Although pianists (and even organists) left the movie theaters during the silent era, musicians have become a recurrent topic of cinema. One famous example is the first “sound” feature film, The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927), whose hero is also an instrumentalist. Background and source music have already been the subject of numerous in-depth studies. This is why Issue 15 of Savoirs en Prisme will focus more specifically on the musician, a figure that can be found in all national cinemas.
The character is featured in many recent biopics focusing on jazz, flamenco, variety or pop-rock music (The Doors, Oliver Stone, 1991; Ray, Taylor Hackford, 2005; Camarón, Jaime Chávarri, 2005; La Vie en Rose, Olivier Dahan, 2007; Dalida, a television film by Joyce Buñuel, 2005 and a film by Lisa Azuelos, 2017; Django, Étienne Comar, 2017; Bohemian Rhapsody, Bryan Singer, 2018; Rocketman, Dexter Fletcher, 2019) as well as in older movies depicting the life and work of classical composers (La Symphonie fantastique, Christian-Jaque, 1942; The Music Lovers, Ken Russell, 1969; Mahler, Ken Russell, 1974; Amadeus, Miloš Forman, 1984; Impromptu, James Lapine, 1991; Immortal Beloved, Bernard Rose, 1994). Such films seem to consolidate human myths, sometimes living ones. In such works, the emotional charge of music can outweigh that of the image, and because fiction must be more attractive than the banality of everyday life, the filmed biography of illustrious musicians adopts a tone that is reminiscent of their compositions.
