{"id":165222,"date":"2022-12-22T13:20:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T13:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/this-movie-is-a-corrective-whitney-houston-biopic-aims-to-change-the-narrative-whitney-houston\/"},"modified":"2022-12-22T13:20:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T13:20:06","slug":"this-movie-is-a-corrective-whitney-houston-biopic-aims-to-change-the-narrative-whitney-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/this-movie-is-a-corrective-whitney-houston-biopic-aims-to-change-the-narrative-whitney-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"‘This movie is a corrective’: Whitney Houston biopic aims to change the narrative | Whitney Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I<\/span><\/span>n the 10 years since Whitney Houston lost her life, four movies have tried to tell her story. In quick succession, we got an unauthorized documentary, an endorsed one, a Lifetime TV depiction, plus a movie that focused squarely on her relationship with her daughter, Bobbi Kristina. According to Anthony McCarten, who has written the first big-budget Hollywood biopic of the star, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, those films all had one thing in common. \u201cThey’re obsessed with her mistakes,\u201d he said to the Guardian. \u201cThey were all sensationalists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, he believes they accurately mirrored the jaundiced view many have long held of the star. \u201cWhen people hear the name ‘Whitney Houston’, they inevitably say the word ‘tragic’,\u201d McCarten said. \u201cIt’s a universal perception. In some respects, this film is a corrective to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It’s one many may approach with a bit of skepticism. I Wanna Dance with Somebody is the brainchild of Houston’s estate, which includes her sister-in-law and executor Pat Houston, as well as the company that controls key parts of her musical rights, Primary Wave, and the man who signed, and some say, shaped her, Clive Davis. Though they have all endorsed the final product, McCarten strongly contests the assumption that it resulted in any softening or censoring of his work. \u201cI said to them ‘you will not have authorial control over this,’\u201d he said. \u201cI’m not doing this to flatter anybody. The public can smell a rat if it’s a puff piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the movie’s director, Kasi Lemmons, said there were scenes in the movie that definitely made the estate uncomfortable. \u201cOne of the things that was most challenging about this was dealing with real people, with real emotions and memories and points of view,\u201d she said. \u201cThey had approved the script but seeing it as a movie was a different thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the film’s final cut includes some of the grimier, or more controversial, details of Houston’s story \u2013 in fact certain things are made more <\/em>explicit than before \u2013 the film-makers admit that their primary goal was to make the film a celebration. \u201cI wanted to focus on her vast achievements,\u201d McCarten said.<\/p>\n

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