Biophoty: The Biofilm in Biography Theory

Abstract

This article aims to outline some of the main ways in which biographical film is influencing both modern print biography and the current development of biography theory. It begins by looking back to a debate going on in the 1970s and 1980s about whether film was a suitable medium for historiography and historical research, contrasting the reluctance of some American and British researchers like Robert Rosenstone, Ian Jarvie and Belen Vidal with French historian Marc Ferro’s engagement in favour of the use of cinema in history studies, and his contention that “history on film has become a force”. The term “biopic”, designating properly speaking a Hollywood invention, introduces a deleterious conceptual-cum-ideological misunderstanding that inhibits theorization. Concurring with Rosenstone to favour the word “biopic”, it suggests to go one step further by deriving from Hayden White’s “historiophoty” the term “biophoty”. With particular reference especially to examples of American and French biofilms, it shows how film has retroacted on print, especially by fostering the development of what Hans Renders has called “partial biography”.