Released on 24 September 2012, on DVD and
Blu-ray.
Length 85 minutes (DVD and Blu-ray documentary), 64 minutes (TV
documentary), 19 minutes (DVD and blu-ray extra features)
The Great Pretender (documentary) (85 minutes)
Freddie
Mercury Goes Solo (1985 interview with David Wigg) (7
minutes)
Extended Interview with Montserrat Caballe (7 minutes)
Making Barcelona: Special Edition 2012 (5 minutes)
Directed by Rhys Thomas
Produced by Jim Beach, Rhys Thomas and Joss Crowley
Supervising Producer for EMP: Alan Ravenscroft
Supervising Producer for Eagle Rock Entertainment: Andrew Winter
Executive Producers for Eagle Rock Entertainment: Terry Shand and
Geoff Kempin
Cover Photograph: Peter Hince
Directory Of Photography: Ric Clark
Film Editor: Christopher Bird
Queen Archivist: Greg Brooks
Archive Researchers: Keith Badman, David Ross, Universal Media,
Inc
Freddie Mercury's final interview and other selected documentary
footage directed by Rudi Dolezal
TV Version Executive producer Mark Cooper
TV Version Series Editor Alan Yentob
This is a documentary about Freddie's life,
which concentrates on his solo projects and life outside of the
world of Queen. The 'Mr Bad Guy', 'The Great Pretender' and
'Barcelona' projects are all covered, with the focus on
'Barcelona', but unfortunately the 'Time' musical is only briefly
mentioned and 'Love Kills' is not covered at all. Naturally the
documentary features extensive interviews with Freddie, and
interviews with Brian May, Roger Taylor, Montserrat Caballe,
manager Jim Beach, ex-manager John Reid, producers Mack and David
Richards, pianist Mike Moran, personal assistant Peter Freestone,
writer Tim Rice, journalists David Wigg and Paul Gambuccini,
comedian Matt Lucas, composer David Arnold, and a TV interview
with Freddie's partner Jim Hutton.
The documentary features previously unseen interviews, promo
video out-takes, live footage and photographs, footage of Freddie
with the Royal Ballet in 1979, and short excerpts of the Queen
track 'Let Me Live', recorded with Rod Stewart, and the Freddie
track 'There Must Be More To Life Than This' with Michael
Jackson.
On the DVD release, the main menu features an excerpt of 'The
Great Pretender' when it first loads, with a slightly different
version on subsequent reloads. It has links down the right hand
side to play the documentary (title 2) and links to sub-menus for
scene selection, bonus material, and subtitles, which play
excerpts of the later demo of 'The Golden Boy', single version of
'Love Kills' and the 'Special Edition' version of 'Exercises In
Free Love' respectively. Subtitles are available in English,
German, Spanish, French, or off.
The Blu-ray release is almost identical, but the menu is a
horizontal bar towards the bottom of the screen. The scene
selection, bonus features, and subtitles all have the same
options as the DVD, but appear as pop-up menus, rather than
separate sub-menus. The menu plays the full single version of
'The Great Pretender', rather than an edit.
The first bonus feature is 'Freddie Mercury Goes Solo' (title 3),
a 7 minute interview with David Wigg which was recorded in Munich
in 1985. As the title suggests, Freddie discusses his solo album
'Mr Bad Guy', with excerpts from a number of album tracks, and a
full transcription can be found on the David
Wigg Interviews page. The other bonus features are 'Extended
Interview with Montserrat Caballe' (title 4), a 7 minute
interview in which she discusses meeting and working with
Freddie, and 'Making Barcelona Special Edition 2012' (title 5), a
5 minute feature about the album, featuring interviews with
orchestrator Stuart Morley, Jim Beach and Montserrat Caballe,
footage of the recording sessions, and the 'live' performance at
the La Nit Festival. Of the remaining titles, title 1 seems to be
used in the menus and title 6 includes the Eagle Rock logo and
copyright notice, which is shown when the main documentary
completes.
The DVD and Blu-ray feature an identical documentary and bonus
features, the only key difference is how the menus work. The
documentary won a joint award at the 2013 Emmy Awards in the
'Arts Programming' category, tieing with a South Korean film,
'Hello Orchestra'.
Director Rhys Thomas had previously produced the 2011 Queen
documentary 'Days
Of Our Lives' and wrote and starred in the 2002 BBC comedy 'Fun
At The Funeral Parlour' (which featured a theme tune by
Brian), and went on to write and direct the 2014-2016 comedy 'Brian
Pern' (which featured occasional interviews with Roger and
several Queen references), as well as producing several other
Queen DVD's. .
The TV version is edited down to 64 minutes and was broadcast on
BBC One on 16 October 2012 at 10:35pm as part of the 'Imagine'
series; it is essentially the same but makes a number of edits
throughout the documentary, and restructures some elements. It
begins with an introduction by Alan Yentob, filmed in front of
the Dominion Theatre, with an excerpt of the Freddie version of
'Exercises In Free Love'. It then has a preview of the
documentary, with various short clips from throughout the
programme.
The TV version loses the elements highlighted in blue, but
adds those in red.
- Outtakes from a David Wigg interview, footage of 'I Want
To Break Free' at Rio, interview excerpts from throughout
the program with Freddie's singalong at 'Live Aid', and
interviews with Freddie, Brian and Jim Beach about
Freddie going solo
- Excerpt from 'Mr Bad Guy', and further interviews with
Jim Beach and Freddie, footage of Freddie from the 'One
Vision' recording sessions, a short extract of 'Let Me
Live' with Rod Stewart, 'There Must Be More To Life Than
This' with Michael Jackson, and interviews with Jim Beach
and Freddie about the tracks and their recording
- Footage of the 'I Was Born To Love You' promo video and
outtakes, and interviews with Freddie, Jim Beach and Mack
about songwriting, the 'Mr Bad Guy' US record contract,
it's advance, it's lack of success, and living in Munich
- Excerpt of an instrumental version of 'Nevermore' with
photographs of Freddie as a child, and interviews about
his childhood with Freddie and Peter Freestone
- Interviews with Freddie, Roger and David Arnold
(composer) about early Queen, with various live footage
and promo videos, intercut with interview snippets
- Footage of Freddie recording his vocals for 'My
Melancholy Blues', and interviews with John Reid, Paul
Gambuccini and Freddie about his influences, with
outtakes from the 'I Want To Break Free' promo video and
an excerpt of 'Man Made Paradise'
- Interviews with Freddie and Peter Freestone, with footage
of Freddie with the Royal Ballet in 1979
- Excerpts of 'I Feel Love' (Donna Summer) and 'Love
Kills', and interviews with Jim Beach, Peter Freestone,
Roger and John Reid about New York, fashion and
lifestyle, with footage from Freddie's parties
- Interviews with Freddie and Brian about the 'Hot Space'
album, an excerpt of 'Staying Power' with 'Queen On Fire
- Live At The Bowl' footage, and interviews with John
Reid, Peter Freestone, Mack, Roger and Brian about Paul
Prenter's influence
- Interviews with Freddie and John Reid about friendships
and Mary Austin, with footage of Freddie performing
'Somebody To Love' at Milton Keynes
- Interviews with Freddie, Brian and Jim Beach about
Freddie going solo
- Excerpt from 'Mr Bad Guy', and further interviews with
Jim Beach and Freddie, footage of Freddie from the 'One
Vision' recording session, 'There Must Be More To Life
Than This' with Michael Jackson, and interviews with Jim
Beach and Freddie about the tracks and recording
- Footage of 'I Was Born To Love You', interviews with
Freddie about songwriting, video outtakes of the song,
and interviews with Jim Beach, Freddie and Mack about the
'Mr Bad Guy' US record contract, it's advance, it's lack
of success, and living in Munich
- Excerpt of Pavarotti and Montserrat performing, and
interviews with Freddie, Peter Freestone and Paul
Gambuccini about his influences, and seeing Montserrat
for the first time
- Interview with Jim Beach and Freddie, about wanting to
perform with her, and Roger and Mack about Freddie
struggling to finish the 'Mr Bad Guy' album, with footage
from the 'One Vision' sessions
- Interviews with Jim Beach and Brian about lack of
success, returning to Queen, with excerpt of 'Love Me
Like There's No Tomorrow'
- Footage of 'We Will Rock You' or Freddie's singalong at
Live Aid, interviews with Freddie and Brian about
showmanship, footage of 'Another One Bites The Dust' at
Wembley, and interview with David Arnold
- Excerpt of 'Made In Heaven' and interviews with Freddie
and Jim Hutton about loneliness and meeting each other
- Excerpt of 'Life Is Real', footage from Freddie's 39th
birthday party, and interviews with John Reid, David Wigg
and Freddie about stopping partying, and footage of 'Is
This The World We Created' at Knebworth
- Interviews with Brian, Paul Gambuccini and Freddie about
stopping touring, with footage of 'A Kind Of Magic' promo
video, excerpt of Pavarotti and Montserrat performing,
and interviews with Freddie, Peter Freestone and Paul
Gambuccini about his influences, and seeing Montserrat
for the first time, and interviews with Freddie and Mike
Moran about the 'Time' musical and working with Freddie,
with outtakes of the 'Time' video and 'Keep Smiling'
- Footage of 'The Great Pretender' and interview with
Freddie about the song, a TV review of the video,
outtakes, and interviews with Matt Lucas and Freddie
about his privacy and lack of interviews
- Interviews with Mike Moran, Freddie, Peter Freestone,
Montserrat Caballe and Jim Beach, about 'Exercises In
Free Love', meeting in Barcelona, and working on the
album, with excerpts from 'The Duet' (The Fallen Priest)
home demo
- Outtakes and footage from the 'Barcelona' promo video,
and interviews with Freddie, Montserrat, Peter Freestone,
Paul Gambuccini, Matt Lucas, Tim Rice and David Arnold,
about the album's style, and single success
- Interviews with Jim Beach, Matt Lucas and Mike Moran about
the recording contract for the album, and the freedom it
gave
- Excerpt of 'Rachmaninov's Revenge' and interviews with
Mike Moran, Freddie and Tim Rice, about difficulties in
finishing the lyrics, getting Tim Rice involved, with
footage of 'The Golden Boy' at the La Nit festival, and
interviews with Matt Lucas about the track
- Interviews with Peter Freestone, Jim Hutton, Matt Lucas
and David Arnold about Freddie finding out he had AIDS,
his sexuality, and interview with Freddie about the 'I
Want To Break Free' video
- Excerpt of a news report about AIDS, and interviews with
Paul Gambuccini, Freddie, David Wigg and Montserrat about
attitudes towards AIDS, his lifestyle, health and news
reports
- Footage of 'How Can I Go On' from the La Nit festival,
and interviews with Jim Beach, Freddie, Montserrat and
Peter Freestone about Freddie's strength, continued
creativity, and the 'Barcelona' album
- Interviews with John Reid, Jim Beach and Paul Gambuccini
about the album's impact
- Out-takes from the 'I Want It All' video, interviews with
Freddie and Peter Freestone about returning to Queen, TV
footage of awards ceremonies, footage from 'Innuendo',
interviews with Matt Lucas, David Richards and Brian,
about recording the album, with outtakes from the
'Headlong' video
- Interviews with Peter Freestone about Freddie's cats,
with excerpt of 'Delilah', home footage of his cats and
Christmas with Mary Austin's son, and interviews with
Peter Freestone, Brian, Freddie, and David Richards, about
his illness, treatment and recording
- Excerpt of 'A Winter's Tale', interviews with Jim Beach, Jim
Hutton, David Richards and Matt Lucas, about Freddie's
last days and his death, with footage from news reports
- Interviews with Brian and Roger about press intrusion,
with footage of Brian and Roger on TV-AM
- Excerpt of 'A Winter's Tale', news reports about the
'Made In Heaven' album, interviews with Brian and Roger,
and footage from the 'No-One But You' and 'These Are The
Days Of Our Lives' promo videos
- Clip from 'Top Of The Pops', footage of the 'Living On My
Own' remix video, and interview with Jim Beach about the
track
- Interviews with Freddie and Matt Lucas about his songs, Jim
Beach about the 'Barcelona' Special Edition album, and
footage from its recording session
- Footage of the 'Barcelona' Ku Klub performance, and
interview with Paul Gambuccini about the success of the
track in 1992
- Interviews with Brian, Freddie and Roger about Freddie's
life, and how he would like to be remembered, with
footage of the 'Made In Heaven' video, with the Queen
version over the top
- Credits - 'When This Tired Old Body Wants To Sing', with
footage from numerous promo videos, and interview
soundbites from Freddie to various worldwide territories
