Fact vs. Fiction: Similarities and differences between the film and the true story of Freddie Mercury

Today, the film that depicts the life of Freddie Mercury and her story as a singer of Queen & # 39; s arrives in the movie theaters. The film was produced by Brian May and Roger Taylor, the two band members who are still active in music – John Deacon moved away from public light in 1997 -. So, even if it is a fiction based on real events, the script is a kind of authorized biography with some artistic permits that modify the reality to add humor or drama to the service of fiction. Then, a review of the moments of fiction that absolutely does not coincide with reality and a summary of the reality of these facts. (THERE ARE SPOILERS)

Freddie Mercury in Smile

While the film shows a shy


Freddie Mercury
approaching the band Smile – Queen's direct predecessor with Brian May and Roger Taylor already working together, and bbadist and singer Tim Staffell – to show their interest in becoming their new singer, things do not are not real life. Freddie was Tim Staffell's partner in the graphic design career at Ealing College. Staffell had already formed a band with Brian May, 1984 (in honor of George Orwell) and, after joining Roger Taylor, they founded Smile. Mercury attended the rehearsals and even accompanied them on tour, giving them recommendations on how they should act to be more striking and dramatic. "more Queen".

On the other hand, in the film, Staffell appears before May and Taylor to inform them of his departure because he had received an invitation from the Humpy Bong group. In fact, he left them to go first to the United States for a month, then to join the progressive rock band Morgan, Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hopple). After a season with them, he met the Humpy Bong to focus on the blues.

Nor is it true that Mercury has any musical experience, which is suggested at the first meeting between the three creators of Queen. He played the piano and sang in his childhood, and in London he joined two groups while he frequented members of Smile, Ibex and Sour Milk Sea. Both were dissolved and, after Staffell's resignation, Freddie became a leader and, a year later, Deacon came in as a bbad player. The rest belongs to the story.

How he met his great loves

Mary. It looks like a curtain "Doing all right", in the version of Smile (revisited with the current voices of the three members of the group for this film), and a young Freddie is seen on tour in the school Ealing at the search for this group. Suddenly, a crush: Mary Austin appeared on her way. According to the movie, Mercury is looking for her at her workplace, the Biba clothing store, and that's when they start to leave. But Brian May gave another version of the real events: he was the first to "discover" this young blonde woman, with clear eyes and perfectly buckled with the boho style that characterized the groupies of the British rock of the 70s. Did not work and Freddie, who had also fallen in love with her, asked her to introduce them. "We used to meet each other in the Kensington neighborhood, famous among other things because there were always beautiful girls, including Mary Austin," May said in the documentary.
Days of our lives . Mary had gone to see them perform at a show at Imperial College. "I met her at a recital and, as she was very shy, she did not encourage me to approach her. We went out several times. But she was also shy so we said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and nothing else so I decided to introduce them, I think their love was true love, "said the guitarist . The beginnings were not so simple. According to Mary Austin, she did not think that he was following in his footsteps. Convinced that she had approached him, interested in one of his friends, she systematically rejected him for six months. Freddie decided to follow suit and invited him to celebrate his 24th birthday on September 5th, 1970. He received another one. But, although introverted, Freddie always knew how to get what he wanted: he insisted and, the next day, he managed to accompany him to Mott the Hoople, a group that Queen had opened in the beginning, at the SoHo Marquee Club. Five months after their appointment, they moved into a furnished room for which they paid £ 10 a week on Victoria Street, next to Kensington High Street.

Although no testimony refers to a marriage proposal. as the film tells in a sweet scene with an inclusive ring of brilliants, Freddie gave him a jewel: it was a gift from one of his travels, an Egyptian scarab-shaped ring, for happiness, that Mary kept as treasure

The end would come six years later, when he would have confessed his homobaduality. The scene of the film is almost identical to the one told by the real Mary Austin that day. There is a temporary detail in the film that does not correspond to the facts: Freddie shows Mary how the "biggest audience in the history of a paid concert" sings the song that he wrote , "Love of my Life". This audience is the one Queen had in Rock in Rio 1985, nine years after breaking up with Mary.

Jim. If, in the film, Jim Hutton is a waiter who works in an evening in the singer's house, he met in a bar in 1983. Hutton had a boyfriend and rejected him . Two years later, life was asking them to see each other again at Heaven, a gay club that was in the eighties. Hutton was alone and decided to accept Freddie's flirtation. They spent the night together, but no longer heard of the Queen's chief, who was then installed in Munich three months later, when he received a phone call that made him mad with enthusiasm. I invited him to dinner. There began their relationship. In
Bohemian Rhapsody we will see Jim Hutton as the man who manages to redeem Freddie after years of excess and lover who had separated him from the group. In fact, Hutton lived with her for much of the relationship.

Ray Foster, did he exist?

The character played by Mike Myers, Ray Foster, a producer who refuses to isolate the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" for nearly six minutes, is a fictitious name that represents what happened in reality : no one thought that the legendary song would sound on the radio and that the producers were not certain to release it as the first single of
A night at the opera . Although no stubborn producer ignored the potential of an exquisite song, there was a resistance, ultimately defeated by the band, as described in the film. The appearance of Myers in the film is also a nod to The World According to Wayne (1992), a film with a brilliant comedy scene in which "Bohemian Rhapsody" sounds, played in a car by Myers and three friends that he replayed. shape the song 17 years after its debut.

The fight with John Reid

"I've never found myself as good with a band," said producer John Reid, Queen's manager in his debut. The group wanted to personally take care of their business and it was up to their lawyer, Jim Beach, to decide. In the film, one of the most strained scenes is the break with this producer played by Freddie, who heard him very well.

They were all soloists.

In the
Biopic The conflict that breaks the group appears with Mercury's decision to work as a soloist in 1984, the year of the actual release of the album.
The works . Although all of the group's biographies refer to the early years of the 1980s as difficult times for the four, this has nothing to do with Mercury's decision to deal with only one project because at least two of members of the group had already done so, and only the two who had been "offended" in the film: Roger Taylor was the first in 1977; Brian May would do the same in 1983. Later, John Deacon would have a separate project in 1986.

Freddie Mercury released his album
Mr. Bad Guy in 1985 (later would launch the legendary
Barcelona with the soprano Montserrat Caballé), and he worked almost in parallel with
The works . The recording of both albums was made partly in Munich, a city that the film mentions when he talks about the lonely years of the artist. In fact, they all lived together with the excesses of
frontman and sharing them, largely, since unlike his portrait
Bohemian Rhapsody, to Taylor and May, too sober in their fictional version, they loved the party as much as the singer, as they confessed without hesitation.

Live Aid

The highlight of the film is undoubtedly Live Aid, recital reproduced, with the exception of two songs, almost exactly as he has been seen in the movie. recordings of the concert (including the kiss he sends to his mother). To reach this point of "redemption" of the hero (Freddie), the film shows how Mercury apologizes to his group companions for their return on stage. Their colleagues are in agreement but they think that, having not played together "for years", they could not look good. The reality says that none of this looked like this: after the launch
Hot Space in 1982, album badly received by the critic and considered to date like the worst of its production, takes a sabbatical year. They were going to rest from touring and recording in 1983, but in August, they had already started working on
The works . A few months before Live Aid, January 11, 85, they performed at the first Rio Rock; then New Zealand, Australia and Japan. They came back with just the time to rehearse and convert their performance into Live Aid into the best concert performance … and the history of rock.

The fatal diagnosis

Although the film shows the scene in which Freddie Mercury reveals to his clbadmates that he was HIV-positive, this happens in fiction before the live aid concert. According to his biographers, it was not until 1987 that the musician discovered that he was suffering from the disease. For the rest, the dialogue could have been exactly as the film describes it. We know that Mercury asked his companions to compose everything in their power so that he could sing for the rest of his time. And it was so. Between 1987 and 1991, when he died, they released two albums,
The miracle (1989) e
Innuendo (1991) and material recorded for a posthumous film,
Made in Heaven (1995). It has been said that there are more recordings with Queen's voice than May and Taylor still have not dared to produce. Will it be the next step after the success of your biopic?