4 secrets of success from Freddie Mercury that we learned from "Bohemian Rhapsody"

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The acclaimed biopic has a step-by-step plan that will allow you to reveal your true self.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" - a biographical film by director Brian Singer about the fate of the leader of the British group Queen Freddie Mercury - became one of the main movie hits of the fall-2018. The picture not only traced the life of the artist himself, but also placed clear accents on what exactly helped Freddie to express himself so vividly and achieve world success. These are the key points.

1. Accept that you are not. It is he who can become your greatest strength

In "Bohemian Rhapsody" (the plot of which, by the way, is somewhat at odds with real events) there are two interesting episodes.

One is about how Mercury first meets two young musicians. Later they will join his group and even become the closest friends. However, at the first meeting, the guys make fun of Freddie. Their duet has just left without a frontman, Mercury offers himself as a vocalist - and hears from drummer Roger Taylor: "Not with your teeth, buddy!"

The second episode: many years later, Mercury gives an interview to a group of journalists. A lively reporter asks: why, having made so much money, the musician still hasn't bothered to put his mouth in order? Freddie retorts: "Why don't you first tidy up your own manners?"

Mercury really had an innate feature - four extra incisors, due to which the upper row of teeth protruded significantly forward. However, the vocalist himself believed that it was this chip that gave him a unique voice. The former assistant to the Queen leader claimed that, although Freddie was embarrassed because of this pathology, he was still grateful to her and never tried to correct the bite.

2. Become the person you want to be

Actor Rami Malek, who portrayed Freddie on the screen, immediately agreed that a dental feature is important. And he even began to wear a special pad on his teeth a year before filming - to get used to, to realize what Mercury could feel, living in a society with such a noticeable "white spot". Rami later said in an interview with Vanity Fair:

He was a defiant person who refused to be invisible or shaded. It was impossible to put any label on Freddie. All he wanted was to reveal his own true self. And yet - so that his audience, listeners had the opportunity to open up in the same way.

Rami Malek

Sometimes revealing your true self means forgetting about the person you had to be since childhood. For Mercury, this meant changing his surname (the showman's real name is Farrukh Bulsar) and abandoning restrictions related to the origin in order to become that bright, free and freedom-giving singer.

By the way, research by psychologists shows that by allowing ourselves to be who we want to be, we begin to feel more prosperous and satisfied with life.

3. Take risks and trust your inner voice

"Bohemian Rhapsody" - the original viscous composition at the intersection of opera and rock, recorded by Queen in 1975, is considered a masterpiece today. And many people forget what it cost Mercury to bring this single into rotation and what indignation from critics had to face. Nevertheless, Freddie and his team did not hesitate for a second.

When Queen producer Ray Foster (played by Mike Myers in the film) insisted that such a long song should not be released as a single and separated from the album "Night at the Opera" because no radio station would play it, the group simply fired Foster.

However, after a couple of years, Mercury admitted in an interview that the musicians did not exclude the possibility that the song would be a failure. However, we decided to take a chance.

Obviously, having recorded a composition almost six minutes long, we crossed some established boundaries. There were many words in the text of Rhapsody, and the record company wanted to edit it more than once. But we thought that in this case the recording would lose its meaning. It must either be listened to in its entirety, or not listened to at all. And we also thought that we were waiting for either a crushing failure or a resounding success.

Freddie Mercury

It is curious that even a contemporary of those events, the famous Elton John contemptuously asked his manager with Queen: "Are you crazy?"

Elton John, like many other critics, was wrong. It was “Bohemian Rhapsody” that made Queen famous all over the world and since then has been performed at almost every concert of the group.

4. Follow Father Mercury's advice, but the way you yourself understand it

Director Brian Singer portrayed Mercury's father as a man frustrated by his son's passion for nightlife and theatricality. In the film, Bomi Bulsara now and then persuades Freddie to become more serious and follow a simple motto: "Good thought, good word, good deed."

In the end, Freddie really begins to live according to the precepts of his father. Only in their own understanding. In one of the episodes of the tape, Mercury explains to the potential manager of the group that they in Queen are the champions in oddities:

We are losers who have no place even among other losers. We are outcasts. Those who are constantly in the shadows, but feel that even there they do not belong. This is who we belong to.

Thus, Mercury's good ideas, words and deeds were aimed at all those who cannot find their place in the world. On all the misunderstood and rejected.

In the episode where father and son meet for the last time, Bomi Bulsara nevertheless admits: Freddie lived up to his expectations. In this scene, Mercury comes home to introduce the family to her new boyfriend Jim Hutton (he will remain with the musician until his death). He also tells his family that he plans to perform at a charity concert to raise funds to fight hunger in Africa - at the very legendary Live Aid festival in 1985, where Queen's most powerful performance took place.

“Good thought, good word, good deed. Everything is as you taught me, dad,”Freddie says to his father before leaving. This is one of the most touching scenes of the "Bohemian Rhapsody": the father silently approaches his son and hugs him tightly, recognizing that his child has taken place both as a person and as a creator.

On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Queen eclipsed the rest of Live Aid by once again brilliantly performing Bohemian Rhapsody. This hit in the film sounds especially poignant, because viewers already know how Freddie's story will end very soon.

- Too late, my time has come, Sends shivers down my spine, body’s aching all the time.

Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go, Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.

- Late. And I have to go.

Goosebumps, pain bound forever.

Goodbye everyone! Time to go -

I leave everyone to face the truth.

The day before his death on November 24, 1991, as a last good deed, Freddie publicly declared that he was sick with AIDS - to warn people how dangerous HIV is.

And, although most of us will never become rock stars of this magnitude, the life of Freddie Mercury gives everyone important clues: how to move towards the goal, how to find your true self and remain yourself until death.