The Argentine musical biopic as a cultural phenomenon: the cases of Gilda and El Potro

Abstract

The article analyzes the Argentine films Gilda, no me arrepiento de este amor (2016) and El Potro, lo mejor del amor (2018), two musical biopics that allow us to approach the recent boom of the biographical genre in the audiovisual field. We address the phenomenon within the context of the so-called «return of the real», which encompasses a growing interest in the narratives in which the boundaries between fiction and reality are blurred. The biopic offers the viewer a promise of access to «the real» and satisfies a contemporary demand: the viewer’s desire to spy on the private life of a public person. In the biopics of singers Gilda and Rodrigo, written and directed by Lorena Muñoz, the desire to humanize the idol translates into a dramatic structure that traces the rise of the main character, until that ascending path is suddenly interrupted by death. The films take distance from the mythical image of their characters and focus on the artists’ intimacy, their family ties, their emotional conflicts. As a hybrid fiction, the biopic introduces a tension in the suspension of disbelief: the story oscillates between truthfulness and invention, and the viewer remains in a state of uncertainty in relation to the status of the narrated events.