Whose Lives are they Anyway?: The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre »

Dennis Bingham is an associate professor and director of film studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He is the author of Acting Male: Masculinities in the Films of James Stewart, Jack Nicholson, and Clint Eastwood (Rutgers University Press).

Through detailed analyses and critiques of nearly twenty biopics, Whose Lives Are They Anyway? proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one—it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person.