Reassembling the dust: the art of biography.

• Author: Gehring, Wes
• Position: Reel World - Great interest in chronicling of lives

WHILE MY DAY JOB IS TEACHING FILM STUDIES at Ball State University, my real passion is writing. Though that often involves genre studies, such as my recent cinema criticism text, Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference, the majority of my books are biographies. I am fascinated by the profiling of lives.

The penchant for biography mirrors a national inclination. During the last decade, the American public has been especially drawn to the chronicling of lives. This interest has been fed by a proliferation of cable television profile programming, following the longtime success story of A&E's "Biography." Moreover, A&E's hit has expanded from once a week to a nightly show. Meanwhile, the newsstands are peppered with profile-related publications, from the mainstream People and Us to A&E's Biography Magazine. The making of film biographies (both for television and theatrical release) has seen a marked increase as well.

Why this interest? There are three key reasons. First, for profiler Frank E. Vandiver, biography at its best is "history made personal." For example, an individual might have little interest in war, but George C. Scott's electrifying title performance in "Patton" (1970) draws the viewer into the myriad of minidramas that constituted the close of World War II in Europe. Along similar lines, the viewer need not be a fan of classical music to be swept up by the darkly comic scope of "Amadeus" (1984), the provocative chronical of composer Antonio Salieri's jealousy of the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"History made personal" works as a small-scale equation, too. For instance, in director John Ford's classic film, "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939), the attraction is not about Civil War leadership, but, rather, seeing how a soon-to-be great man responds to rite-of-passage universals that impact everyone. Thus, Henry Fonda's moving portrayal of the future president explores the loss of a loved one, the courtship of a spouse, and Lincoln's relationship with his mother.

Second, acclaimed biographer Barbara W. Tuchman reminds us that the genre can also be about the "universal in the particular." That is, a life story can make a complex subject more intellectually manageable. To illustrate, director Warren Beatty's sprawling chronicle of American writer John Reed's embracing of communism, "Reds" (1981), helps make the Russian Revolution easier to comprehend, especially for an American viewer. Along comparable lines, director Elia...