Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/760821
62 DGA QUARTERLY T IN MAGNIFYING THEIR SUBJECTS, FILMMAKERS ALSO HOLD UP A MIRROR TO SOCIETY The Biopic's Myriad Challenges BY R O B E R T KO E H L E R H E W O R D S A P P E A R O N S C R E E N : "Based on a true story." Few title cards exert greater power than this one, and directors from John Ford (Young Mr. Lincoln) and Howard Hawks (Sergeant York) to Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) have climbed the imposing creative mountain of translating a true life into a movie. The allure of this challenge hasn't abated: This year alone, several wide-ranging examples of the biopic provide a fascinating survey of the many ways biographies become something greater and more heightened on the big screen. Unlike many previous classic biopics, the current lineup breaks away from the "Great Man" tradition of biographical drama in favor of a few good men, and women, whose names have been lost in history. Consider Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi (Queen of Katwe); Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, African-American mathematicians and engineers in the glory days of NASA (Hidden Figures); and World War II Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss (Hacksaw Ridge). What unifies all of these movies is a fascination with ordinary people pulled into extraordinary situations, eliciting unexpected strokes of heroism or paradigm-shifting inspiration.