Last night, a friend and I attended a special screening of the Michael Jackson concert documentary, This Is It.
Because of some national TV reports at the time of his untimely death, I entered the theater expecting to see a feeble, insecure, mentally diminished star in a sad attempt to rise from the ashes of a scandal for one final phoenix-like performance — a modern-day male equivalent to Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” if you will. After all, he was 50. He didn’t exactly act his age. He hadn’t starred in anything in quite a while. And he had a chimp. Very Norma.
My friend and I were practically speechless with surprise. The sadness came from the fact that he died way too soon. The Michael Jackson in rehearsals for a concert spectacular is fit, focused and in peak performance mode. The voice is good. The moves are fluid. You see a show biz legend, someone who’d won pop music stardom by the time he was a teen-ager, knowing what he wanted in the concert and getting it with confidence and courtesy. He understood his catalogue of hits. He knew what the music did for him and he knew what he did for the music. We also see that he fully knew the machinery of himself, as a performer, and knew how to click into it, make it work, conserve it and challenge it.
When Michael Jackson died, many called him “the greatest entertainer of our time.” Because I’m older, probably, and such a classic film geek, I didn’t quite agree with that. To me, Jackson — despite his pop music greatness — was not in the same category as Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Those two show biz legends also were stars by the time they were teens — Garland in movies and Astaire on Broadway nearly two decades before becoming a film star himself. Garland and Astaire could sing, dance…and act. They have classic films and Academy Award acting nominations to their legacies. Jackson’s acting as Scarecrow in “The Wiz” was sweetly lame in that bloated turkey of a musical.
In This Is It, director Kenny Ortega does for Michael Jackson what director Vincente Minnelli did for Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon. He gets the best film performance from the superstar in a musical vehicle made after the performer has turned 50. In “The Band Wagon,” Astaire plays a famed movie musical star who’s attempting a comeback after a few years offstage. If Astaire ever got an Oscar nomination for one of his musicals, it should have been for this one. The whole movie is a gem. Gene Kelly was always called “athletic.” Astaire wasn’t — and that’s wrong. He, as does the character he plays, reinvents himself with a jazz beat in the film’s fabulous final number with Cyd Charisse, “The Girl Hunt Ballet.” He was in his early 50s when he made this film. Although he’s surrounded by younger male dancers in the number, you cannot take your eyes of Astaire as he nails Michael Kidd’s complicated and extremely athletic choreography. The same thing happens in “This Is It.” Astaire played a private eye in “The Girl Hunt Ballet” number. Jackson is dressed somewhat like Astaire’s sleuth in his sensational film noir approach to the “Smooth Criminal” number. A music video within the concert, Jackson interacts with Rita Hayworth vamping as Gilda plus other classic Hollywood stars from the 1940s and 50s.
Rehearsing his Jackson Five portion of the show, with backup dancers as his brothers, he seemed a bit bored with those hits. However, he ends it with a touching thank-you at the end of “I’ll Be There.” His new video for “Thriller” and the “Beat It” number would’ve been sure-fire hits with the audiences. Again, that’s the sadness. That multi-media concert, judging from his focus, fitness and form, would have kicked ass. Michael Jackson, the late King of Pop, left us wanting more and left us with a good movie. Just being Michael Jackson was Jackson’s best piece of acting which Kenny Ortega lovingly captured on camera. As my friend, Mario, said to me during the closing credits, “That wouldn’t have been a comeback. That showed he was always here.”
Tags: Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Kenny Ortega, Michael Jackson, Vincente Minnelli
I really enjoyed reading this Bobby and chatting with you a bit about your thoughts on the movie last night. I’m not that familiar with the work of Fred Astaire and Judy Garland and your comparisons have me very curious. I’m seeing This Is It on Friday and would love to follow it up with The Bandwagon to get more of a sense of what you saw. I’m deeply moved by Kenny Ortega’s love for and protective nature of Michael and am glad there was someone involved with his latest work of Kenny’s caliber to be able to give us a peek inside his creative world posthumously. There is such a sense of loss in knowing that he was there. He was ready. He was coming back and with that being said, the movie is all we will get for now, not the opportunity to see him live or to experience what more he may have created. Many have said he would have loved the enormous resurgence in his popularity after his death. I am happy for him that he has been brought to the attention of a new generation. My 10 year old daughter sat with me and watched the memorial service as I was in tears and began sobbing herself as Paris spoke. That really affected her and since then she has become a student of and self proclaimed “number one fan” of his work. I am glad to share that with her and now that she gets the full view of his his talent rather than the skewed vision presented by the media who consistently attacked and made a mockery of him. We’re going as a family to see the movie, it will be very interesting to get her perspective as well as that of my 14 year old son. I look forward to seeing what would have been and what was. Thanks for your great post.