If Gallagher is serious about making a film about Oasis, here are some pitfalls he would do well to avoid.
Despite explicitly telling Xan Brooks a month ago that he wouldn't follow up his Beatles film with any movies about "unkempt eyebrows", it looks as though Liam Gallagher has already caved in. In an interview on his clothing label's website, Gallagher has admitted that he'd like to make an Oasis biopic "very soon".
And, at least in theory, there's nothing wrong with that. But the music biopic is a genre fraught with unimaginable peril. One wrong move and Gallagher could end up with an epic turkey on his hands. Better that he should simply follow this set of firmly defined rules to avoid repeating the mistakes of previous biopics. Don't worry, Liam. They're idiot-proof ...
1. Cast appropriately
Remember the moral of Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea. If the film is about a man who shot to fame at the age of 22 before dying at 37, don't cast a 45-year-old. And, if you do cast a 45-year-old, don't try to mask it by constructing a bizarre meta-narrative where a younger version of the character sporadically appears to berate the actor for being too old. In short, Peter O'Toole probably shouldn't play Bonehead.
2. Avoid lyric-speak
For some reason, music biopics seem to delight in showing dialogue that will later turn up as the lyrics to a song, from Reese Witherspoon's "It burns! It burns!" breakdown in Walk the Line to the moment where the Beach Boys clumsily shoehorn the entire chorus of Fun, Fun, Fun into an awkward street-corner conversation during Summer Dreams. So basically there should be no pre-fame scenes where Noel walks down a hall fairly slowly while realising that he paradoxically appears to be travelling faster than a cannonball.
3. Drugs are bad
Even if it never happened in real life, the Oasis biopic needs to contain a sequence – around two thirds of the way in – where the band's drug use gives way to harrowing, near-death addiction. Only then can the band pull themselves together in time for their triumphant phoenix-like, final-act rebirth, which, in the case of Oasis, would be the moderately disappointing chart placing of their final single Falling Down.
4. Someone needs to die
Sorry to have to point this out, but if Liam Gallagher wants the Oasis film to do any business at all, then one of Oasis needs to die before it gets released. Death is why Ray won an Oscar, and why Walk the Line won an Oscar, and why people loved everything from The Doors to Sid & Nancy to Control. Guigsy might be wise to lock himself indoors for the next 18 months or so.
5. Don't get involved
Liam might be the one with all the stories, but he should remember that no good ever came from handing creative control to anyone who was actually there. Last year's Notorious is a perfect example of this – if you wondered why Notorious BIG's mother and Sean Combs came out of it looking particularly squeaky clean, it's because they were producers. And if, when Scorsese's Frank Sinatra biopic is finally released, you wonder why Sinatra's dark side has been completely whitewashed out, you'd do well to remember the creative control afforded to his daughter. If people want to see Liam Gallagher behaving like an arsehole – which they will – he should quickly learn not to meddle.
6. Be nothing like Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys
Without question the worst music biopic that's ever been created. Badly cast, badly written and guilty of committing every single biopic crime in the book – plus it features Charles Manson in a lady's wig! – Gallagher should watch this film in its entirety and take extensive notes. Or, alternatively, decide not to make an Oasis biopic at all.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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