In recent centuries, the artist has emerged as one of the most important subjects in media discourse, with filmmakers playing a key role in shaping their representation in the cultural field. Hollywood biographical films, due to their commercial nature, tend to use global formulas and conventional structures that have proven successful in the past. Consequently, they often reproduce patterns that were formed in the literary tradition and have been present since the Renaissance. The research focuses on analyzing the construction of the artist character in ten Hollywood biographical films using semiotic textual film analysis. Key findings reveal that artists in films are presented as geniuses with innate talent. The selected films also reproduce the romantic stereotype of the tragic artist as a bohemian misunderstood by society, living in poverty, marked by mental illness, and often meeting a tragic end. Given that women also play leading roles in several of the selected films, part of the thesis is devoted to analyzing the construction of the female artist character. Female artists are often presented through romantic or tragic narratives or as objects of desire, which overshadows their artistic achievements. Nevertheless, some films show positive shifts that are evident in their transcendence of tragic life or in their portrayal of female artists as women with exceptional talent. The thesis highlights the need for critical reflection on stereotypical portrayals and encourages emancipatory representations.
|
