Reassembling the dust: the art of biography - Reel World - great interest in chronicling of lives

WHILE MY DAY JOB IS TEACHING FILM STUDIES at Ball State University, my real passion is writing. Though that often involves genre studies, such as my recent cinema criticism text, Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference, the majority of my books are biographies. I am fascinated by the profiling of lives.

The penchant for biography mirrors a national inclination. During the last decade, the American public has been especially drawn to the chronicling of lives. This interest has been fed by a proliferation of cable television profile programming, following the longtime success story of A&E's "Biography." Moreover, A&E's hit has expanded from once a week to a nightly show. Meanwhile, the newsstands are peppered with profile-related publications, from the mainstream People and Us to A&E's Biography Magazine. The making of film biographies (both for television and theatrical release) has seen a marked increase as well.

Why this interest? There are three key reasons. First, for profiler Frank E. Vandiver, biography at its best is "history made personal." For example, an individual might have little interest in war, but George C. Scott's electrifying title performance in "Patton" (1970) draws the viewer into the myriad of minidramas that constituted the close of World War II in Europe. Along similar lines, the viewer need not be a fan of classical music to be swept up by the darkly comic scope of "Amadeus" (1984), the provocative chronical of composer Antonio Salieri's jealousy of the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"History made personal" works as a small-scale equation, too. For instance, in director John Ford's classic film, "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939), the attraction is not about Civil War leadership, but, rather, seeing how a soon-to-be great man responds to rite-of-passage universals that impact everyone. Thus, Henry Fonda's moving portrayal of the future president explores the loss of a loved one, the courtship of a spouse, and Lincoln's relationship with his mother.

Second, acclaimed biographer Barbara W. Tuchman reminds us that the genre can also be about the "universal in the particular." That is, a life story can make a complex subject more intellectually manageable. To illustrate, director Warren Beatty's sprawling chronicle of American writer John Reed's embracing of communism, "Reds" (1981), helps make the Russian Revolution easier to comprehend, especially for an American viewer. Along comparable lines, director Elia Kazan's biography of Emiliano Zapata, "Viva Zapata!" (1952), starring Marion Brando, helps make the Mexican Revolution more understandable.

Third, a good biography can feed an interest in the genre by simply being masterfully informative. For example, I have always been taken with the surrealistic paintings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, but producer/actress Salma Hayek's extraordinary chronicling of her life in "Frida" (2002) is a revelation. Here was a passionate artist whose work and life were often overshadowed by her tempestuous marriage to social realist painter Diego Rivera, brought to life in an equally passionate film biography by Hayek, who also played the title role.

As the author of 10 print biographies, including forthcoming volumes on Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne, I am attracted to the genre for additional reasons. For the conscientious biographer, it all begins with what author Doris Kearns calls "angles of vision." This is a three-part take on the focus subject.

A biography is normally written because the author has a novel take (angle of vision) on the subject. Thus, in 1983, when I chronicled Charlie Chaplin's life, my revisionist aim was a new perspective on the comedian's signature figure of the Little Tramp. I made a case for his alter ego character being more capable than he was given credit for.

The second angle of the vision component for the biographer involves the public's take on the subject. When doing my first book on the Marx Brothers (1987), I had to address the popular mistaken belief that Groucho ad-libbed all his great film lines. Though Groucho did have a gift for comic riffing, his most-classic comments were provided by a who's who of satirical writers, especially S.J. Perelman and George S. Kaufman.

Groucho also provides a segue for the final take on angle of vision--the personal slant of the subject himself. In my second Marx Brothers book (1994), I keyed on Groucho's conscious decision to alter his approach to comedy as he moved from film to television. The comedian recognized the new demands of a different medium. The result was a less-frantic, nonsaturation comedy style than his movie norm. His calmer small-screen persona reacted to the craziness of his eccentric "You Bet Your Life" (1950-61) guests, instead of causing chaos, a la his film figure. Groucho's changed persona was just right for the more-intimate medium of television.

Second, after the multifaceted angle of vision factor, the good biographer is attracted to the genre because of the detective work component. What would be pure research drudgery for some (novelist Virginia Woolf once likened it to "donkey work") is merely an entertaining puzzle for the biographer. For my 1984 profile of W.C. Fields, I initially had trouble finding complete descriptions of his stage acts. Then, based upon the comedian's fierce protectiveness over his comedy routines (he once physically attacked comic Ed Wynn for allegedly stealing material), I played a hunch and checked the copyright division of the Library of Congress. Bingo! Fields had indeed copyrighted his stage routines, and I had a newsbreaking plus for my biography.