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CINEMA – "Flamboyant" is the word that comes up most often to describe it. "Forerunner, very funny, outrageous, caring, he was a man apart, he was one of the greatest rock band leaders in the world," his friend Elton John said on his death. Mythical, charismatic, Freddie Mercury became the rock legend that he wanted to be a teenager.
He was also the man of all excesses, a sulphurous personality on stage and out, with a tumultuous private life. What is worth to the film "Bohemian Rhapsody", in theaters Wednesday, October 31, many critics, reproaching him for turning to the "Hollywood biopic" too smooth, regretting that the agitated intimacy of the singer is watered down.
Expected for years by millions of fans of the band, what does this biopic make us discover or continue to hide on Farrokh Bulsara, the real name of the singer, and on Queen?
A Freddie Mercury "all public"
The members of the Queen group are co-producers of Bryan Singer's film, so they were able to control the screenplay. The guitarist Brian May explained in an interview that they were rather against this project originally, because it was difficult for them to do justice to Mercury. But the members of the group realized that if they did not do it, someone else would do it without guarantee of result.
Their goal was to make a film for all audiences that leaves a positive image of Mercury and discover Queen to new generations. This is what caused the break with the actor Sacha Baron Cohen, originally thought to be the main performer because of its physical resemblance to the singer. He explained his withdrawal from the project: "There are fantastic stories about Freddie Mercury, he was a wild man, he had a totally decadent, debauched lifestyle, there are stories of dwarves were on the move, carrying trays filled with cocaine on their heads at parties, but Brian May and Roger Taylor wanted a film that was more watered down than reality ". These extravagant parties have been described by his friends, like the songwriter Tim Rice: "He was giving crazy nights, but I should surely consult my lawyer before I say more!", He says in the documentary "Freddie Mercury," 'secret history', which shows the images of an bad party at the Fellini given at 39 years old.
"Mercury was a wild man, he had a totally decadent lifestyle, there were stories of dwarves circulating, carrying trays filled with cocaine on their heads at parties," said actor Sacha Baron Cohen.
For having shown in his film "Saint-Laurent" years of debauchery of the great couturier and his lover Jacques de Bascher during the period Palace, the director Bertrand Bonello was also criticized and the film disavowed by Pierre Bergé. This is the dilemma of biopics. The film evokes only vaguely the 80s trash, bad and baded by Freddie Mercury in New York and Munich.
The man behind the star
The film reveals a daily Freddie, mischievous, sensitive, in whom we feel an emotional flaw undoubtedly at the origin of its excesses and its dependencies. He said in an interview: "When you see me on stage, you get the impression that I'm someone arrogant, whereas here, in front of you, you can see that I'm pretty average!"
The film, which lasts 2h15, begins when Mercury meets in London the group Smile where Brian May and Roger Taylor played. He does not recount the childhood of the singer in Zanzibar and his eight years of boarding school in India, where his parents sent him to give him a good education but where he felt very lonely.
The biopic focuses on the years 1970 to 1985, considered by the production as the most important for Freddie Mercury and for the group.
Rami Malek, a tuning interpreter
He had the pressure. That of having to play one of the super-heroes of rock, one of the best singers of the twentieth century.
The power and virtuosity of Mercury's voice will explain his incursions in the field of opera with Montserrat Caballé. The vocal performances of the film use both Malek's interpretations, those of a Mercury imitator and the recordings of the singer himself.
Another difficulty, Malek had to interpret before the members of Queen the man who had been so dear to them. If he does not have the physical size of Mercury, Malek reproduces the energy, to the point of finishing breathless during the reconstruction of the concert "Live aid", as he will confide. He perfectly appropriates his virile and offensive gesture of god of the stage, a "coach movements" helped him to imitate in the smallest details. The actor manages to convey the ecstatic thrill that a performance of Mercury could give in live.
"His mustache made us more public than if he committed suicide!" Jokes Queen's drummer Roger Taylor.
In the studio with Queen
The biopic shows the Queen group as a "family", despite the conflicts. It stages the creative process of this daring group, one of the most emblematic of "stadium rock", with the drastic reconstruction of the recording of the unclbadifiable title "Bohemian Rhapsody", an indifferent rock opera on the radio because of of its non-standard format of 6 minutes.
It reveals that the musicians sought to produce songs that interact with the audience, such as "We will rock you" (the first steps corresponding to two footfalls / a clap of hands), recalling that many of their titles are more similar. to hymns inviting communion to mere tubes.
His love story with Mary Austin finally told
She is 19, he is 24, and he meets her while still an art student. She is the one who will give him confidence and help him to become himself. They stay together for six years before he truly badumes his homobaduality. But she will be all his life the closest to him, "the love of his life" as he sings in "love of my life". He will bequeathing most of his fortune, about ten million euros, and his Kensington property in London where she still lives (worth 23 million euros).
Concorde Filmverleih GmbH The scene of the meeting between Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) at the fashionable store "Biba" in London, seen in the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody". He will follow his advice to dress and make up.
His homobaduality more or less displayed
He would have confided twice in the press, and he would have chosen the name of Queen "because it was scandalous".
As the film illustrates, early in his career Freddie Mercury has the typical look of 70s rockers, long hair and psychedelic outfits. From the 80s he badumes, together with his homobaduality, the look "castro clone" popularized by the Village People, mustache, leather, tank top, short hair, jeans and sneakers, recalling the virility of a proletarian extraction man . What made the drummer Roger Taylor say in an interview: "his mustache made us more publicity than if he had committed suicide!"
AIDS years are dead
The film stops at "Live Aid", the mythical concert of July 13, 1985, the summit of Queen's career. Freddie Mercury did not want to reveal his HIV status to protect his private life and that of his family. He will do so the day before he dies on November 23, 1991, at age 45.
He was criticized for not being a homobadual activist, for not having served as a standard-bearer for AIDS to be better accepted in society. In his defense, homobaduality was considered a crime until his 20s and AIDS was seen as a shameful disease. One of his relatives will explain in a documentary: "Freddie lived his life as he wanted, he did not really want to be the spearhead of the homobadual movement." The subject of AIDS is addressed without being deepened. The film remains so faithful to him, and was what belongs to him.
Despite the criticisms that can be made to biopic, the interpretation of Rami Malek and the power of realization succeed in making us believe, in the space of two hours, that we are always in the company of Freddie Mercury. And for all those who knew him or would have liked to know him, it is invaluable.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" with Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury), Lucy Boynton (Mary Austin), Gwilym Lee (Brian May), Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor), Joseph Mazzello (John Deacon), October 31st at the movies.
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