Freddy Mercury: The Great Pretender

[1001001]

I just watched a documentary on Biography Channel called Freddy Mercury: The Great Pretender.

It's a two hour film about his life and career. It was fascinating.

There's some Queen footage and interviews with his former bandmates, but it's not about Queen per se. It's about him.

They have some great live footage, and a lot of interviews with Freddy from the 80's. He seemed a very complex, interesting person.

Like most people from my generation, I had News of the World, and wore the grooves off the damn thing. But again, it wasn't just about Queen. They spent a decent amount of time talking about his Barcelona album, for example. They talked about his love of ballet and opera, and his brief collaboration with Michael Jackson, undone by a llama! There were lots of rare recordings played, and unreleased photos.

Anyway, if you are a fan you should try and check it out. What a showman. And good grief, what a voice. What a presence.

Really good stuff.

 

[Pingfah]

Yes, this documentary has my official stamp of approval. It's very interesting, and actually contains new information and footage which is a rare treat for a longtime fan like me. It really pulls back the veil, and gives you a good impression of what a radically different person he was in real life to the persona he projected on stage.

Previous documentaries have dwelled a lot on his decline to the point of morbidity, this obviously does mention it, but it is in equal parts celebration, education and critique.

Brilliant.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

There's an actual movie being made about Freddie too. Originally Sacha Baron Cohen was going to star in it, but they went with a lesser known guy.

They had nothing but praise for Sacha, but they felt his prominence might take away from the story they wanted to tell.

“It’s quite difficult to talk about,” the Queen guitarist tells Classic Rock, “because we owe Sacha a lot. He had so much enthusiasm for the project and it really helped us kick it into the start position. But in the end we felt that his presence in the movie would be very distracting.

Interview

About the collaborations with Michael Jackson, there's going to be two or three songs released from that period. I think there are demos of a couple songs floating around, but the properly finished material would no doubt sound even better.

 

[Pingfah]

From what I hear on the Queen grapevine, the SBC thing was more a case of him and the screenwriter at the time wanting a serious warts and all accurate biopic about Freddie's life, while May & Taylor want a feelgood family movie to help them shift a bunch more re-releases of old material and bring new young fans in.

I heard the Freddie & Michael stuff, some of it has potential, but some of it is absolutely terrible as well, but the demos I have heard are crap quality so that may have something to do with that. They are apparently being delayed because the MJ estate is looking for a major payday and they can't come to a financial agreement.

 

[1001001]

The film plays a snippet from an unreleased Michael Jackson/Freddy Mercury duet. It's okay. Their voices didn't really seem to match. JMHO.

This documentary is neither salacious nor a whitewash. I think it's pretty even-handed. Especially since so much of it is interviews with Freddy himself. They don't dwell on the sex/drugs/HIV angle, but they don't avoid it either. They also don't go too much into his personal life. Almost nothing about his childhood or family, for example.

It's mostly about his work, not only with Queen but other stuff as well. Like I said before there's a pretty hefty section on the making of his Barcelona album, including interviews with Montserrat Caballé.

The concert footage is really fantastic. He was an incredible showman. Just brilliant.