If you’re reading this I’ll assume you’re aware of who Queen is and who Freddie Mercury was. You may also be aware of the film released in 2018 called “Bohemian Rhapsody”, where the story of Freddie’s life and his rise to fame was told.
The film received many accolades including a Golden Globe Award in 2019 for Best Picture. The actor that played the main character, Freddie Mercury, in the movie was Rami Malek. For his fantastic performance in the movie, he was personally awarded a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actor’s Guild Award, an Academy Award for Best Actor at the Oscars and a BFTA. Below you can see a very clever video edit of the original Queen performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert alongside the final scene of the 2018 movie.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a biographical film about Freddie Mercury, the lead singer for one of the most successful British rock bands ever, Queen. Directed by Bryan Singer and produced by Graham Kind alongside the Queen manager Jim Beach, the film follows the band’s formation and progress until their final performance at Live Aid in 1985.
The 37-year-old Oscar-winning actor Rami Malek was reported saying he had to watch Queen’s original Live Aid performance on YouTube over 1000 times before he was confident he could replicate the show in the final scene of the Biopic. Rami said: “It felt like I had it in my bones”. Brain May, the guitarist from the rock band Queen, said that Rami’s performance was “Flawless”.
The film was originally planned to be released with Sacha Baron Cohen set to play Freddie Mercury in 2010. However, in 2013 with creative differences separating the director’s aims and the main character’s ideas, Sacha left the project.
The project was held up for a few years before Rami Malek was cast as Freddie Mercury in November 2016. However, the project didn’t run smoothly from there. Bryan Singer, who was the film director throughout most of the earlier main photography, was fired after he clashed with other crew and cast members and stopped showing up for work. Dexter Fletcher, who was originally set to direct the movie, was brought in to finish the filming and received an executive producer credit. Bryan Singer retained sole director credit as per Directors Guild of America guidelines.
After all the problems on the road to creating the movie, the film was released on the 24th of October 2018, in the UK, and 2nd of November in the USA that same year. (BOX OFFICE 903.7 million USD)
The movie featured Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, Gwilym Lee as Brian May, Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor, Joseph Mazzello as John Deacon, Aidan Gillen as John Reid, Lucy Boynton as Mary Austin and Aaron McCusker as Jim Hutton. The cast managed to perfectly portray some of history’s most beloved entertainers resulting in the film being the highest-grossing musical biographical film of all time.
The Bohemian Rhapsody movie has been analysed and scrutinised by fans and film critics all over the world. From the script to the soundtrack, which features a Freddie Mercury impersonator called Marc Martel, the film has been noted as accurately portraying the lives of the Queen band members. Even the explanation of Freddie’s teeth. He did actually have four extra teeth in his back upper jaw, it is said to be part of the reason for his emphatic voice.
The early part of the film shows Mercury’s persistent musical pursuit alongside the his resolve needed to battle the questions his personal life was throwing at him. Even though Mercury shattered stereotypes becoming one of the most loved rock stars in history, the film asks the question, how much happier could his life have been if he was able to be himself the entire time?
The Live Aid performance, at the original Wembley Stadium, is still referred to amongst music fans as one of the greatest ever live performances. The 2018 movie brings additional context to the performance depicting Freddie’s life, his upbringing, musical development, friendship with his bandmates, his solo career and the one woman Freddie truly loved, Mary Austin. The film also shows his progression from his birth name, Farrokh Bulsara, to super star rocker, Freddie Mercury.
During an interview in 1985, Mercury said, “The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage. We believe in each other, that’s enough for me.”
The film brought clarity to the stories leading up to the legendary performance and potentially explaining what possessed them to give one of the greatest performances the rock and roll world has ever seen.
If you haven’t seen it?
This is the original full set video of Queen’s Live Aid performance in 1985. Dubbed as the greatest ever live performance and one never to be forgotten. Whether you play guitar, piano, sing or just love listening to music, the performance below is sure to give you goose bumps even if you haven’t watched the film. For Queen lovers, it is a dream come true to be able to witness all the events leading up to this epic performance. You could argue the film could have used the original Live Aid video as the final scene in the movie as it’s such an impactful piece of performance history. However, they remade the scene extremely well adding context to events happening backstage and offstage.
