Why Bohemian Rhapsody Changed the Facts

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00:00Who was Freddie Mercury?

00:10If you want a real answer to this question,

00:12Bohemian Rhapsody may not be the best place to look.

00:15Fact checkers have a lot of bones to pick with the Queen biopic,

00:18yet this hasn't stood in the way of it becoming

00:20a record-smashing audience favorite and awards season darling.

00:24So how much does accuracy matter here?

00:27Typical biopics, and biopics in general, aren't documentaries,

00:30they're fiction, and they pretty much have to take creative liberties

00:34to fashion two-hour dramatic arcs out of years of material.

00:37Yet with every alteration of fact into fiction,

00:40the filmmaker imposes their subjective narrative onto the history.

00:44They send a message.

00:46So even more interesting than the question of what's true or false here

00:49is why the movie changed what it did.

00:57I'm going to be what I was born to be,

01:00a performer who gives the people what they want.

01:06Bohemian Rhapsody understands very well what audiences really care about.

01:10It's the music.

01:12So the smartest thing it does is make this all about the soundtrack.

01:19You might even say the film is one long music video.

01:24Look at how this opening scene is shot and edited.

01:27The fast cutting between extreme close-ups and cutaways is a style we recognize

01:31from so many examples of the genre.

01:34In most films, the soundtrack is there to supplement the scenes.

01:37Here, it's the other way around.

01:39The film serves the soundtrack.

01:42This as a music video might come up with a simple story

01:44to add a little entertainment in between shots of singing and dancing.

01:48But I thought the old lady dropped him into the ocean in the air.

01:51Well, baby, I went down and got it for you.

01:54Structurally, too, the biopic builds its story around the songs we know and love.

01:58And the whole film builds to the Live Aid concert.

02:13The movie also makes a point of Queen's interactivity.

02:16I want to give the audience a song that they can perform, right?

02:21Let them be part of the band.

02:26By making the songs the centerpiece,

02:28this movie cleverly replicates that talent for making the audience part of the music.

02:33In its final scene, this basically becomes a concert film.

02:37And it's telling that the producers of Bohemian Rhapsody

02:39even released a sing-along version of the film in theaters.

02:42Enjoying sing-along screenings.

02:45So the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody has done as well as it has

02:47basically proves that Queen was so good,

02:50all this movie really had to do to give audiences a wonderful experience

02:59was not get in the way of the music.

03:06Between the hit songs and flashy set pieces,

03:09there's the small matter of having a life story to tell.

03:12How do you squeeze all of that into two hours,

03:14fill gaps where hard evidence is scant,

03:16and deal with the fact that life simply won't tell itself

03:19in the most dramatic way possible?

03:20By being open-minded about the facts, of course.

03:23Many of Bohemian Rhapsody's factual edits work to fit Mercury's life

03:27into a standard rock star biopic formula.

03:30An unknown with big faith in his talent rises from obscurity,

03:33gets caught up in a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle,

03:36drowns in his own ego until he learns humility

03:38and reunites with loved ones,

03:40and gives a climactic performance that shows how much he's grown.

03:43To fit this paint-by-numbers narrative,

03:45as some critics have called it,

03:47Bohemian Rhapsody plays a lot with chronology

03:49and heavily compresses the band's timeline.

03:52So in the movie,

03:53Freddie happens on the band he follows

03:54freshly without a lead singer.

03:56He aces the audition and gets the job on the spot.

04:03In reality, Mercury had known the lead singer from college

04:06and was already sharing a flat with his soon-to-be bandmates.

04:09This more succinct version of events is fabricated

04:12to introduce Freddie's character.

04:13I'll consider your offer.

04:16Even if others dismiss him as a weirdo,

04:18this is a young person who knows he's destined for greatness.

04:21I was born with four additional incisors.

04:24More space in my mouth means more range.

04:26Oh, and apparently Mercury really did say that about his teeth.

04:30The second fact-related strategy used here is invention.

04:34In Bohemian Rhapsody, we meet the EMI executive Ray Foster,

04:37who's dismissive of Freddie's magnum opus.

04:40There's no way now the station will play a six-minute quasi-operatic dirt

04:44comprised of nonsense words.

04:47And who also didn't really exist.

04:49Apparently, he's roughly based on Roy Featherstone,

04:52but the fictional character here, played by Mike Myers,

04:54in a fun nod to Wayne's world.

04:56Well, that's the kind of song teenagers can crank up the volume in their car

05:00and bang their heads to.

05:01Bohemian Rhapsody will never be that song.

05:08personifies an entire industry that so often fails to understand

05:12the importance of pushing the envelope.

05:13But the most glaring invention in the film is the split-up of the band

05:21brought on by Freddie's decision to go solo.

05:23I've signed a deal with CBS Records.

05:27Which didn't happen at all.

05:29Mercury wasn't even the first member of Queen to do a solo record.

05:33That was Roger Taylor, who in the movie utters this line,

05:36Brian May also went solo before Freddie.

05:41I won't compromise my vision any longer.

05:43Compromise?

05:44Are you joking?

05:45What's truly odd about this invention is that it's the central conflict

05:49of the whole plot.

05:50And we have to wonder, wasn't there any real major conflict

05:54the movie could have investigated to try to understand

05:56a deeper truth about Freddie Mercury?

05:58As David Ehrlich wrote for IndieWire,

06:00the truth was surely far more interesting.

06:06Bohemian Rhapsody summarizes Freddie Mercury the myth.

06:12Flamboyant frontman, musical pioneer, queer icon, sex symbol, AIDS victim,

06:17and, of course, owner of that world-shaking voice.

06:23This movie's success tells us that Bohemian Rhapsody understands

06:26the expectations we bring to a biopic.

06:29Audiences come in with an idea of who Mercury was.

06:32And to a certain extent, they want to see that known story

06:35reflected back at them.

06:37So this leads us to another way this film, like any biopic,

06:40alters the facts through omission.

06:43Freddie's life before Queen is only briefly recapped in dialogue.

06:46We were chased out with just the clothes on our back.

06:49The film nods at Freddie's discomfort with his otherness.

06:52So now the family name's not good enough for you.

06:55But it doesn't really go into why he feels this way.

06:59Now looking back, only four words.

07:01Apart from a couple generalized examples of racial slurs.

07:04Hey, you missed one, Paki!

07:06Who's the Paki?

07:07For me, Freddie will always be this frightened little Paki boy.

07:11Meanwhile, Freddie's death from AIDS-related illness

07:13is a known part of his legacy.

07:15I've got it.

07:16So the movie makes sure to fit this part of Mercury's story in,

07:19even though its chosen 15-year time period doesn't coincide

07:23with Freddie's AIDS diagnosis and death.

07:28The result substitutes a generalized fictional experience

07:31for a real, specific one.

07:39What is Bohemian Rhapsody using its changes to say about Freddie and the band?

07:43One big point the movie is making is that Queen is more than just Freddie Mercury.

07:48I'm not the leader of Queen.

07:49I'm only the lead singer.

07:50Freddie's character arc is structured around this revelation.

07:54You need us, Freddie.

07:55It's clearly true that Queen was more than Mercury.

07:59All four musicians are in the Songwriting Hall of Fame.

08:01The problem is that, in order to facilitate this revelation,

08:05the movie dreams up a plot that shows Freddie drunk on ego

08:08and driven by greed, but there's no evidence of Mercury acting this badly.

08:13This biopic needed the approval of living band members,

08:16May and Taylor, to secure the music rights.

08:18As Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast writes,

08:20the way it alters the history at Freddie's expense, quote,

08:23suggests the entire project was born out of a resentment

08:26from the surviving members of Queen.

08:28We keep being told through a lot of dialogue

08:30that Freddie is behaving terribly.

08:32What's going on?

08:33You'd know if you're on time.

08:36I'm here, aren't I?

08:37Are you?

08:38But apart from the fact that he's a bit late to rehearsal,

08:40we're hard pressed to understand why everyone feels

08:43that Freddie is acting like such a monster.

08:45Sometimes you're a total prick.

08:47By the end, he's forced to apologize and humble himself before the band.

08:51Could you give us a moment, please, Fred?

08:54Why'd you do that?

08:56I just felt like it.

08:58As Fallon writes,

08:59Bohemian Rhapsody smells like cinematic retribution,

09:02in which Mercury is posthumously punished,

09:04with his sexuality reduced to a partying vice.

09:06Come on, your guests are waiting.

09:07We all want a little Mercury in their cup.

09:11It's hard not to think that Mercury would have wanted a wilder,

09:14more boundary-pushing film.

09:16This is, in fact, what Sacha Baron Cohen,

09:18who was originally attached to Star, had in mind.

09:20Stephen Frears told Vulture Cohen's vision was,

09:23"...outrageous in terms of his homosexuality,

09:26and outrageous in terms of endless naked scenes,"

09:28which sounds very much in the spirit of Freddie Mercury himself.

09:31Overall, the movie's changes to Mercury's life represent a missed opportunity

09:36to tell a more truthful or provocative story.

09:38All the same, when we exit the theater,

09:40this movie leaves us wanting to listen to more Queen.

09:43Bohemian Rhapsody knows that audiences love nothing more

09:46than a great rock concert.

09:48And we're not there to learn new lyrics,

09:50we just want to sing along to the music.

09:52Anywhere the wind flows...

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Why Bohemian Rhapsody Changed the Facts

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