“I was three or four when I first started listening to records like that.” “The first records I ever heard were Kay Starr and Billy May and Tennessee Ernie Ford…I grew up in that era,” John said. John told Rolling Stone that his first interest in music stemmed from his parents’ extensive record collection, which is shown as a central part of family life in the early part of the film. The pair famously did not speak for eight years beginning in 2008, but they reconciled around the time of her 90th birthday in 2016, two years before she passed away.ĭespite the rocky relations, John’s family was responsible for his early musical inclinations. While in the film, scenes between John and Sheila are fiery and argumentative, John has not often spoken publicly about their relationship. Two years later, John and Sheila (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) moved into a new flat with John’s stepfather, a local painter named Fred Farebrother (Tom Bennett). Several biographies of John back up the film’s depiction of his parents’ relationship as an unhappy one, and they divorced when John was 13. As in the film, Stanley was rather stern, and once sent a letter from overseas warning that a young John should pursue a career at a bank and must “get all this pop nonsense out of his head, otherwise he’s going to turn into a wild boy,” John’s mother, Sheila, told TIME for a 1975 cover story. His father Stanley Dwight (played by Steven Mackintosh) served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force and was often away on military duty. Rocketman portrays several of the relationships in John’s life as complicated, beginning with his parents. Was Elton John’s relationship with his family truthfully portrayed? But while John did cancel an MSG show in 1984, it wasn’t until six years later that he went to rehab following the death of Ryan White-a teenager whose story of contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion sparked a national dialogue about the disease. But while that song was released in 1974, the pair didn’t meet until the ’80s.Īll of the film’s events lead up to an AA meeting that John attends instead of playing a Madison Square Garden show he checks into rehab shortly thereafter. When John forms a bond with his soon-to-be wife, Renate Blauel, they duet to “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” in the studio. At an early audition in the 1960s, John belts a couple bars of “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” a song from 1983. So the film kicks off with a childhood flashback in which a young John sings “The Bitch Is Back,” which wasn’t recorded until 1974. “If we’d stretched it out, it would have taken up too much time.” “Some of the elements and scenes in the film, of course they’re not going to be exactly as they happened,” Bernie Taupin, John’s songwriting partner and lyricist, who’s played by Jamie Bell in the movie, told TIME in an interview.
Rocketman plays fast and loose with the timeline of John’s life, with songs appearing out of order and events condensed into tight timeframes. Here are the movie’s truths and fictions, from the way it portrays John’s relationships to its depiction of his musical genius.
“It’s obviously not all true, but it’s the truth,” the 72-year-old musician, who is an executive producer for the movie, wrote in an essay for the Guardian this week.
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But while many liberties are taken with factual details, the overall arc of the movie accurately captures John’s emotional and musical journey, according to the man himself.