Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the hit songs of the famous British band, Queen. The rock band Queen was formed in London in 1970. Queen’s classic line-up was Freddie Mercury on lead vocals and piano, Brian May on lead guitar and vocals, Roger Taylor on drums and vocals, and John Deacon on bass guitar. Their earliest works were influenced by heavy metal, hard rock, and progressive rock. But the band eventually ventured in more radio-friendly and conventional works. They incorporated further styles like pop rock and arena rock.
Queen’s vocalist, Freddy Mercury, was regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music. He became popular for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. He was subsequently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004.
Bohemian Rhapsody, aside from being a hit song, was also used as a title of a biographical movie in 2018 about Queen and Freddie Mercury to be specific. It was produced by 20th Century Fox and Queen Films and was directed by Bryan Singer. PaperCheap unravels this story, “Is more natural.”. In fact, the movie became the highest-grossing musical biographical film of all time.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a movie to send the viewers right to the heart of the fascinating part of where the legacy for rock stars have evolved to in our modern times. There is so much in this movie that makes it one of the best movies of the year. But unfortunately, Freddie Mercury could have gotten better for a new role. This is a new movie that just started recently.
What Was the Movie About?
Rami Malek played the role of Freddie Mercury in the movie. Before becoming known as Freddie Mercury, his real name was Freddie Bulsara. He dreams of becoming a singer and he goes to clubs to hear his favorite band play. When the lead singer of his favorite band quits, Freddie gets the job. That’s when he changed his last name to Mercury and the name of the band becomes Queen.
Because of Freddie Mercury’s astonishing vocal ranges and as well as the bands hard rock sound, they became successful immediately. Freddie Mercury then marries his sweetheart, Mary who was played by Lucy Boynton. After that, Freddie began to deal with the pitfalls of fame such as drugs, drinking, ego wars, and as well as his own sexual identity. These sent him down a bad path, pursuing a doomed solo career. When Queen was invited to play the Live Aid show, Freddie should apologize to his bandmates to be able to get their groove back. Will they be ready for the performance of a lifetime?
Movie Review
Bohemian Rhapsody is the kind of movie and performance that has been long awaited. It also seems like a nostalgic walk down from the future back to the past – the story of Freddie Mercury coming back to life. Rami Malek have taken the role of Freddie Mercury with high intensity and made the two tough poles of Mercury’s personality into the movie. There’s a self-conflict as Mercury has both confidence and insecurity. There were many conflicts in the movie and there were unexpected twists and turns. Malek was able to keep it going with his determined willpower and talent, and he managed to act out the entire Queen parade. The legendary Queen came back to life with Malek’s acting. Bryan Singer, had done a good job directing this movie as well. Although it did not gain a high rating on Chicago Tribune, it is still a great movie to grab with popcorn in the cinemas.
It is an upbeat creation of Queen’s Live Aid performance for the film, but there was tricky camerawork as well as Malek was performing as Mercury. However, the story of the movies is fairly simple. It is about Mercury joining a band, leaving a band, then rejoining the band again. The shooting was extraordinary and they managed to capture every single part of Malek performing like Mercury. The singer had exactly everything in mind right from the start – A bright and shiny version of Queen and Freddie performing in great harmony. The performance strikes a great show for the ending part. Making Freddie a fascinating character while making the band and everyone around him sing to his beat is not easy to accomplish.
The story production was by Graham King who had tried for years to bring this story to the widescreen. There were Queen’s band members who came up with the music and stories to help out on the movie. The writers Anthony McCarten with Peter Morgan also contributed well to the movie and hoped that it would turn out well. In the end, the movie was less about Freddie and more about the old band Queen. The other cast members performed equally well with writing, recording the music, and performing live shows. They even fought pretty well during the movie clips.
However, the movie did not reveal much about Freddie’s life on who he really was and the music he created – even though he was a rock god of the century. He was still an odd kid from Zanzibar and that felt pretty special. No one would know that an odd kid would one day become a rock god and would turn into a music legend. The identity of Mercury was manifested into himself and recreated him. He earned his arrogance but he couldn’t cope well with his insecurities despite being confident. There were also racism issues that came along his way.
His oddness soon became his downfall, he entered a drug world because of his evil gay manager who isolated Mercury from all the other band members. Freddie soon began to act awkwardly and then lose his bonds with his band mates. He also began of thinking of going solo after becoming super famous overnight. However, the movie did prove that Freddie wasn’t a musical genius, so without their collaboration, he would turn to nothing. There were parts in the movie that were breathtaking yet heart shaking, but all was well after Freddie managed to team back up with Queen to showcase ‘Live Aid’. The best part was inevitably the last part. However, there were cuts in the movie as well. It is a colorful world yet deadly in the entertainment business because it portrays how it actually is. Bohemian Rhapsody is an interesting movie but some people had hoped for a better one.
Production Process
Plans to film a movie about Queen were revealed to the public in September 2010 by Brian May, the band’s guitarist. The film was planned to cover the period up to Live Aid in 1985 and was set to feature Sacha Baron Cohen, who would play the lead, Freddie Mercury. The film was also planned to be written by Peter Morgon and co-produced by Graham King.
In April 2011, May announced that the production was greenlit and the production was moving forward. He approved of Cohen as Mercury but was unsure about the possible direction of the production. One of the main concerns of the band was Mercury’s legacy, as they wanted to avoid tarnishing his image.
The film’s production process was rocky as in July 2013, Baron Cohen left the project, claiming that there were creative differences. Rumors suggested he wanted the movie to be an R-rated tell-all focused solely on Mercury. However, the band, who was spearheading the project, preferred the film to be PG-rated and about the band. Later it was revealed that Cohen left the project on good terms and that there was no bad blood between them.
After Cohen’s departure, the producers needed someone to play Mercury, and Ben Whishaw was a possible candidate. At this time, Dexter Fletcher was also selected to be the film’s director. This was short-lived, as Fletcher left the project soon after due to creative disagreements with King. Whishaw also showed reservations about the project and suggested that there were scripting problems due to which the film was not moving forward.
In November 2015, Anthony McCarten, a screenwriter, became attached to the project and gave it the working title of Bohemian Rhapsody after a Queen’s song. He developed a fresh take on the story and delivered his first draft. Slowly everything started coming together. Rami Malek was cast as Mercury, Bryan Singer was in talks to become the director, and Jonny Flynn and Gemma Arterton were cast to play Roger Taylor and Mary Austin.
Conclusion
Bohemian Rhapsody, announced in 2010 but released in 2018, had a tough time in pre-production. Still, the resultant movie is hailed as a masterpiece. The movie received multiple awards and became the sixth highest-grossing film of 2018 worldwide. The actors were praised for their performance, and it was generally agreed that Singer’s take on Mercury and those around him was fresh and innovative.