In a year where Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Oppenheimer shattered the summer box office and is poised to continue winning major awards following its five wins at the 2024 Golden Globes, other big male directors in the industry have taken to complex biopics. Their focus? Some of the most ambitious and well-known male figures to ever walk this earth.
Bradley Cooper found his muse in Maestro with renowned music composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Ridley Scott focused on war and battle conqueror Napoleon in the appropriately tilted Napoleon. And most recently, Enzo Ferrari became director Michael Mann’s fixation in the racing drama Ferrari.
With recognizable household names found in both the films and their directors, it’s interesting to think about why such major names in the film industry are drawn to these historical figures. At a time in which many of these directors have amassed the name recognition, respect and privilege to make almost any films they want, they’ve chosen to make biopics about some of the most talked-about men in history. And in Scott’s case, a man that has been depicted on screen countless times already (going back to the 1927 French silent film).
Going Beyond Our Peripheral Understanding
These films not only aim to explore the many facets of these figures beyond a textbook reading, but they aim to show off the skills and craft of the men behind the camera (in Maestro’s case, in front of too). Ambitious auteurs meet their match in even more ambitious figures. Men just out of reach, impossible to ever fully know. And perhaps it’s in that unknowing, that knowledge that men like Napoleon can never 100% be understood — even by men similar to them — that draws such big-name directors to try to crack their stories.
However, despite the ambitious, often visceral filmmaking found in Maestro, Napoleon and Ferrari, I couldn’t shake the feeling of disgruntled disappointment when the credits rolled. I was equally enamored as I was annoyed, underwhelmed and unsure of what the directors were even trying to say in the first place. I was particularly looking forward to Maestro and Ferrari, largely for the names involved and the possible awards buzz. After watching Mann’s take on the racing industry, I realized how similarly all three films made me feel.
For all of these massive projects, therein lies one major issue: what’s the real story being told?
The Historical Context Behind It All
It’s no easy task to bring these stories to life. Cooper has been open about learning how to conduct like Leonard for six years, with Jake Gyllenhaal even losing out on the rights despite wanting to bring Leonard’s story to life himself for twenty years. Ferrari has been in development for decades, and the mere fact that an over four-hour director’s cut of Napoleon exists is evidence of the work that Scott put into bringing his ambitious epic to the big screen.
Each film tried to embody not only the people they were portraying but also the historical context and emotions during that time.
It’s exhilarating to witness the feeling of a new frontier for car racing in Ferrari, the brilliantly staged battle scenes in Napoleon and the black-and-white cinematography– an ode to classic Hollywood films–in Maestro. However, they lose sight of telling a truly impactful story. Giving audiences thrilling set-pieces and moments without the real character work or sense of pacing to drive the story forward can only go so far. As a result, these films quickly run out of steam before they ever really get going.
All of these films feature male protagonists going after something in their lives, following their passion and drive to the end of the earth… oftentimes to the detriment of those around them. The themes being explored at the center of these projects are equally intriguing — from the unspoken confinement of masculinity and its toxic lineage in Ferrari to a portrait of a queer composer having affairs with various men throughout his marriage in Maestro. All of the right pieces are in place for a compelling narrative. So why don’t they deliver at the end of the day?
Through the Lens of Restless Marriages
All of these films focus on the titular subjects’ often complicated relationship with the women in their lives. From Felicia Montealegre and Laura Ferrari to Empress Joséphine, all of these characters are given nail-biting scenes in which they scold their husbands for various reasons and stand their ground amidst failing marriages. Framing these films through these flawed relationships makes for some of the most interesting scenes in each film.
Take the already infamous Snoopy scene from Maestro, in which Felicia tells Leonard that it’s draining to love a man who hasn’t come to terms with his true self. It’s a brilliantly crafted scene from a technical and acting standpoint. Yet, as a whole, the film feels too afraid to meaningfully explore Leonard’s relationships with men and his sexuality to make this scene land. We’re being told this information, but it just doesn’t register for the audience on an emotional level. Where’s the build-up?
Watching Laura slowly uncover the truth about Enzo’s life with a child away from her is emotionally gripping, brought to life by a brilliant turn from veteran actor Penélope Cruz. We feel her anger at his betrayal. We feel her desire to have a son of her own. But her character is relegated to that one singular note.
In Napoleon, Joséphine’s screentime is especially limited. Vanessa Kirby is a formidable force in the film, but her character largely feels reduced to a plot device to illustrate Napoleon’s bumbling character further. We hear her tell Napoleon that he would be nothing without her. It’s a powerfully written scene performed exquisitely by Kirby, yet we never really see or feel their dynamics beyond being told through dialogue.
These films all have dilemmas in focus and seem unsure of just how much these women should be featured in the narratives themselves. These women are all fascinating, but we rarely learn about their lives or ambitions outside of the men who stand beside them, which is quite unfortunate. Sure, in the case of Maestro, that’s kind of the point — Felicia remains tied to Leonard’s music and never fully realizes her own dreams as an actor. But the film remains conflicted on whose story is being told between Leonard and Felicia, and without a strong directorial focus, it’s difficult to decipher where the real heart of the story is. The biggest issue across all these films is that we never grasp how these relationships infuse or affect these men in other facets of their lives.
These relationships could — and should — be fully unveiled. Perhaps there’s a more interesting story to be told from the singular perspective of these women as they found themselves slowly drifting away from the men they thought they knew: case in point, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.
The Larger Issues in These Projects
These stories never allow us to fully understand what drives these men to pursue what they do in life, often jarringly cutting between different moments (in the case of Maestro and Napoleon, years) without a real thought as to the relationship between these elements, these facets. What is the driving force behind Leonard, his music and his love? Napoleon and his hailing as a battle warrior? Enzo and winning the race? Underneath the tough exterior, the hurled words and the externalized battles, these characters largely feel like enigmas by the end of their own stories. It’s almost as if the overwhelming historical significance and ambitions of these men and their sprawling histories overwhelm the directors to the point of flattening these stories.
Now, I’m not saying that biopics should provide clear and cut answers as to every aspect of the subject’s life. These films shouldn’t provide easy answers. Despite seeming like pure “Oscar bait” on paper, Maestro isn’t always confined to easy biopic conventions. It purposefully leaves the audience at a disconnect with its cinematography, sometimes to an effective degree. That’s not the problem. The issue is that it’s not clear what specific questions are being asked of the audience in the first place. How can the audience sift over the complicated nature of these men if we’re never presented with a dramatic question to drive the story and draw us in?
Another issue plaguing these films is their convoluted time frames. Ferrari has the most specific focus, merely taking place over a few months in 1957, while Maestro and Napoleon jump around multiple decades — sometimes at random points that don’t completely work. While Maestro starts and ends near the end of Leonard’s life, this framing device never amounts to much of anything. By the time we return to an older Leonard by the very end, our understanding of him as a person remains fairly limited. Despite the intended poignancy and visual prowess of each film’s final moments, they’re never fully emotionally felt or realized.
Concluding Thoughts
Cooper, Scott and Mann have clear talent behind the camera. I’m certainly not one to deny that. They share a passion for bringing a truly cinematic experience to the big screen and doing so in fashion. But in telling these historical stories of complicated, contradictory and oftentimes clumsy men, they lose their focus, their granite understanding of what story they really wanted to tell from the beginning. Along the way, I fear we lose these captivating historical figures even further to time.
Analysis Courtesy of Matt Minton
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