„Invented for the Purposes of the Narrative“

Abstract

Biopics have been growing in popularity since the turn of the century. This paper concentrates on feature films on famous authors in the field of children’s media. The stories the movies tell and the images they offer will have an impact on how people remember these authors and their work. The main question is not whether these films are in accordance with the assumed real biographies. Instead, the focus is on the popular patterns and narrative strategies underlying these films: concepts of childhood, artistry, and authorship, the double body of the biographical figure (person and persona), the relationship between the individual subject and society, the fixing of an outsider position, the construction of a heroic journey, etc. as well as strategies of authentication or a supposed correspondence between life course and creative work. In this tension field of narration, fiction, and nonfiction, the film biographies turn out to offer „projected lives“ (Millard 1998).

Das Titelzitat geht auf den Film Enid (2009) zurück; vollständig lautet der dort im Vorspann erscheinende Satz: „Some scenes have been invented and events conflated for the purposes of the narrative.“ (Enid 2009, 00:02–00:09)