Analysis of Film Genres: Biographical Drama - Two Movie Comparison

This report provides a comparative analysis of two films within the biographical drama genre: "Pursuit of Happyness" (2006) and "A Beautiful Mind" (2001). It explores the essence of biographical dramas, which blend real-life stories with dramatic elements to evoke emotions and convey profound meanings. The report highlights similarities in casting, dramatic storytelling, and the inclusion of suspense, while also examining differences in plot complexity, cinematography, character development, and thematic focus. "A Beautiful Mind" is sourced from validated materials, while "Pursuit of Happyness" has less verifiable authenticity. Both films, however, aim to inspire viewers, making them relevant to young audiences facing contemporary challenges. The report concludes with an overview of the films' plots, cinematography, characters, diegesis, and themes, illustrating their unique contributions to the biographical drama genre and their impact on audiences.

FILM GENRE

Film Genre
Art is considered as the most impactful measure to portray emotions and thoughts in the
most effective manner. Among different art forms, motion pictures has plays significant role
since its conception in entertaining people. It has been evolved to the wide extent with the
considerable amount of transition and development seen in acting, directing, screen writing,
cinematography and countless technical skills.
In these offered fictional narratives, there exists range of film genre on the basis of
similarities in narrative elements or the purpose with which it is portrayed (Selbo, 2014.). One of
the most captivating film genre is Biographical drama which fascinates large stream of people.
This genre is the amalgamation of to genre Biography and Drama. Biography is a non fictional
film that attempts to show accurate and specific picture of life any person or comprehensively
present historically significant occurrences of their lives. On the other hand drama aims to move
the audiences through intense flow of emotions systematically pictured through a story or plot.
Combination of both the genre, Biographical drama extends its influential reach with
plethora of minds through portraying the real life incident of any person by incorporating
dramatic elements. Present report is made to compare two films picturized in this genre that are
“Pursuit of Happyness”(2006) and “A beautiful Mind”(2001). Report throw light on the
similarities and differences exists in the demonstration of these films (Fischer, 2014).
Pursuit of happiness is based on the true story named Christopher Gardener. He is an
Entrepreneur, Author and Philanthropist. Movie is the blue print of tumultuous times faced by
Christopher Gardner with positivity, courage and discipline. It is the journey of subject to find a
steady job and struggle to become a proud father. Similarly, “A beautiful mind” is the story of
Noble Laureate in Economics, John Forbes Nash. It focusses on epitomizing the life of Nash
through elucidating his mental brilliance and illness.
The most crucial part of biographic drama is that they are inspired by a true story that is
the basic story and concept is taken either from autobiography or biography written on subject's
life or it portrays the self narration made by person (Vidal, 2012). Both the movies are similar
with respect to the essence and base that is, it represents the reality by inducing more emotion
and evoking a profound meaning of life. Casting in both the films is done with the balancing of
similarity in looks and the ability to imitate the original characteristics of the person. It has
depicted the realistic struggles, hardships, pain and overcoming of the subjects through a

dramatic story line and integrating the most important events occurred in their life to move the
audiences emotionally.
Though biographies are based on the true stories, in both the movies directors has tried to
give elements of suspense and shock that audiences could not predict. In mentioned movies
directors has chosen an interpretive angle to align the real life achievements with the laborious
step by step process to solve problems faced by them (Bondebjerg, 2015). With the inclusion of
countless technical expertise and cinematic effect bring connections between events such as
visual hallucinations in John Nash' life and recapitulating of events in Christopher Gardner's life.
Both the movies are prepared with the common perception of leaning an influential impact on
viewers with certain inspiring messages and learnings. Further, both the movies are the feel good
drama that leaves audiences with the escalated belief in dealing with the obstacles and
unfavourable circumstances with courage and positive and embrace them to live with more
value. They are intended to appeal young man and woman to fight the contemporary hard
circumstances faced buy them in all regards. Resilient heroes in both movies became the epitome
of achievement of heroic toil and achievement after the immense of bad luck and bad choices.
Along with the exceptional performances of the characters and magnetic script and story of the
movies, they have the patchwork of wittiness and humour (Clover, 2015). In the movies,
brilliance of characterisation and originality of vision can be stated through the demonstration of
certain dimensions ignored by the general people. Conceptual contexts and ideas are unfamiliar
in nature to present individual revolutionary in the dramatic manner.
Along with many similarities, there exists many differences in the making and
representation of their movies. Though both the movies are belonging to the same fim genre that
is biographical drama, they are having plethora of distinct features that make them different from
each other. Taking into account the movie “A beautiful Mind” it is stated that it is sourced from
different books and papers which are validated in the effectual manner. As per the critics the
close relationship can be developed between the scenes and depictions made in the movie and
the real life (Chan, Karpovich and Zhang, 2011). Such as the story line was kept simply it has
focussed on the fight and struggle of Noble Laureate with the conflict between illusion and
reality. The biographical drama is more oriented towards the biography aspect and has portrayed
the occurrences of real events in life John Nash and events occurred such as learning to deal with
hallucinations and winning Noble Price. On the other hand, In “A pursuit of happyness”, the

story is sourced from limited books and valid places. It is found that the accreditation of the
authenticity is difficult such as no proofs are available for the happenings shown in movie.
Further, it is found that after initiatives taken for confirmation of the events occurred, it was
found that most of them are created beyond going and presenting the originality of the life of
Christopher Gardner. In that regard it can be stated that movie is more inclined towards the
dramatic content.
Further, there exists differences in other elements of both the movies that has direct
relation with the film genre in which it is presented (Nelmes, 2012). The components on the
basis of which comparison is made are plot, cinematography, character, diegesis and theme. By
making comparisons, certain similarities and differences that prevails between these tow movies
suggests the correlation of their existence in this film genre that is Biographical drama.
Comparing the plot is is found that A beautiful mind is having confined story line which revolves
around two aspects that are brilliance and illness on the other hand it is found that pursuit of
happiness is having complex plot with the range of scenes and segments. With respect to the
cinematography A beautiful mint portraying creates the paranoid world for viewer and engages
them into his hallucination and same is with the pursuit of happyness in which there is the
movement to the flashback in the past events of Christopher Gardner. With reference to the
character and theme there exists both difference and similarities (A beautiful Mind, 2016). Such
as with respect to the character it is found that in A beautiful Mind the character is fighting with
the spirit to accept his illness and lead a normal life on the other hand Christopher Gardner
strives to fight with the situation to change it. In context of the them of both the movies there
exists similarity which is directly complying with the characteristic of film genre that is both
aims to portray real life picture and have an impact of lives of viewer.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bondebjerg, I., 2015. Film: genres and genre theory. In International Encyclopedia of Social and
Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier Science.
Chan, F., Karpovich, A. and Zhang, X., 2011. Genre in Asian film and television: new
approaches. Springer.
Clover, C.J., 2015. Men, women, and chain saws: Gender in the modern horror film. Princeton
University Press.
Fischer, L., 2014. Cinematernity: Film, motherhood, genre. Princeton University Press.
Nelmes, J. ed., 2012. Introduction to film studies. Routledge.
Selbo, J., 2014. Film genre for the screenwriter. Routledge.
Vidal, B., 2012. Heritage Film: Nation, Genre, and Representation (Vol. 49). Columbia
University Press.
Online
A beautiful Mind. 2016. [Online]. Available
through:<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/plotsummary. [Accessed on 29th July 2016].