The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Dionne Warwick announced a new film project at the Cannes Film Festival today. It's apparently based on her autobiography and focuses on her career in the 1960s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36284812

Sounds interesting but it's already off to a bit of a strange start. It was also announced that Lady GaGa was to play Cilla Black (an odd casting indeed) and her name is on the poster, but her representatives have denied her taking any part in it and suggest she knew nothing of it!

I can only hope it's well produced and scripted - ideally that means no Damon Elliott involvement whatsoever.

It makes me wonder who they have in mind to play Burt Bacharach in this biopic? Justin Bieber?

Stop this stupid idea right now. We don`t need a ridiculous "bio-pic."
The musical history speaks for itself.
A definitive, written history lies in the future.

Dionne addressed the confusion today, saying that Gaga will, in fact, be in the film. She said that there was some confusion within Gaga's publicity team, but that everything will be straightened out shortly. She also emphasized that if it falls through with Gaga, then someone else will play the part and that it's no big deal because the real star is LeToya Luckett as Dionne Warwick, not Lady Gaga anyway! 'Nuff said.

I take Dionne's big announcements like this with a grain of salt because some of her promises have fallen through in the past. Let's hope that the movie gets made and that it turns out to be interesting, because so many people seem to have no clue about Dionne's contributions to the world of music. I also wonder who the audience for this film might be, since Dionne is not very controversial and doesn't seem to have any major drama attached to her (no abuse, tragedies, drugs, and the usual biopic fodder). There just doesn't seem to be much for the film to explore other than her musical rise to fame, especially in the period that they've decided to cover (1962-1968), unless there is a whole lot of stuff behind the scenes that we know nothing about (which would be very out of character for Dionne to share anyway). It would be annoying if they tried to manufacture high drama out of the Dionne/Cilla "rivalry" or something cheesy like that. I guess time will tell.

It`s true that many people have no idea of Dionne`s contribution to music but not because there hasn`t been a silly, shitty movie made about her career. Those people simply haven`t listened to what she, Burt, and Hal did.

I think it's best to have a sense of humour about something that was obviously a publicity stunt, a stunt that worked brilliantly judging by the amount of media coverage it has generated. Just the idea of Lady Ga Ga struggling to learn how to speak in a Scouse (Liverpool) accent in order to play Cilla makes me chuckle. As for biopics in general, does anyone watch them and take them seriously? Cole Porter famously loved his biopic 'Night and Day' because in his words it was almost complete fabrication. Of course it did have a marvellous soundtrack of classic songs, something that would be guaranteed with the Warwick movie, if it's ever actually made that is.

Could have Sheridan Smith play Cilla...