Norman Klein deploys the term “social imaginary” in The History of Forgetting as a category of a built environment, the assemblage of which necessarily involves a significant erasure of a material domain. The social imaginary can also be used, however, to interrogate an individual’s belief in the continuity of self-identity. Always already in the imagined self, after all, is the rebuke of self-instigated doubt: just how much difference can a person tolerate between the “me” that others would claim to know and the cherished, even if fossilized, image one’s consciousness seems beholden to? Biopics, as cinematic documents that fabricate a bildungsroman of an aspiring hero, often take considerable liberties with known facts about the protagonist, whether it is Harvey Milk, Shirley Muldowney, Bob Dylan, Ghandi, T.E. Lawrence,Desmond T. Doss, or James Brown. This panel will examine the methods by which a variety of biopics make use of hyper-subjectivity to generate the afterimage of historical interventions. Is there anything that distinguishes the narrative impetus of a biopic from the biographical projects most commonly associated with print culture? How do assumptions about the audience’s familiarity with the narrative of the biopic affect the amount of context that the biopic can provide as mitigating evidence for the choices made by the protagonist? Finally, if a life is deemed worthy of being depicted on screen, how much responsibility does the collaborative enterprise have in recounting the ethical choices made by so-called “minor characters”? Autobiographies, if they are to be compelling, depend upon the inclusion of other people’s biographical information. How far can the biopic deviate from this Venn diagram of detailed memoir and other people’s memories and still convey the redemptive ordeal undertaken by the protagonist?