The Big Picture - Bohemian Rhapsody I Exit Survey (Ep. 94)

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Sean Fennessey is joined by Rob Harvilla to break down the good, the bad, and the Queen of this weekend's box office smash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most dynamic frontmen in the history of rock and roll. Just kidding. It's staff writer Rob Harvilla. Rob, welcome to The Big Picture. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor. Rob, you're here because we're going to be doing something, you know, maybe not weekly, but every few weeks called Exit Survey. And if you're a reader of TheRinger.com, you know that Exit Survey is a convention we use to talk about new movies, sometimes TV shows,

video games, things like that. Things that are relevant in the culture where we have sort of snap reactions over the weekend. And this makes a lot of sense on a podcast as well. And we are here to talk about Bohemian Rhapsody, which is the number one movie in the country, has a lot of Oscar buzz, and is also, I think it is fair to say, a bad movie. Rob, would you agree? I would. I'll tell you the most electrifying moment of this movie for me is when I was walking toward the theater. It was theater 11.

And I passed theater 10, and I heard the beginning of the shallow scene from A Star is Born. And I instinctively just walked into that theater, walked up far enough to see the screen, right? It's like Lady Gaga is going, ah, and I just, I cried. I watched the whole scene. I walked out of that theater and into Theater 11 to see Bohemian Rhapsody. That was the best part of the movie going experience. I suspect this will be not the last time we talk about A Star Is Born. It is truly a rock and roll fall at the movies. But let's start here, Rob. What is your relationship to the band Queen? You know, I can vividly remember the Bohemian Rhapsody scene from Wayne's World, like sitting in the theater, just with that washing over me, you know, however,

I was like a pre-teenager at that point or whatever. And so like, I wouldn't call myself a Queen super fan necessarily. I'm not one of the people who can tell you what songs here are chronologically out of order. But I have internalized 30 to 35 Queen songs just by living in America for the past 40 years. And so I was super hyped for it. And I was prepared for what seems to be the party line,

which is that Rami Malek himself is awesome. And it's awesome to just listen to 30 Queen songs really loud in the dark for two hours and the movie itself stinks, you know, but that doesn't matter because of all the other stuff. And so, yeah, I was prepared for it, you know, and it met those expectations. I had a similar reaction.

Let's just set some of the key talking points of this movie. This movie made $50 million over the weekend. It made $140 million across the world, which is a lot for a biopic about a band whose music we like, but maybe we don't really care about that band anymore. I haven't had a conversation about Queen in 15 years, 25 years. I can't remember the last time. I mean, you and I, 10 years ago in bars in New York,

were not shooting the shit about their third record. Not as I recall, but those times are hazy, I suppose. Yes, they are. Well, they're growing increasingly hazy. Speaking of hazy, the production of this movie sounds like it was difficult. It was directed by Bryan Singer, sort of, who many people know as the director of The Usual Suspects and some of the X-Men films, and also recently was

accused of some sexual misconduct by a number of people. He is a controversial figure in Hollywood. He also is known at times for disappearing from his own sets. And that is something that he did here. He said to attend to the health of his mother and some personal health issues of his own. Nevertheless, that sounds like that frustrated Rami Malek who is at the center of this movie and people were brought in to finish the movie. It's impossible to know for us what Singer did, what Dexter Fletcher who was brought in

to do some of the work on this did. It's really just hard to parse because the movie is not, I don't think the movie is messy necessarily, even if the storytelling is a little bit messy. It's just kind of drab and predictable. Is that fair to say? I think it is. I mean, it sort of moves in that standard biopic way. You know, reading up on all that stuff, like the production, what I was really struck by, we're talking about the Sacha Baron Cohen version that was supposed to happen, that was in production.

And he wanted it to be this really, really R-rated, hedonistic, wild thing, to just go full bore into the total rock star element of it. And basically, he clashed with the surviving members of Queen about it. And what finally brought that movie to a halt is just the members of Queen weren't having it, you know, and just getting the sense that, do you want that movie, which would probably have been a better movie, or do you want the actual Queen songs, you know, because you can't have both. And so, yeah, the element of the production, you know, the calamity for however many 10 years it's been that really interested me was just the movie that

almost was, or was supposed to be, that would have been very different, that would have been better in some ways, but would have been worse just because Queen wouldn't, the band itself wouldn't have gone along with it and you wouldn't have had the actual music in it. Do you want a good movie or do you want a bad movie with Queen songs? Yeah, it sounds like that film would have been directed by Stephen Frears, who obviously made Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity, has a real affinity for music and also high drama. That would have been a good movie, would be my guess. This, as we say, not a good movie. And it's an interesting bad movie in some ways. I think it's interesting that you noted that the band would not really

give the rights over to the more debauched version of the Freddie Mercury story. And you can really feel the thumbprint of the band on a lot of these scenes because there are several scenes in which people, all four members of the band, look at each other and say, we're just a bunch of outcasts who don't fit together. So we fit together. We are all the outcasts. And it's like, you know, most people, even though Brian May is an incredible guitarist, Roger Taylor, a very gifted musician, the fourth guy's name I don't remember, those four musicians were incredible together. You know, Bohemian Rhapsody lives and dies by Freddie Mercury.

He is the centerpiece. He's the centerpiece of the storytelling here. And there is a lot of effort made toward making sure that everyone is included. Now, I will say Queen is unique among some bands like this in that all four members actually wrote songs and all four members had actually written hit songs. So there's some reason for that kind of democracy among the storytelling. But in general, I found myself being like, why are we spending so much time with Roger Taylor? Like, I don't really give a shit about Roger Taylor. Did you feel similarly?

Yeah. I mean, it's sort of by default it's forced to be an interesting depiction of like a band dynamic like you never see that like these movies it's always one person just imposing his will on everybody else and they sort of bow down to him and it's it's true that you know all four members wrote song like brian may in particular is very important but like yeah when there's a scene where john deacon literally stops like a band argument in the studio by playing the another one bites the dust bass line and everyone's like that's the raddest bass line and then they play they record the song like yeah like the other stipulation that the surviving band members had clearly was that it'd be depicted as a band

that they'd be depicted as as characters and as important people. I think there was a line, Vulture did this big rundown of the Sacha Baron Cohen version, and Sacha Baron Cohen said that he had a conversation with somebody in the band, and they're like, yeah, what's great about this movie is that Freddie Mercury dies halfway through it, and you get to see the band carry on without him, and Sacha Baron Cohen's like, that's a terrible movie, no one's going to go see that movie.

People want to see Freddie Mercury. that's all they want to see like it's just interesting to see all that backstory like still taking you know still being fought out in the movie that you're actually watching yeah and I think ultimately is finally truly a Freddie Mercury movie we didn't get a movie where he dies and then a former American Idol contestant takes over and sings for the band as Adam Lambert has been doing for the last 10 years. I'm interested though, like for somebody like you who is really adept at rock history and is good at seeing the big picture of this stuff, pardon that pun, does it matter to you if the facts are straight in a movie like this? They don't have to be absolutely correct. You know, you don't want to be the guy in the theater

who leans over and is like, actually, fat bottom girls was recorded three years later whatever don't don't be that guy yes ever but i but sort of reading up on this and like the people who know this band really well like it's they start fudging a lot and by the time you get to live aid like the the entire way live aid is portrayed is like they broke up which isn't quite true like they hadn't played in like several years which isn't true and they reformed just for Live Aid and that was their first show in forever like none of that apparently was true you know and it's I don't think it's known exactly when he found out he had AIDS and when he told the band that he had AIDS but it almost certainly didn't happen the way the movie says it

happens and like even it was such a minor thing but watching the actual live aid scene like the thing the thing inside the phone banks where like nobody's calling into live aid and like everyone's looking worried and then queen starts playing and everyone starts calling into live aid like just the insinuation that live aid was saved entirely by Queen. It's like, all right, guys, like settle down. Like it's, I think there's a line in a spectrum and this movie, especially late, like starts to cross it. The facts, all the facts don't have to be right. But I think that the little inaccuracies and like the tilt toward myth, just it all starts

to pile up, especially toward the end. Yeah, we should note that Live Aid was a concert that also featured performances by Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins. Like this is probably the biggest concert ever. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think that is fair to say. So yeah, I mean, that was the best performance. And like, that's the thing that we're still talking about,

you know, but I don't think you, I think you can say that without implying that like queen did it single-handedly one thing i think we can say though undeniably and i don't we're not really spoiling anything but the live aid scene comes near the end of the film and it best moment of the movie. It's this long, extended, 20-minute, almost shot-for-shot recreation of the band's performance. Does a moment like that make a movie like this worth it for you? Absolutely, I think. Yeah, it's wild. This morning, I was rewatching the actual Queen Live Aid performance. And like you say, like the shot for shot thing, like I'm really curious,

you know, once this comes out, you know, on DVD or just streaming or whatever, like there's always people on YouTube when they take they take rock star biopics and they line up footage like they do split screen of the movie and you know live footage of the person the movie is about and I'm really curious how exact you know the movements down to Freddie Mercury's like movements like where he is on stage during Live Aid because just just sort of eyeballing it you know like all the Pepsi cups and the beers on the piano and the way he like fiddles with a knob on a speaker like right before he starts and like when he blows a kiss like just just from what i can tell like i think it's as close to exact as they could make it like every

specific detail of that scene very specifically and i i'm curious how exactly they got it and like yeah i mean it's enormously effective and it's just sort of a relief, you know, for 20 minutes or so that there's no like dramatization and there's no explaining like how they wrote the song. Like there's no cheesy biopic aspect. You know, it's just them performing, you know, and yeah, it's incredible. And I, you know, I think that's the bulk of what everyone loves about this movie and what'll bring people back to it. Let's talk about Rami Malek. He's going to be probably nominated for best actor. This is a really interesting role and performance for him. He's obviously best known as Elliot from Mr. Robot, which is a very interior performance. People might've seen him earlier this year, though, probably not in a remake of the Steve McQueen movie, Papillon. He also has a very internal performance in that movie. He has an internal performance in The Master, you may recall. But Rami Malek has never done a character this big and this crazy and larger than life. What did you think of what he did?

I mean, it was pretty incredible. Just the physicalness, you know, just down to the teeth and just the cheekbones and just sort of the way he carries himself, like just as a pantomime, as just an impression of a human, like it's really, it's really striking, like immediately. I was trying to decide in the moment if it bothered me, like the lip syncing, like the obvious lip syncing, but like, first of all, I don't think you're going to get like a competent actor who can actually sing like Freddie Mercury. Bradley Cooper would say otherwise, Rob. Well, there's a scene in the movie where specifically they're like, lip syncing is bullshit.

We're not doing that. It's a good comparison for this movie. I was watching scenes from Walk the Line this morning, the Joaquin Phoenix, Johnny Cash movie. I have to tell you that I don't believe that has aged well that film tell me more it just it it's it strikes me as very cheesy now and he is obviously singing you know and and he's he's doing okay but he's not he doesn't sound exactly or enough like johnny cash like he just sort of sounds nauseous all the time you know and, and it's, it's okay. It's okay as an impression, but I, I think I,

watching Bohemian Rhapsody, like in the end, I was, I was grateful that they just did the lip syncing. Cause I think it helps the performance when you don't have to worry about that aspect. Like you think about Chadwick Boseman and get on up, like he's, he's not singing the James Brown parts, but the way he's dancing, you absolutely do not care that he's not singing. So, I think just letting Rami focus entirely on the physical aspect and just the look of him, I think that was a good idea. And yeah, I mean, far and away, he's the best thing about the movie down to being the only thing about the movie.

Yeah, I agree with you completely. Last week on the show, Amanda Dobbins shared that you got to sing rule as a reason to maybe hold this against Rami Malek. And I agree with you about Walk the Line because I want to hear Johnny Cash sing. I don't want to hear Joaquin Phoenix sing. I don't care about how Joaquin Phoenix mimics him. Just in the same way that I want to hear Joaquin Phoenix sing. I don't care about how Joaquin Phoenix mimics him. I just in the same way that I want to hear Somebody to Love by Freddie Mercury. And I want to hear Killer Queen by Freddie Mercury. I don't want to hear, you know, Rami Malek's mediocre affectation of a Freddie Mercury performance. I want to see that. So I don't have that same logic as far as whether a performance is a success or not. You know, one of the things the movie does is, and this is a tried and true tactic as well, it shows us a couple of different times, and you mentioned the Another One Bites the

Dust example, of the band writing a song in real time. And obviously, quite famously, the titular song from the movie is recreated at length. There's also just a lot of, you know, Queen songs in general. There are live performances that are rendered. There just a lot of, you know, Queen songs in general. There are live performances that are rendered. There is a lot of songs in the soundtrack. Is there a Queen song

that they didn't play here that you wish they would have focused on a little bit? I don't remember. It was in the movie, but under pressure, I don't think was in the movie enough. Like if there was a scene,

if I wanted to see another scene of them recreating a song in the studio it would have been that one like just to see who they got to play david bowie you know i i just think that that's sort of a top five queen song in the popular imagination and it's in there somewhere but it's it's not given the same you know making of focus as you know we will rock you or bohemian rhapsody. And like, I'm sort of, I don't think that those scenes, which are pretty corny, all things considered, like, affects my affection for those songs. But maybe it's better, you know, that they let Under Pressure

sort of slip under the radar a little bit there, you know. So, I think Under Pressure is the one that got short shrift, and that may have actually been for the best. Yeah, as I recall, Under Pressure was recorded in Germany, I think, with Bowie, while both Freddie and Bowie were going through some experimental health issues. And I suspect that's one of the reasons why it's not depicted, but that's actually the reason why it should be depicted. And, you know, Freddie Mercury's life is very interesting. He's obviously has this complex representation of sexuality that I think the movie kind of struggles to accurately or sincerely adapt and focus on.

And I think it actually might confuse audiences. Similarly, just his life, his identity as a man is confusing. You know, his parents are immigrants. He's from England. He's always trying to affect a new persona. He's a shapeshifter in many ways. I guess, does it matter if those things are blurry or wrong? You mentioned sort of his diagnosis of HIV and then when he told the band. and I think what's going to happen is this movie is already really popular. And this is going to be for an entire new generation, their entry point into queen. It's canon.

Yeah. It's canon. And is there something kind of icky about that, that this is now the way that we know the queen story, even if a lot of that stuff is either wrong or sort of ill told. Yeah. I mean, I think the piece Stephen Hyden wrote for us,

wrote for The Ringer about Queen and about this movie and about like Freddie Mercury in real life versus this movie. I think that was really good. And there's a really complicated relationship this movie has with the hedonism. Like the standard arc of a biopic is like the band gets big and gets really hedonist and there are like party scenes and like nudity and drugs and then there's a big come down afterward but in this movie like the hedonism is the come down like the hedonism is the dark part like it's it's never sort of depicted as this joyful sort of revelry you know it's this is what a rock star does like this is what a rock star is

supposed to be this is how they're supposed to behave like they're supposed to behave badly and to behave flamboyantly and it seems like from the beginning like that's the part that he was ashamed of that's the part that freddie mercury never actually enjoyed while he was going through it like you know he did it because he didn't want to be alone like it's what if you know i i think the part of Freddie Mercury's life and art that this movie sort of screws up is sort of depicting like his hedonistic phases as these terrible, you know, soul killing things that he didn't really enjoy. Like, you know, I have a feeling that's not quite accurate. Let me ask you something. What do you think about what Mike Myers is doing in this movie? I saw Mike Myers's name in the credits and I I was all psyched to try and find him. And I watched

that entire movie without realizing that that was him. I had no idea that was him. Hand to God. And I was shocked and a little ashamed of myself, frankly, when I realized it later. But that entire scene, those scenes in the dude's office like i i was focused on freddy on just the sunglasses and just sort of the corniness and the staginess and that's sort of a standard biopic cliche you know it's like the the loser record executive who doesn't get it you know and and says like really obviously like bohemian rhapsody will never be a hit song you know it's it's sort of that Mad Men style, like super revisionism. Like, you know, the whole triplet of it

is the way that we're looking back on it now. And we know how stupid these people were specifically. Like, I had no idea that that was Mike Myers. Yeah, it's a very strange choice. I mean, obviously it circles us back to Wayne's world in a sweet way. But the character that he plays is named ray foster that's not a real person right he's loosely based on roy featherstone the the real life record executive

although roy featherstone was famously very supportive of queen though is on the record for having some doubts about bohemian rhapsody so it's kind of just like a meta joke that's really the only reason he's there or to create the sort of false sense of drama with it you know the sort of us against the world dynamic that the band thrives on in the movie um you know i wrote about mike myers earlier this year i just don't really understand what mike myers is doing with his life and career and i i love mike myers and that's why i feel comfortable saying that i just between the gong show and he made a quite terrible film earlier this year called terminal i. I'm not going

to watch that. Don't watch it. I mean, it's a really confusing thing to have happened to both Mike Myers and Margot Robbie. You know, he wrote a book a couple of years ago about Canada. He's just, I, on the one hand, appreciate his willingness to be free and to do whatever he wants creatively. I think that that's fantastic. But every time I see him now, I'm sort of sad. I'm sort of, and even a little frustrated. Was the gong show, you weren't supposed to know it was him? Well, yes. And clearly he pulled a fast one on you again.

Yes. Yeah. That seems to be what he wants to do now. He wants to be in things without anyone realizing that he's in things. And I guess if you're that famous for that long and that prominent for that long, that idea is very attractive to you. You know, the rock, the superstar actor in winter who just wants to sneak into things and have no one even realize it. Like that's, that's how you get off at this point. If you're Mike Myers, I guess.

I kind of understand that because Myers idolizes Peter Sellers. Right. Peter Sellers, one of the geniuses of Peter Sellers is every movie would be starring Peter Sellers and then he would transform and you'd be like, I don't know how he does it. He transformed again. As opposed to Mike Myers who is literally in movies and you're like, I didn't know that was Mike Myers. Right. That's a ludicrous thing that happened. Probably going too far there, yes.

He may have. Rob, just for context, what is your all-time favorite movie that has this shape, this sort of rock biopic? I don't know if Spinal Tap counts, but if Spinal Tap counts, it's definitely absolutely Spinal Tap. You know, if it has to be a real life thing, you know what movie I really loved was The Runaways. Oh, yeah. Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning. Yeah. I mean, it's, you don't watch that movie for a second and look at those people and think that those people are thinking like, I'm going to win an Oscar for this. You know, which you can tell Walk the Line was like that, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody

to an extent is like that. The Runaways is pretty trashy and pretty sort of lurid and, you know, not concerned at all with accuracy, you know, or good taste or any of those things. But I do think that those are attractive qualities in a rock biopic, especially of the bands, like The Runaways. Like, I think you want a certain kind of ambition, but not necessarily total accuracy ambition and not necessarily award show ambition. You know, I think that movie in particular just found a nice little middle path. Yeah, I agree with you. That's for those who haven't seen that, Floria Sigismondi,

this Italian filmmaker woman made that movie. It's really quite good. There's also a very good Michael Shannon performances, Kim Fowley, um, this sort of angel devil of LA rock in the seventies. Um, which band deserves a movie like this? What's a, what's a band that we haven't, that was the first thing that kind of crept into my mind when I walked out, you know, I feel like they're too overexposed. The number of movies already made about Kurt Cobain, but like Nirvana,

somebody is going to take a shot at this at some point. Right. I was, I was looking at last days, the Gus Van Sant film, which is sort of lured in its own way. It's like basically just Michael Pitt just staggering around his house. Like it's actually, I think he's not actually Kurt Cobain, but he's obviously, you know,

playing a Kurt Cobain figure. And it's literally, you know, the last days of his life. Like there's no biopic shape or there's no shape to it at all. But you figure at some point someone's going to take a shot at a pretty conventional you know childhood to stardom uh nirvana thing you know i you too i think could work for this like van halen has potential just the number of characters you know and just to try and cast you know david lee roth and sammy hagar i you know guns and roses someone's probably going to do at some point what's the elgort's that elgort guy is going to be axel rose are going

to try and be axel rose at some point it's going to be ansel elgort it's going to be great i swear and i don't have to say the talking heads myself so that's probably you know a personal thing that's a that's a really good idea uh Uh, you just, you heard, you really scrambled my brain with Ansel Elgort as Axl Rose. That is my youth coming apart in real time. You're going to be, you're going to be talking yourself into it. No, I won't be. I promise you. Um, later this, or I suppose next year, Taron Egerton, he of Kingsman fame will be portraying Elton John. And that movie is actually directed by Dexter Fletcher, who finished this Queen movie. Oh, wow. And Taron is singing. He's singing the Elton John songs. Really? Yes. Oh, no. I don't think so. And that looks quite poor. So I'm not excited. I mean, who knows?

It could be wonderful, actually. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this, too, because Queen is this sort of perfectly memorialized band in our minds. You know, the songs, We Will Rock You is, has woven itself into our DNA and Bohemian Rhapsody too. These songs have become like, I don't know,

karaoke jams for life. Right. And we haven't had a movie about like the Rolling Stones. Right. Or the Beatles, you know, these bands that the members are still, some of the members are still living and they're protecting their legacies and they're not letting them be rendered in this way. And I assume mostly that's because they don't want a Bohemian Rhapsody made about their lives. But I mean, the Rolling Stones particularly feel so perfect for any number of individuated stories, you know, just the recording of Exile or Brian Jones's death or any number of things

that they could be telling. Why do you think that some of the highest level classical stars, you know, Michael Jackson, Prince, you know, you talked about Nirvana, which feels very unlikely and Last Days is told the way that it is because the estate wouldn't grant them access to the Cobain life story. What do you think is keeping those people from letting stories like that happen? I think the same thing you mentioned that for a new generation now, Bohemian Rhapsody is going to be the Queen's story. It's going to be verbatim. It's going to be canon.

It's going to be assumed to be more or less true, you know, and it's obviously the surviving members have taken care and have scuttled other projects. And like, this is the depiction of them and of Freddie Mercury that they wanted. But I think if you're at a level of the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, like you don't want anybody else involved in this process. Like you don't want anyone else shaping your legacy or deciding for like a new generation of listeners, of fans, like what your band was, what your band was like, what your band means like what your band means what your band's stories were like you think back to the stories about the beatles the beatles rock band thing you know the video game when they made an entire game where you could play beatles songs and there's a scene where yoko ono is sort of in the studio with the video game makers and she's sort of she's telling them exactly how things have to be and how john lennon has to be portrayed. And it's like at that highest level, the level of control that the surviving members have over their legacies is

such that I don't think they're going to share that at all. And so you, you literally are waiting for the Rolling Stones to die for there to be any chance of a movie like this. And, you know, the Rolling Stones are never going to die apparently. And so that means it's just, it's never going to happen. You know, you're just, you're going to have to settle for the real thing. The only thing that's dying are the old ways. Speaking of, I'm very interested in this thing that's happening right now. So obviously we

talked about A Star Is Born at the top of this show. There's a movie coming out in December called Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman, in which she portrays a rock star. And there's this movie. Three makes a trend, of course. You and I came up in the media days of the early aughts. And I'm trying to figure out why rock stars are a good vehicle for movie stars and why these movies have a little bit more resonance, particularly in a time with Savior, Greta Van Vliet's. There's just not a lot of rock stars. What do you think is going on there? Why has this been transferred to the movie world? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, rock is dead, Sean, as we've been saying in various print,

you know, various outlets for 20 years now. And there's that Elizabeth Moss movie too, right? Her Smell. Her Smell, that's right. By Alex Ross Perry. have decided that, you know, in the absence of any real life rock stars, they have to create them, you know, themselves, you know, Jackson Maine is going to be a more resonant, you know, a realer figure as a rock star than like any actual musicians in 2018. Like just, just for some reason, rock is actually now dead. The notion of a rock star is actually dead. Like it's, it's weird to think that, you know that the Queen, 40 years of Queen, and Queen had a big revival with the Wayne's World movie, which was in the 90s, the early 90s. This is such an old band,

and young people today have pretty much no context for it, other than maybe doing the greatest hits on Spotify or whatever. But it's just rock stardom is such an outdated idea, but still such an alluring idea that, you know, I, I guess, you know, actors, Hollywood has gotten it in its head that like they alone can keep that idea alive. We have kept it alive with this podcast. Rob, thank you so much for doing this and, um, may your Bohemians always be rhapsodic. That's very sweet. Thank you. Bye, Rob.

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