Director
Kenny Ortega told me that the seeds of Michael Jackson’s final concert
performance were planted after picking up the phone and hearing Jackson
say, “Kenny,” “Yes?” “This is it.” Ortega said Jackson repeated the
phrase five times during their conversation and each mention held more
meaning for the performer. Jackson couldn’t have possibly known how
prophetic those words would be when he and Ortega dreamed up their plans
for his “final curtain call”; a series of fifty shows in London meant to
say good bye to live performing. Michael Jackson’s shocking death this
past June left fans around the world utterly confused and bereft and
those who looked forward to those concerts wondering what could’ve been.
Here is the luck of living in the age of handily-accessible video, where
one’s every waking moment can be recorded for posterity. Jackson made a
point of taping the major sections of his show’s rehearsals to go over
and make notes the way a boxer reviews his fight when the bout is over,
or a sports team looks for holes in their defense. From these films,
Ortega culled nearly two hours of footage to give the world an imperfect
glimpse at the show he and Jackson envisioned as the performer’s final
bow from the stage. The result is the double-barreled whammy of sadness
and awe that This Is It leaves in its wake.
On its surface, the idea that those involved may have chosen to exploit,
cash in on or recoup huge financial losses accumulated by Jackson’s
untimely death is pretty hard to escape. Do I believe that Jackson, the
ultimate perfectionist, would have wanted anyone outside the show’s
charmed circle to view this raw footage? Absolutely not. As the last
recorded moments of this pop music legend and the opportunity for
Jackson in absentia to have one last opportunity to justify the rabid
adoration he engendered and show himself to the world healed and
recovered from the slings and arrows of infamy that had assailed him
over the past decade, the film is significant. In its very rawness,
believers and naysayers get back to basics about Michael Jackson in a
way they would never have been able to had the star lived. This Is It
serves more than as a collection of snazzily edited rehearsal footage;
it is testimony as to what made this man born in Gary, Indiana fifty
years ago the biggest star in the world. The answer comes back again
and again; it’s the music, stupid. Jackson was blessed with a nearly
supernatural talent that was often hidden behind the megalomaniacal need
to pursue the self-made title, the King of Pop, as well as his
well-documented personal eccentricities and the legal troubles that
dogged him. This was a person who, practically from birth (- Or very
shortly afterwards) was on a stage entertaining people. Kissed by
the muses in a way not seen before or since, Jackson was the heir in a
line of entertainers who inspired him, including Sammy Davis Jr. and
James Brown. It is impossible to believe having had him in the public
consciousness for so long that there was ever a time that Jackson wasn’t
on a stage, on our televisions, in our cinemas. Yet, for many of his
fans and even the dancers and musicians in This Is It, that time did not
exist. For so many, the man simply has always been famous, This Is it
succeeds in letting us all know why.
Opening with the kinetic, high-energy Wanna Be Startin’ Something from
his seminal 1982 album, Thriller, the audience watches as the music
quickly catches Jackson up and makes a thrumming, vibrating whirlwind of
the man. The audience immediately sees that Jackson is fitter than he’s
been seen since he graced the charts daily in his Eighties prime; which
also makes what we know will happen to him in the midst of these
rehearsals even more incomprehensible. His body registers every beat
and nuance of the song and he seems to be clearly enjoying himself. Yet
the second the run-through is done, Jackson gently impresses on his
musical director and the assembled musicians that the thumping tune, is,
to his eerily precise ear, “not funky enough.’ Early on, two things
stand out about Jackson in This Is It; first is the fact that though
classically untrained, he was an amazing instinctive musician who could
hear pitches and rhythms that trained performers around him miss.
Second and terribly touching is the unguarded footage of his corrections
of the assembled staff; there is never a hint of harshness in word or
tone when there is a mistake made. Indeed, Jackson seems to walk on
eggshells when asking for something he wants done differently and
concludes those requests with “I come in love,” as if warding off any
real conflict and constantly reminding his crew, “This is why we
rehearse,” with a smile on his face. He seems like the best boss ever
and a deeply sweet, considerate man. It’s that humanity so adored by
those he worked with that is evident throughout the film.
For as much fun as he’s having perfecting his last dance extravaganza,
Drill, or devising new moves for Thriller, the audience can hear the
depth of emotion in his voice when delivering the lyrics for Earth
Song. One of the points that is made throughout the film is Jackson’s
long held care for the future of the planet, and with Earth Song and Man
in the Mirror, we see and hear Jackson’s attachment and meaning in these
songs more than say, the op-tastic Jackson 5ive medley. Left partially
up to an online fan vote, Jackson’s set includes classics like Beat It,
which just doesn’t stand the test of time and while Jackson never
sleepwalks through a second of his performance, the man’s body reads
like a book in the footage and you can see the excitement to play the
song just isn’t there. I couldn’t help but wonder if Jackson’s plan to
take the Beat It jacket and light it on fire onstage, letting it burn
had a deeper meaning? On the other hand, the hauntingly beautiful Human
Nature and I Just Can’t Stop Loving You are chilling in their simple
testimony of what a damned fine singer the man was. The former song he
renders flawlessly, the angelic, complex cadences astound even his
seasoned musicians. I Just Can’t Stop Loving You is a fairly mundane
love song until Jackson catches the spirit and turns the moment into a
church revival, instinctively playing to gathered onlookers despite
admonishing his encouraging crew to not let him sing out fully to
conserve his voice.
The pyrotechnics and film footage meant to be used during the live show
are brilliant. Bursts of flame literally run in timed sequence up and
down the length of the stage; a giant Gort clone robot would have hidden
the performer inside its frame as a montage of Michael Jackson’s history
and the times he grew up in played over it. There is the new 3D remake
of the Thriller video which would have played as floating zombie banners
waved above the London audience. Jackson’s love of cinema is
highlighted in Smooth Criminal’s clever use of Rita Hayworth’s famous
Put the Blame on Mame scene from Gilda which now features a new
supporting player who is chased out of the nightclub by Edward G.
Robinson and hunted down by Humphrey Bogart. We see raw rehearsal
moments of Jackson toying with choreographer, Travis Payne, with whom he
hardly speaks an audible word, but the two share a physical language of
shoulder shrugs, head bobs and beat-boxing grunts, when suddenly Jackson
strikes the classic pose from Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story, only
later to see it onstage and hear the slow, sexy Broadway drag of the new
opening of The Way You Make Me Feel. Amongst the ‘Tito, get me some
tissue’ moments would be the montage of Jackson 5ive video clips that
play as Jackson sings the classic, I’ll Be There. There’s the black and
white audition footage of a nine-year-old Jackson tearing up James
Brown’s I Got the Feelin’, Diana Ross boogieing with the group of young
fellas whose first album bore her name as presenter, and most deadly for
me, the image of the little boy belting out Smokey Robinson’s Who’s
Lovin’ You on the Ed Sullivan Show while working a fly pink cowboy hat
and purple fringe vest. Yeah, I was done. However, these sad moments
are few as Ortega rightfully focuses on the work of puttin’ on the show,
which was clearly a joy for Jackson and that pleasure equates in an
exultant experience for his fans instead of a melancholy one.
Of course, no paean to Jackson would be complete without people gushing
to the cameras about how wonderful/life-changing/inspirational he is and
we see that in buckets with the dancers’ auditions, which is where I
guess it’d be most appropriate to heap the praise on the guy you wanna
dance for. However, you can see the way Jackson is handled with
obsequious kid gloves by Ortega and others at times, attending him with
a saccharine formality that is almost creepily plastic. All I could
think of was if people had been more grounded and real around him,
perhaps he’d still be here. It’s refreshing, then, to hear musical
director Michael Beardon hit the nail on the head of a vague Jackson
request by saying the song needed “a little more booty,” then
challenging the blushing Jackson, saying, “but you knew what I meant
right?” and Jackson’s admittance that indeed he did. If only for more
moments where Jackson was treated like a 50-year old man and not some
inviolable deity, but at least we have a tiny glimpse of it here in
interviews with some of the older musicians who feel less of a need to
gush, but express their pure respect for the man on their artistic
level.
This is the fullest portrait we’ll ever have of Michael Jackson. These
stripped-down moments where he’s at his happiest onstage and amongst his
adopted family of fellow performers are as pure and close to the heart
of the man as the public will ever get, and for that his fans should be
thankful and joyous. Ortega’s wise assembly of footage beautifully
reminds us beyond all the overdone, extraneous glitz, the sometimes
self-sabotaging eccentricities and late-day notoriety, why anyone cared
about this man to begin with. The reason is clear; he simply was the
greatest entertainer of his age. The sorrow of This Is It is in its
haunting reminder that we, as the public who breathed and consumed every
bit of information and product this man had to offer, good or ill, will
never have anything from him again. Joyful and joyous, yes, to see
Jackson so in his element, watching the music flow through him and the
happiness it gave him and the world. This Is It is all those things,
but once the need to run home and play Off the Wall and Thriller the
moment one leaves the cinema wears off comes the reality of how lost
that is to us forever. Those who never stopped loving Jackson for the
icon he was and those who may have lost touch and could have found their
way back to discovering him as an artist have been robbed. This show is
the last we’ll ever see of Michael Jackson’s very real magic and that is
truly heartbreaking.
~ The Lady Miz Diva
October, 28th, 2009
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