"A clutch of recent releases has taken up a curious middle ground: not quite biography, not quite fiction, but something more slippery in between. Marty Supreme, for instance, spins 1950s table tennis wildcard Marty Reisman into Marty Mauser, borrowing Reisman's forename and forehand while rewriting the rest."
"So what's with this rise in pseudo-biopics? Is it a defensive response to legal risk and/or online backlash? Could it just be a creative strategy, allowing film-makers to bend the truth without the burden of accuracy? Or is it something more cynical, a way of exploring the cultural cachet of real people while maintaining ironic distance?"
"The truth is, says McAdams, that movies are very hard to make. You need to find a script, star and millions of dollars in a world where a lot of films don't make money. Playing off of a character or world that people know makes th[is easier]."
Cinema's standard disclaimer states that any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. Recently, filmmakers have adopted a middle ground between biography and fiction, creating pseudo-biopics that reference real people while altering identifying details. Examples include Marty Supreme, which reimagines table tennis player Marty Reisman as Marty Mauser; Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On?, which adapts comedian John Bishop as Alex Novak; and The Prince, which draws from Hunter Biden's life through fictional character Parker Scott. Paint similarly transforms Bob Ross into Carl Nargle. This trend may reflect defensive legal strategies, creative freedom to bend truth without accuracy demands, or cynical exploitation of real people's cultural cachet while maintaining ironic distance. Filmmakers cite practical production challenges, noting that leveraging recognizable characters and worlds helps secure funding and audience interest in an industry where many films fail financially.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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