Bohemian Rhapsody: A Movie Review

 First, let me start off by saying that I am a Freddie Mercury and Queen fan.  I believe that lead guitarists Brian May is one of the best guitar players in today’s society.  While Freddie Mercury had a different kind of lifestyle, I think that he was a musical genius.  Months ago, I had begun seeing the previews for the movie Bohemian Rhapsody.  The movie was advertised as a life story of Freddie Mercury and Queen.

The movie was showing at the Cinema 12 in Florence, Alabama.  Tracey and I went on a Sunday afternoon to see the movie.  Before I can review the movie, we must find out who Freddie Mercury was.  So with that in mind, the following is from Wikipedia about Mercury:

    Farrokh Bulsara (5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991), known professionally as Freddie Mercury, was a British singer-songwriter and record producer, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. He was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range.    Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including “Bohemian Rhapsody“, “Killer Queen“, “Somebody to Love“, “Don’t Stop Me Now“, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love“, and “We Are the Champions“.   He led a solo career while performing with Queen, and occasionally served as a producer and guest musician for other artists.

    Mercury was born of Parsi descent on Zanzibar, and grew up there and in India before moving with his family to Middlesex, England, in his late teens. He formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 due to complications from AIDS, having confirmed the day before his death that he had contracted the disease.

    In 1992, Mercury was posthumously awarded the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and a tribute concert was held at Wembley Stadium, London. As a member of Queen, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. In 2002, he was placed number 58 in the BBC’s 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He is consistently voted one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music.

     Mercury spent most of his childhood in India and began taking piano lessons at the age of seven    In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter’s School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani near Bombay (now Mumbai).   At the age of 12, he formed a school band, the Hectics, and covered rock and roll artists such as Cliff Richard and Little Richard.    One of Mercury’s former bandmates from the Hectics has said “the only music he listened to, and played, was Western pop music.”    A friend from the time recalls that he had “an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano”.    It was also at St. Peter’s where he began to call himself “Freddie”. He also attended St. Mary’s School, Mumbai.    In February 1963 he moved back to Zanzibar where he joined his parents at their flat.

     At the age of 17, Mercury and his family fled from Zanzibar for safety reasons due to the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, in which thousands of Arabs and Indians were killed.    The family moved into a small house at 22 Gladstone Avenue, Feltham, Middlesex, England.    Mercury enrolled at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College) in West London where he studied art. He ultimately earned a diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College (now the Ealing campus of University of West London), later using these skills to design the Queen heraldic arms.     A British citizen at birth, Mercury remained so for the rest of his life

     Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and sold second-hand clothes in Kensington Market in London with girlfriend Mary Austin. He also held a job as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport.    Friends from the time remember him as a quiet and shy young man who showed a great deal of interest in music.   In 1969 he joined the Liverpool-based band Ibex, later renamed Wreckage.   He lived briefly in a flat above the Liverpool pub, The Dovedale Towers.    When this band failed to take off, he joined a second band called Sour Milk Sea.   However, by early 1970 this group had broken up as well.

     In April 1970 Mercury joined guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor who had previously been in a band called Smile.      In 1971 they were joined by bassist John Deacon. Despite reservations of the other members and Trident Studios, the band’s initial management,      Mercury chose the name “Queen” for the new band. He later said, “It’s very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It’s a strong name, very universal and immediate. I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.”   

   At about the same time, he changed his surname, Bulsara, to Mercury.   Mercury designed Queen’s logo, called the Queen crest, shortly before the release of the band’s first album.    The logo combines the zodiac signs of all four members: two lions for Leo (Deacon and Taylor), a crab for Cancer (May), and two fairies for Virgo (Mercury).   The lions embrace a stylized letter Q, the crab rests atop the letter with flames rising directly above it, and the fairies are each sheltering below a lion.    There is also a crown inside the Q and the whole logo is over-shadowed by an enormous phoenix. The whole symbol bears a passing resemblance to the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, particularly with the lion supporters.

    Although Mercury’s speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs in the tenor range.  His known vocal range extended from bass low F (F2) to soprano high F (F6)      He could belt up to tenor high F (F5.   Biographer David Bret described his voice as “escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches.   Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, with whom Mercury recorded an album, expressed her opinion that “the difference between Freddie and almost all the other rock stars was that he was selling the voice”.   She adds,

    His technique was astonishing. No problem of tempo, he sang with an incisive sense of rhythm, his vocal placement was very good and he was able to glide effortlessly from a register to another. He also had a great musicality. His phrasing was subtle, delicate and sweet or energetic and slamming. He was able to find the right colouring or expressive nuance for each word^.  

    The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey called Mercury “the best virtuoso rock ‘n’ roll singer of all time. He could sing anything in any style. He could change his style from line to line and, God, that’s an art. And he was brilliant at it.”

     A research team undertook a study in 2016 to understand the appeal behind Mercury’s voice.   Led by Professor Christian Herbst, the team identified his notably faster vibrato and use of subharmonics as unique characteristics of Mercury’s voice, particularly in comparison to opera singers, and confirmed a vocal range from F#2 to G5 (just over 3 octaves) but were unable to confirm claims of a 4-octave range.     The research team studied vocal samples from 23 commercially available Queen recordings, his solo work, and a series of interviews of the late artist. They also used an endoscopic video camera to study a rock singer brought in to imitate Mercury’s singing voice. 

Songwriter

    Mercury wrote 10 of the 17 songs on Queen’s Greatest Hits album: “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Seven Seas of Rhye”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions”, “Bicycle Race”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, and “Play the Game”.   In 2003 Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2005 he was posthumously awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

    The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, progressive rock, heavy metal, gospel, and disco. As he explained in a 1986 interview, “I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what’s happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things.”    Compared to many popular songwriters, Mercury also tended to write musically complex material. For example, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is non-cyclical in structure and comprises dozens of chords    He also wrote six songs from Queen II which deal with multiple key changes and complex material. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, on the other hand, contains only a few chords. Despite the fact that Mercury often wrote very intricate harmonies, he also claimed that he could barely read music.   He wrote most of his songs on the piano and used a wide variety of key signatures.

Live performer

     Mercury was noted for his live performances, which were often delivered to stadium audiences around the world. He displayed a highly theatrical style that often evoked a great deal of participation from the crowd. A writer for The Spectator described him as “a performer out to tease, shock and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself.”     David Bowie, who performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recorded the song “Under Pressure” with Queen, praised Mercury’s performance style, saying: “Of all the more theatrical rock performers, Freddie took it further than the rest… he took it over the edge. And of course, I always admired a man who wears tights. I only saw him in concert once and as they say, he was definitely a man who could hold an audience in the palm of his hand.”     Queen guitarist Brian May wrote that Mercury could make “the last person at the back of the furthest stand in a stadium feel that he was connected”.    Mercury’s main prop on stage was a broken microphone stand, which after accidentally snapping off the heavy base during an early performance, he realized could be used in endless ways.

     One of Mercury’s most notable performances with Queen took place at Live Aid in 1985. Queen’s performance at the event has since been voted by a group of music executives as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music. The results were aired on a television program called “The World’s Greatest Gigs”.     Mercury’s powerful, sustained note during the a cappella section came to be known as “The Note Heard Round the World”.     In reviewing Live Aid in 2005, one critic wrote, “Those who compile lists of Great Rock Frontmen and award the top spots to Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, etc all are guilty of a terrible oversight. Freddie, as evidenced by his Dionysian Live Aid performance, was easily the most godlike of them all.”

    Over the course of his career, Mercury performed an estimated 700 concerts in countries around the world with Queen. A notable aspect of Queen Concerts was the large scale involved.     He once explained, “We’re the Cecil B. DeMille of rock and roll, always wanting to do things bigger and better.”      The band was the first ever to play in South American stadiums, breaking worldwide records for concert attendance in the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo in 1981.     In 1986, Queen also played behind the Iron Curtain when they performed to a crowd of 80,000 in Budapest, in what was one of the biggest rock concerts ever held in Eastern Europe.    Mercury’s final live performance with Queen took place on 9 August 1986 at Knebworth Park in England and drew an attendance estimated as high as 160,000.     With the British national anthem “God Save the Queen” playing at the end of the concert, Mercury’s final act on stage saw him draped in a robe, holding a golden crown aloft, bidding farewell to the crowd.

 Relationships

In the early 1970s, Mercury had a long-term relationship with Mary Austin, whom he met through guitarist Brian May. He lived with Austin for several years in West Kensington, London. By the mid-1970s, the singer had begun an affair with a male American record executive at Elektra Records, and in December 1976, Mercury told Austin of his sexuality, which ended their romantic relationship.    

     Mercury moved out of the flat they shared, into 12 Stafford Terrace in Kensington and bought Austin a place of her own nearby.     They remained close friends through the years, with Mercury often referring to her as his only true friend. In a 1985 interview, Mercury said of Austin, “All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary [Austin], but it’s simply impossible. 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.”      He also wrote several songs about Austin, the most notable of which is “Love of My Life”.   Mercury’s final home, Garden Lodge, 1 Logan Place, a twenty-eight room Georgian mansion in Kensington set in a quarter-acre manicured garden surrounded by a high brick wall, had been picked out by Austin.     In his will, Mercury left his London home to Austin, rather than his partner Jim Hutton, saying to her, “You would have been my wife, and it would have been yours anyway.”    Mercury was also the godfather of Austin’s oldest son, Richard.

Personality

   Although he cultivated a flamboyant stage personality, Mercury was shy and retiring when not performing, particularly around people he did not know well, and granted very few interviews. Mercury once said of himself: “When I’m performing I’m an extrovert, yet inside I’m a completely different man.”    While on stage, Mercury basked in the love from his audience; Kurt Cobain’s suicide note mentions how he admired and envied the way Mercury “seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd”.

     In 1987, Mercury celebrated his 41st birthday at the Pikes Hotel, Ibiza, several months after discovering that he had contracted HIV.    Mercury sought much comfort at the retreat and was a close friend of the owner, Anthony Pike, who described Mercury as “the most beautiful person I’ve ever met in my life. So entertaining and generous.”     According to biographer Lesley-Ann Jones, Mercury “felt very much at home there. He played some tennis, lounged by the pool, and ventured out to the odd gay club or bar at night.”      The party, held on 5 September 1987, has been described as “the most incredible example of excess the Mediterranean island had ever seen”, and was attended by some 700 people.     A cake in the shape of Gaudi’s Sagrada Família was provided for the party, although the original cake collapsed and was replaced with a 2-metre-long sponge cake with the notes from Mercury’s song “Barcelona“.     The bill, which included 232 broken glasses, was presented to Queen’s manager, Jim Beach.

Illness and death

    In October 1986, the British press reported that Mercury had his blood tested for HIV/AIDS at a Harley Street clinic. A reporter for The Sun, Hugh Whittow, questioned Mercury about the story at Heathrow Airport as he was returning from a trip to Japan. Mercury denied he had the disease.     According to his partner Jim Hutton, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in late April 1987.    Around that time, Mercury claimed in an interview to have tested negative for HIV.     Despite the denials, the British press pursued the rampant rumors over the next few years, fueled by Mercury’s increasingly gaunt appearance, Queen’s absence from touring, and reports from former lovers to various tabloid journals. By 1990, the rumors about Mercury’s health were rife.     At the 1990 Brit Awards held at the Dominion Theatre, London, on 18 February, visibly frail Mercury made his final appearance on stage when he joined the rest of Queen to collect the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.     Towards the end of his life, he was routinely stalked by photographers, while The Sun featured a series of articles claiming that he was ill; notably in an article from November 1990 that featured an image of a haggard-looking Mercury on the front page accompanied by the headline, “It’s official – Freddie is seriously ill.”

    However, Mercury and his inner circle of colleagues and friends, whom he felt he could trust, continually denied the stories, even after one front-page article, published on 29 April 1991, showed Mercury appearing very haggard in what was by then a rare public appearance.    It has been suggested that he could have made a contribution to AIDS awareness by speaking earlier about his situation and his fight against the disease.     Mercury kept his condition private to protect those closest to him, with Brian May confirming in a 1993 interview he had informed the band of his illness much earlier.     Filmed in May 1991, the music video for “These Are the Days of Our Lives” features a very thin Mercury, in what are his final scenes in front of the camera.     The rest of the band were ready to record when Mercury felt able to come into the studio, for an hour or two at a time. May says of Mercury: “He just kept saying.’Write me more. Write me stuff. I want to just sing this and do it and when I am gone you can finish it off.’ He had no fear, really.”   Justin Shirley-Smith, the assistant engineer for those last sessions, states: “This is hard to explain to people, but it wasn’t sad, it was very happy. He [Freddie] was one of the funniest people I ever encountered. I was laughing most of the time, with him. Freddie was saying [of his illness] ‘I’m not going to think about it, I’m going to do this.’

    After the conclusion of his work with Queen in June 1991, Mercury retired to his home in Kensington, west London. His former partner, Mary Austin, had been a particular comfort in his final years, and in the last few weeks of his life made regular visits to his home to look after him.    Near the end of his life Mercury was starting to lose his sight, and he deteriorated to the point where he could not get out of bed.     Due to his worsening condition, Mercury decided to hasten his death by refusing to take his medication and continued taking only painkillers.

    On 22 November 1991, Mercury called Queen’s manager Jim Beach over to his Kensington home to discuss a public statement, which was released the following day:

      “Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with me, my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.”

    On the evening of 24 November 1991, just over 24 hours after issuing that statement, Mercury died at the age of 45 at his home in Kensington.     The official cause of death was bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS.      Mercury’s close friend, Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five, had taken over the bedside vigil when he died. Austin phoned Mercury’s parents and sister to break the news of his death, which reached newspaper and television crews by the early hours of 25 November.

     On 27 November, Mercury’s funeral service at West London Crematorium was conducted by a Zoroastrian priest. In attendance at Mercury’s service were his family and 35 of his close friends, including the remaining members of Queen and Elton John.     His coffin was carried into the chapel to the sounds of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”/”You’ve Got a Friend” by Aretha Franklin.    In accordance with Mercury’s wishes, Mary Austin took possession of his cremated remains and buried them in an undisclosed location. The whereabouts of his ashes are believed to be known only to Austin, who has stated that she will never reveal where she buried them.

The movie begins with Freddie Mercury as a teenager and becoming a member of the band, Smile.  Before long, you begin to see Freddie Mercury, the performer, shine through. The band morphs into Queen.  The trials and tribulations that Queen goes through to become one of the most popular bands on this century are amazing.  One scene in the movie concerns the song “We Will Rock You.”   Brian May comes up with the beat as well as the lyrics for the song.  The song is performed at Madison Square Garden for the first time.  Chill bumps were raised on me watching this performance.

The movie follows the ups and downs in Mercury’s life.  We see his life from leaving the band to rejoining them in time for the Live Aid Concert.  Overall, I have to say I enjoyed the movie.  There were several sniffles at the end during the death of Mercury.    The movie is not for everyone.  This is definitely a 18 or older film.

I have to say that Gwilym Lee as Brian May was a perfect match.  Lee had Brian’s mannerisms and the look down pat.  The cast of the movie is:

	Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury
	Lucy Boynton as  Mary Austin
	Gwilym Lee as Brian May
	Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor
	Joseph Mazzello as John Deacon

If you are a Queen or a Freddie Mercury fan, the movie is a must see.  Don’t forget that Tuesday night is $5.00 tickets.  Hope you enjoy it.

    Bobby Inman is retired from Law Enforcement after 21 years of Service.  He is a Consultant for Southern Heritage Gun & Pawn in Tuscumbia.   He has articles published in Law & Order Magazine, Police Marksman Magazine, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement Magazine as well as several published ebooks on Amazon, Kobo Writing, as well as Nook (Barnes & Noble).  He is owner of Poopiedog, an Animal Rescue Dachshund, who is his constant companion.   He is a Senior Investigative Reporter for the Quad Cities Daily.  Bobby is the Photographer for Continental Championship Wrestling.