There is a joke among Telugu speakers that if Lord Krishna were to appear today, people would exclaim: “Who is this person who looks so much like N T Rama Rao?” The actor became chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh on the back of powerful mythological roles.
That joke came to mind recently as I watched Phule, director Ananth Mahadevan’s biopic on the 19th century social reformer Jyotiba Phule, who, with his wife Savitribai, revolutionised women’s education and challenged an entrenched caste system. As a figure somewhat lost in the larger-than-life stories of B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and E V Ramasamy Periyar, Phule’s story as a person who preceded and inspired these leaders is one that needed to be told to younger audiences. There is nothing like a biopic to do that.
Visuals have the power to stir and store memories, and biopics play a strong role in binding generations to images, facts and tales surrounding them. They can have a downside, too. Solid research and responsible dramatisation separate the men from the boys among biopic makers. Those shining light on the grey shades of subjects are rare, but that is an inherent challenge in portraying celebrities.
Some accuracy can be lost in drama, some in shoddy research, and some in storytelling style. Cinematic licence, like its poetic equivalent, has its virtues, though propaganda films are not quite the same as real biopics. Perhaps the audience can figure this out. A recent biopic on Veer Savarkar has been a resounding flop despite the nationalistic fervour sweeping the country.
A biopic that made the world sit up was Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, that swept the Oscars in 1982. When people were wondering why a British filmmaker rather than an Indian should make a biopic on the Mahatma, Satyajit Ray remarked that Gandhi was “too close” a figure for Indians to portray objectively. As it happened, Attenborough’s version was celebratory enough for Indians, with the leader’s halo acquiring more shine across the planet.
Of late, there has been a trend to make biopics on living figures such as M S Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016) and Shabaash Mithu on cricketer Mithali Raj (2022). Such biopics do well at the box office, but can leave historians or informed viewers unimpressed.
I found director Hansal Mehta’s web series Scam 1992—a fictionised account of disgraced stockbroker Harshad Mehta—both fascinating and underwhelming. It worked because of the way it captured the financial shenanigans of its times, but it felt contrived because I was a close witness to the events as a journalist.
Like a movie based on a novel, a historical biopic has its limitations—more so when you know there is a bigger market for stories of heroism than authentic portrayals of celebrities with warts showing. I quite liked Barry Levinson’s grey-tinted Bugsy, on the gangster who built Las Vegas as a casino city.
Tales inspired by real figures but clearly identified as fiction may work better than shoddy biopics because the characters are not claimed to be real. Shyam Benegal’s Manthan, inspired by Verghese Kurien and the White Revolution, and Mani Ratnam’s Guru, inspired by Dhirubhai Ambani, fall in this category. Kurien deserves a real biopic, as do figures such as scientist M S Swaminathan. A biopic on former President APJ Abdul Kalam is expected later this year, and I hope it tells the story with more research than hagiographic excess.
Exploring the inner psyche of subjects through details on family life, childhood or special events, or capturing the social, technological or historical circumstances with a feel for the times is where biopics score well. I have watched a special screening of Sardar, Ketan Mehta’s portrayal of Vallabhbhai Patel, with Shyam Benegal and lead actor Paresh Rawal in the audience alongside the director. Mehta said his clear aim was to make a positive biopic—so he chose to focus only on the last years of Patel, when he unified the princely states into modern India, and ended it without showing his demise. The film excelled because of solid research by celebrated writer Vijay Tendulkar that sketched the nuances of history and personalities. Professional historians rarely write such readable narratives, though Stanley Wolpert’s biography of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is as good as watching a good biopic.
Danton, a grey figure of the French Revolution, comes alive through Gerard Depardieu’s acting in Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s version, and Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish Marxist revolutionary, in Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic made in 1986. There is an enchanting feel when you watch historical biopics, as they help you travel in time, the way Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln took a reverse swing to 19th century America. That Abraham Lincoln inspired Phule is an uncelebrated fact in Indian history.
Movies on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Ambedkar and Tamil poet Subramania Bharati come to mind among celebrated biopics. We need more biopics on scientists, artists, architects and writers than military, political and sporting figures who offer easier raw material for dramas that sell. Art excels when it converts the rare into the popular.
(Views are personal)
Madhavan Narayanan
Reverse Swing
Senior journalist
(On X @madversity)