I’m definitely late to the party but I finally got a chance to watch the biopic 83. And while the movie was a sweet and simple watch, there was one specific part of it that stayed with me long after it ended.
And that is the fact that the film decided to keep all the original photos and videos from 1983 instead of replacing them with footage of the actors and reshooting the scenes. From the original passport pictures to the newspaper clippings and even the video footage of the matches, they were all seamlessly integrated into the film.
As someone who is always curious about the ‘real’ people behind the actors, and the faces that actually led the life that we’re watching, it was relief to not wait until the end credits for it. Especially when you didn’t grow up watching cricket (yes, one of those), the movie still helped you connect the dots.
The raw emotion that the real clippings emitted had me hooked and this little tit-bit in the direction is something I hope biopics in the future pick up on. Because there is something so heartwarming about watching the people who made this story possible in the same frame as those portraying their lives on the big screen.