HERO Film
BBC Culture – Comparing the ‘VICE movie – Turning a life story into drama presents creative challenges. Especially when the subject is still alive.
From Tolkien to The Favourite, and from Bohemian Rhapsody to VICE, the global love affair with fact-based drama shows no signs of slowing. Be it the deranged energy of 18th-century gothic or the pitch-black satire of VICE, a tale of lust for power centred on the forbidding figure of George W. Bush’s all-powerful vice president Dick Cheney, fact-based films are lapping up awards. The Favourite was nominated for a record 10 Oscars this year, and VICE for eight.
VICE Movie
Whether the subject matter is lost in the depths of time, as with The Favourite, whose core lesbian love triangle remains a matter for debate, or open to all-comers, as in VICE, where three of four Cheney family members have written memoirs, fictionalising fact is a fine art. And that’s especially the case when the protagonist is still around to object.
The Challenge of the Subject
Filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon has produced and directed both dramas and documentaries. Her latest release, Hero, dramatises the life of Caribbean war hero turned pan-African activist Ulric Cross. SEE ARTICLE FOR MORE: