Some Love for Bo Rhap - And Beyond

Now that I wrote my "Before you see Bohemian Rhapsody, read this" blurb...

Here's my more in-depth, spoiler-filled review.

Note: SPOILER-FILLED BEYOND THIS POINT.

Along the same vein as my previous post, I continue to see a lot of reviews trashing the movie. From calling it whitewashed to campy to predictable or even harmful to queers... I've seen a lot of them, hardly any of them appreciative of the film.

Firstly, to my mind, this was a movie about Freddie Mercury and Queen, and moreover, a tribute to their music, their success, and their careers. It seems to me that a lot of people went into the movie expecting an in-depth biopic, I did not. I had high expectations of this movie, and I was not disappointed.

I didn't go in expecting to learn about the band, I know about the band. I didn't go in expecting to learn about Freddie Mercury, I know about Freddie Mercury. What I wanted, more than anything, was for the band to be brought to life in front of me, and they were. I became aware of Queen after Freddie Mercury had died. Queen was halfway through its career when I was born. I never had any chance to see them live, and I felt I never would. When I saw the first trailer, all that came to my mind was "Finally, I'm going to get to see Queen!"

The movie came through for me. The casting was phenomenal. The costumes, the music, the essence of Queen was all there even when the details were a bit murky. The music was amazing. The visuals were incredible. The accuracy with regards to those things was unreal. I felt like I got to see Queen's concerts - not as a grainy VHS recording, but sharp, colourful and so-close-to real.

The background story, not so much accuracy. I knew it, I saw it - the first viewing, it jolted me out of my reverie a few times - it broke the spell. Frankly, it was just a matter of my rational brain fighting my will to suspend disbelief, I was very aware of that.

Some things, such as John Deacon joining the band at the same time as Freddie Mercury, were clearly done just to save time. John Deacon was Queen's fourth bassist, but a movie doesn't need to waste time telling you something so inconsequential to the larger story. John Deacon was the bass player that finally clicked, and that's what counts.

I found that especially the beginning of the movie was full of time-savers like that, cramming multiple things into one scene. In the movie, Freddie discovers Smile playing a small gig, goes to find them and is told their singer has left. He grabs the opportunity, with true-to-form cockiness, to become their new lead singer. In reality, Freddie was a fan of Smile and was friendly with the band quite a while before Tim Staffell absconded. In the movie, Freddie meets Mary Austin as he's on his way to find the band. In reality, he met Mary later on as well, through Brian May, after Queen was formed. All of this is truly inconsequential.

But then...

Much of the film seems to move too quickly, too easily. From Freddie instantly becoming part of the band, to their signing with a manager, to their touring and record deals - there's not a lot of supporting story offered. There is, indeed, a nonsensical quality to this, its as if the typical struggles of a band starting from nothing are magically waived for these young men. In reality, even after finding success, the members of Queen were still broke for, well, longer than they liked. There are differing accounts of their break from Norman Sheffield, Queen's first manager/producer, but the brass tacks of it are that even with significant success, the band members themselves were not making much money at all. The band felt they were being taken advantage of, but their manager later said that Queen didn't understand the amount of money that had been put into them over the years and lacked patience. Whatever the reason, Queen broke from Norman Sheffield and Trident Studios before releasing Night At The Opera. To get a feel for how Freddie Mercury felt about Queen's former manager, look no further than the lyrics to "Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...)" - a song that Norman recognized to be about himself and, unfortunately, he raised a large enough stink about it that everyone else soon knew the connection too. "You suck my blood like a leech - You break the law and you preach - Screw my brain til it hurts - You've taken aaallll myyyy moneyyyy - And you want more!"

Queen found success with Night at the Opera, just as the movie portrays, and finally the money rolled in.

Freddie really did propose to Mary, but not the way the movie shows - it was at Christmas, real cheeky, with a large box containing a smaller box containing a smaller box... This portion of the movie, engagement, tours, the tapering off and ceasing wedding talk, Freddie's coming out - all lines up with the few interviews Mary has given, it appears fairly true to life.

Paul Prenter as the villain - that's slightly reworked. It begs the question of accuracy, since the band truly did not get along with him, and it was the band signed off on this script. I read one review that insisted that the movie painted the LGBTQ community as corrupting, villainous and bad - while painting all the hetero, typical people as stable and good. My problem with this view is that, I feel, it seeks to politically correct the story. Literally, to whitewash it, as others have already complained that it is. The people Freddie surrounded himself with were the people who reflected his lifestyle, not the other way around - it wasn't that the people around him influenced how he lived. I don't believe there was any corruption going on or that the people who partook of the same scene were inherently bad. Freddie Mercury just loved sex. It's clear in so many things he said and did. It's even in lyrics that he wrote ("Yeah, I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars - On a collision course - I'm a satellite, I'm out of control - I'm a sex machine, ready to reload - Like an atom bomb about to - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh explode..") On stage he bragged about the size of his cock. In interviews, he called himself a musical prostitute and frequently discussed sex. Freddie was, even in jest, an overtly sexual person. Nobody corrupted him, he was what he was and he lived without restraint for a long, long time.

Even in the movie, when Freddie dismisses Paul, he makes a point to say that he himself is to blame. Though this too doesn't follow the actual timeline, Paul Prenter was eventually dismissed. In the movie, he threatened to spill everything he knew if he was fired, and did - in a candid TV interview, effectively outing Freddie. In reality, he simply sold his story to a tabloid, still effectively outing Freddie.

Much of this, to me, is fair. Whether to save time, or to include points that are outside the timeline in reality, or even to make a point - I understand it.

There are two plot devices in this movie that do bother me, and I don't understand them - and those are the band breaking up and the estranged relationship between Freddie and Mary in the early 80's. These things never happened. It seems to me that the writers, for drama's sake, felt the need to cut Freddie off from the closest relationships he had at the time, and I don't understand the reasoning behind it.

I think it's well documented that Freddie Mercury was, ultimately, a private person. There were very few people who really knew him well, and he said many times that he didn't have friends. In the end, it would seem, his strongest relationships were with Mary and with his bandmates. He kept Mary close even after they stopped being a couple, she was his best friend. He moved her in next door. He hired her to do work for the band. He was the godfather to her child. There are countless photos of them together all throughout his life. He left the bulk of his estate to her and entrusted her with his ashes. I don't believe that they ever lost touch as much as this film implies.

Furthermore - not only did Freddie not leave Queen in order to do his solo albums, and he wasn't even the first band member to do a solo album. There was no animosity there, there was no breakup, Queen continued to work together. The movie depicts Freddie falling apart at a press conference for Hot Space, (which flopped - and was released in 1982), but ignores that The Works was released in 1984 (and was much more successful) - the year before Live Aid. There was no touching reunion because there was never a breakup.

More on relationships - Jim Hutton was not Freddie's staff, nor did they get together on the day of Live Aid. They met in a bar, Jim didn't know who Freddie was and rejected him. They met again later and became a couple - and they remained a couple until Freddie's death, it was a significant, 7 or so year relationship. Even though, I believe, Freddie did not publicly acknowledge Jim very much, he did wear a wedding ring Jim gave him, long before legalized gay marriage.

The final piece, and the one that a lot of people are stuck on - is the HIV diagnosis. In the movie, after the band's heartwarming reunion and while brushing up on playing together again in preparation for Live Aid, Freddie tells the band that he has AIDS. In reality, he wasn't diagnosed for another 2 years, and in fact, he wasn't even the first to know. Mary was told of his diagnosis before he was, as the doctors were unable to reach him and she was his emergency contact. If I recall correctly, the band wasn't told until even later.

I understand the reasoning for this one, again. It's a huge part of Freddie Mercury's story. Had it been left out, it would've appeared that it was something shameful or ignored, brushed under the rug, not relevant. Had it been tacked on at the end, following the proper timeline, it would have been a pitiful post-climactic afterthought. Virtually everyone in the world knows that Freddie Mercury died of AIDS, failing to recognize that in a film about him would be conspicuous and strange.

Live Aid was the pinnacle of Queen's success. It was the best live show ever, in many people's opinions (mine included) - it was the show of the century. It's something that hasn't been topped since. For the movie to carry on beyond that would be wading into a much sadder territory, into the end of Freddie's life. While there is, in my opinion, more to tell, more to show, it wouldn't be an electrifying performance before a captive worldwide audience.

I remember watching an interview where Freddie Mercury was asked what he would do if he couldn't do music anymore and he said something to the effect of "I'd probably just die." He worked very nearly up until his death, he sang his heart out even when he was sick. He performed in music videos where he was waif-like and had to have makeup caked on, and he still managed to nail it. I recall either Brian May or Roger Taylor saying that the work, the singing, the music - probably was what kept him going for so long. I think it probably did.

Freddie Mercury was a complex person - as talented people generally are. I've watched him in interviews and seen his cheekiness, his utter lack of seriousness, and I've related to it because I feel like it's easier to create a persona, to show bravado, to be funny - than to let people see who you actually are. Because he was a deeply private person, just as I am. I saw times when the mask briefly slipped, when he was serious for a moment, and I felt like I saw who he really was for that split second. I don't doubt one bit that he was all sorts of things, all the seemingly contradictory things that people have said about him: kind, gentle, generous, shy, loud, arrogant, pompous, a diva, rude, promiscuous... I'm sure he was all of those things and more.

He existed in a time where we were becoming more open, more tolerant... but also becoming more star-obsessed, more demanding. We feel, now, that the famous owe us their lives in some ways, that we should be allowed to take and take and take everything about them. The British press was becoming more and more predatory, it was like a disease that eventually reached its critical mass when Princess Diana died. Nobody wishes they could know more about Freddie than I do, but at the same time, I know that he must have felt the need to claw back some of himself to keep just for himself - especially toward the end when he must've felt hostage in his own home. 

In the end, I sincerely believe that this movie is what he would want it to be, for that very reason. He's not laid bare, he's not anyone's poster boy, he's not promoting anything but himself and his band in this movie, he's not boring. This is how he was in life, it's how he should be now, too. We can't know it all. We can't twist this to our individual agendas. We can watch and listen and enjoy the show - that's all that was promised, and that's exactly what we got - an electrifying, visceral, turbo-charged performance of some of the best music of the 20th century, bright, clear, in colour right in front of our eyes.

If Queen could easily be condensed into 2 hours, trust me, they wouldn't have been as epic as they truly were. They were much, much bigger than that, with a career spanning two decades, an influence that carries on to this day, they broke barriers, they created their own style, they cranked out hits that everyone still knows, they started music videos, for crying out loud. 

Queen is too big to fit into 2 hours. Period. But this movie captured the essence of Queen perfectly in 2 hours.

END

Postscript:

Please consider checking out the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the AIDS charity foundation set up in Freddie Mercury's memory.