IBC
Rocketman editor Chris Dickens explains how he helped create the true
fantasy of shy piano prodigy turned international superstar and the challenge
of creating the perfect ending.
Coming so soon
after the crowd-pleasing success of Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian
Rhapsody, the larger-than-life, rags-to-riches story of Elton John will
garner inevitable but unfair comparisons.
“It’s a musical
based on the life of Elton John and his rise to stardom with more of a nod to a
film like The Greatest Showman than to Bohemian
Rhapsody in terms of style,” stresses Chris Dickens (Slumdog
Millionaire), the film’s editor.
“This is not a
documentary. It has a heightened reality.”
Indeed, Paramount
promotes the picture as ‘a true fantasy’ unlike the Queen story which was criticised
for self-censoring some of the more rock n roll aspects of its subject’s
lifestyle.
It shares
with Bohemian Rhapsody a chequered and long gestating history
which at various times over the past few years has had Tom Hardy and Justin
Timberlake attached to star.
Taron Egerton (who
ironically appeared with Elton John in Kingsman: The Golden Circle)
was ultimately cast as John in July 2017 and Dexter Fletcher signed on to
direct in April 2018, after finishing the final month of filming Bohemian
Rhapsodyafter original director Bryan Singer was fired. Principal
photography began last August largely at Maidenhead’s Bray Studios.
Fletcher had
previously demonstrated a lightness of touch with 2013’s Sunshine On
Leith, based on music from The Proclaimers. Dickens was no stranger to
musicals either, having cut Tom Hooper’s award laden feature adaptation
of Les Misérables.
“In Les
Misérables the music told the story all the way through, like an
opera,” Dickens explains. “It’s very hard to pull that off because you need the
musical numbers to play out at length. Rocketman was different
in that the script contained two stylistic approaches to the story which had to
resolve in editorial. With Rocketman, we are using Elton’s music to
tell the story but we’re also telling the story between those numbers. You need
to find the balance between them. Too much music, for example, can be very
claustrophobic.
The screenplay by
Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot and also the script for Tom
Hooper’s upcoming feature adaptation of the musical Cats, is
produced by Matthew Vaughn (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Stardust,
Kingsmen: The Secret Service). It follows the pop icon’s early years as a
working class north London lad, then as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of
Music, up to his eventual musical partnership with songwriter Bernie Taupin,
and his preparations to release Honky Chateau, his 1972
breakthrough album.
Jamie Bell (Fantastic
Four) plays Taupin, Bryce Dallas Howard (Pete’s Dragon) is Elton’s
mother Sheila and Richard Madden (The Bodyguard) plays Elton’s manager
John Reid.
There’s another
clear difference to Bohemian Rhapsody too in that the subject
of the film is not only very much alive, he is also one of its executive
producers. Indeed, John is currently in the midst of his 300-date Farewell
Yellow Brick Road tour and will retire from touring upon its conclusion in
2021.
Dickens adds that
David Furnish, John’s husband and also a producer on the project, was hands-on.
“They came to the
set on a number of occasions and David certainly had his opinion on certain
things but I can’t say they objected in any way to the creative license we were
taking.” Indeed, they had wanted to make this film for many years which
documents John’s career highs as well as his struggles with alcohol, substance
abuse and identity.
“It’s not
hard-nosed about it but we don’t shy away from the drug taking and excesses of
being a rock star,” Dickens says. “Tonally, it reminds me of [Johnny Cash
biopic] Walk The Line in having a darker undercurrent that
gives you a sense of how Elton lived his life.”
John himself has
said that authenticity was the most important aspect of the film for him. “It
had to be as honest as possible,” he says. “The lows were very low, but the
highs were very high. That’s how I wanted the film to be.”
In the same clip,
Fletcher says “because of the nature of who Elton is, the storytelling allowed
us to totally indulge in fantasy and imagination.”
The film deploys
John’s playlist to comment on emotional beats and to drive the story forward.
More than twenty tracks were re-recorded under supervision of music producer
Giles Martin using Egerton’s own vocals, ranging from his first hit single
‘Your Song’ to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ and ‘Rocket Man’, to lesser known
numbers like ‘Take Me to the Pilot’ (the B side of ‘Your Song’) and ‘Hercules.’
One of the main
editorial challenges was the film’s ending, scripted as a showstopper for the
song ‘I’m Still Standing.’
“The original plan
was to go to Cannes and Nice and reshoot the pop promo for the track directed
in 1983 by Russell Mulcahy but the weather had worsened by the time the scene
came round to filming last October,” Dickens explains. “An alternative idea was
to shoot a whole stage performance of the song in front of a large crowd but
they couldn’t get it to work.
“We even had this
idea of Elton walking on a sea of people’s hands onto the stage but it all felt
too realistic, or rather, not fantastical enough,” Dickens says. “Then Matthew
Vaughn had the bright idea of trying to get hold of the original rushes for the
pop video.
The original was
shot and art directed by Mulcahy in a tone of homoerotic European luxury
prominently featuring red, white and blue for the French flag and equally
prominently featuring erstwhile Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli.
“Although that
seems like such an obvious idea, it was far from it, but when we saw the
rushes, it was just perfect. It looks like we actually went there.”
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