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Hello and welcome to Learn English Vocabulary. My name is Jack and I’m making this podcast for you to learn or revise English vocabulary. You can find a transcript of this podcast on LearnEnglishVocabulary.co.uk. There’s a page for this podcast with the transcript, an activity and a task for you to do in the comments section.

This week, I have three podcasts about films. These podcasts cover some of the language from the English Focus Conversation course lesson on films. In each of these podcasts, I am going to describe a film and I want you to try to work out what film I’m describing. After that, I’ll talk about the vocabulary and then I’ll replay the film description so you can hear the language again.

Here is the third film description. This is the last of the film descriptions and this one is a little bit shorter. 

What film am I describing?

The third film that I want to talk about is a biopic of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen. The film follows young Freddie as he joins his bandmates and together they start writing and playing music as Queen. The film covers Freddie’s life and his relationship with his friends and band members up until the 1985 Live Aid concert. 

I was born in 1979 so Queen had released some of their biggest records before I was born. I grew up with Queen, hearing Freddie Mercury on the radio, dancing to Queen songs at school discos and birthday parties. The band released massive songs throughout my childhood and the first single I bought was by Freddie Mercury. 

In the film, the band is seen dipping in popularity and the relationships between the band members are not good up until the performance at Wembley for Live Aid which brought the band renewed fame and popularity. I’m not sure that the band’s popularity really dipped that much, but I was only 6 when these events took place and it makes for a good story. When Freddie takes to the stage at the end of the film, the actor that played him recreated his performance on stage perfectly and that made the scene more powerful.

I was also not convinced by Rami Malek who plays Freddie. I suppose I only ever knew Queen and Freddie Mercury from their performances on stage and I think that Freddie may well have been as shy and withdrawn as Malek’s portrayal, but I wasn’t really sold on his performance. 

Do you know what film I’m describing?

The answer is Bohemian Rhapsody. I enjoyed this film, but not as much as the other two.

I described the film as a biopic. A biopic is a portmanteau, that is a new word made by combining two words. The words are biography and picture. So it’s a biography picture, a biopic. This means that the film tells the story of a person’s life or at least tells part of their story. So any film that is based on real events in a real person’s life can be called a biopic. 

I said that the film follows the fortunes of young Freddie. If a film follows someone, then the film is about that person and the audience gets to watch that person as they go through their adventures. 

If a film is powerful, it makes you feel strong emotions. Often this means that a film makes you cry. Instead of saying that the film made you cry, you say it was very powerful. You might also describe a film as powerful if it has a strong message that made you think a lot about the topic. Recently, there was a film called Don’t look up which was about the way the media and politicians in their desire for popularity will encourage people to ignore problems. It was very powerful.

I said that I was not convinced by Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. This means I did not find his performance convincing. I did not find him believable as Freddie Mercury. I think he looked too innocent, too young. If an actor’s performance is really good, especially if the character they are playing is unusual or really evil, you can say that they were very convincing. They made you believe in their character and the story. 

The last word from the description I want to look at is the noun portrayal. This is similar to a performance when the performance is of a real person. To portray means to represent something or someone. So an artist might paint a picture to portray ideas about youth or beauty. In a film, the actors portray their characters and the whole film portrays a story or a time in the past. The noun form is portrayal. So you might say, I didn’t like the film’s portrayal of London’s 70s culture, but I did like the actor’s portrayal of their character. I think the important thing is that a portrayal represents or describes something that’s true. So even if a character is fictional, there may be aspects of a performance where an actor gets to portray something real like anger or grief. 

I know that this language wasn’t in the description, but just for fun, do you know what Bohemian Rhapsody means? 

Bohemian describes something from Bohemia. Bohemia today, is the western half of Czechia, but it has been a kingdom or duchy for hundreds of years. However, bohemian has another meaning which comes from a French literary and social movement from the 19th century. There were a group of unconventional people who rejected property and tried to live free lives full of artistic expression. They dressed in a style of traditional clothing that some people identified as having come from Bohemia, though there is no real link between Bohemia in Czechia and Bohemian lifestyles. Today, the phrase makes people think of a kind of hippy style.  

In music, a rhapsody is a piece that doesn’t follow a formal structure and expresses strong feelings and emotions. There are some famous pieces of music that are rhapsodies, like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The noun is also used to describe other artistic expressions that are very emotional so a poem might be described as a rhapsody.

So a bohemian rhapsody is an expressive piece of music with no formal structure that is unconventional and free. 

OK. That’s not so much vocabulary today, but I hope it’s all useful. Listen to the description of Bohemian Rhapsody again to hear the language in context.

The third film that I want to talk about is a biopic of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen. The film follows young Freddie as he joins his bandmates and together they start writing and playing music as Queen. The film covers Freddie’s life and his relationship with his friends and band members up until the 1985 Live Aid concert. 

I was born in 1979 so Queen had released some of their biggest records before I was born. I grew up with Queen, hearing Freddie Mercury on the radio, dancing to Queen songs at school discos and birthday parties. The band released massive songs throughout my childhood and the first single I bought was by Freddie Mercury. 

In the film, the band is seen dipping in popularity and the relationships between the band members are not good up until the performance at Wembley for Live Aid which brought the band renewed fame and popularity. I’m not sure that the band’s popularity really dipped that much, but I was only 6 when these events took place and it makes for a good story. When Freddie takes to the stage at the end of the film, the actor that played him recreated his performance on stage perfectly and that made the scene more powerful.

I was also not convinced by Rami Malek who plays Freddie. I suppose I only ever knew Queen and Freddie Mercury from their performances on stage and I think that Freddie may well have been as shy and withdrawn as Malek’s portrayal, but I wasn’t really sold on his performance. 

I hope you have enjoyed these film podcasts. Next week, I’m going to be talking about technology and will look at some vocabulary related to science and some cutting edge applications. 

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please leave me a comment or a review and don’t forget that you can read the transcript for this podcast and complete some language activities on LearnEnglishVocabulary.co.uk. 

Thanks for listening.