May 17 in the United States.
The attraction for musicians on the side of 7e art seems obvious. The destiny of the singing stars ticks several boxes: childhood, for the most part, in a modest environment, enormous and unexpected success, addictions and/or tragic end. Amy Winehouse died in 2011, undermined by excess at the age of 27 (same age as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, etc.). Bob Marley died in 1981, at the age of 36, from cancer.
“But we have to reverse the thing, it is not cinema which is in search of myths, Terminator at 40 years old. It is rather the world of music and rights holders who are looking for tools to bring musicians back into the ears of new generations drowned in current events,” Sophian Fanen told AFP. This journalist, co-founder of the French news site Dayshas just published Amy for life (Novice editions).
Paramount, which distributed Bob Marley, One Love, released on February 14, was delighted at the end of February with the success of the film, particularly in France. “The complete Bob Marley catalog in France has recorded an average of more than a million views per day for a week! The title Could You Be Loved just entered the top 200 “streaming” 44 years after its release,” the company said in a press release. And added: “France ranks first in terms of streaming growth with more than 45%”.
“Amortize”
Belkacem Bahlouli, French editor-in-chief of the magazine Rolling Stoneunderlines for AFP that “Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan sold their catalogs and, for those who acquired them (for half a billion dollars and 200 million respectively, according to the specialized press), they must be amortized”.
“It has to “stream” so that it passes to another generation and, the mechanics of streaming being what they are, we will be hungry for more,” predicts Sophian Fanen, also author of the reference book Stream Boulevard (Astral Beaver).
Musical biopics are already booming. “We have two a year now, they grow like mushrooms after the rain,” says Belkacem Bahlouli.
The British daily The Guardian notes that “the musical biopic is a vast genre, always expanding, and there is not enough space to cite everything”.
Rolling Stonein its February issue, establishes that musical biopics have particularly abounded “for the past ten years, for better and for worse”.
” No choice ”
Back To Black should rather be placed in the second category. Marisa Abela, the British actress who plays the singer, is not to blame in this film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, behind the camera for Fifty Shades of grey and, previously, Nowhere Boywhich tells the story of John Lennon’s youth.
“What poses a problem is the rehabilitation of Amy Winehouse’s father, who passes for a good guy, which he must have been at the start, before the money went to his head,” writes Belkacem Bahlouli .
Amy, a landmark documentary by Asif Kapadia released in 2015, scratched this father figure. “The documentary was perhaps a little too incriminating against the father, but the film completely misses the role of the father. The film doesn’t want to hurt anyone, doesn’t make choices, doesn’t ask any questions,” says Sophian Fanen.
Music fans are waiting for the sequel: a biopic on Michael Jackson, played by his nephew Jaafar Jackson, Bob Dylan played by Timothée Chalamet and Bruce Springsteen, with Jeremy Allen White (series The Bear) sensed in the tight jeans of the “Boss”.