Michael Jackson’s This Is It

I was genuinely scared this film would disappoint. Yes, Michael doesn't dance or sing full out, but he never has in previous rehearsals for other tours. I knew This Is It couldn't be a return to the glory days of Bad or Dangerous, to expect that would be to expect too much - even from Michael. But I didn't anticipate what I saw either. The film is an emotional journey through Michael's past, and ours - and it moved me. From fear, to exultation, to laughter, and finally - inevitably to a grief I have felt since June 25th. The reality that Michael was no cheap addict trying to get high, but a sensitive man with serious physical burdens and a wounded psyche who was unable to sleep, is not one you'll see promoted in the press - but it is the truth. Personally, I consider myself privileged to have seen the inner workings of a Master - albeit a damaged one. The film is, of course, commercially viable, but it is also a labour of love with an abundance of heart. You can see the crew and the dancers - and Kenny Ortega especially, willing Michael to reclaim the crown he once wore with surety. Did they have their doubts? Did we? Certainly the fact that Michael's re-crowning came via the road-we-will-all-travel-at-some-point, makes these questions more poignant than they were when Michael first announced his tour all those months ago. The Michael we encounter in the film, obviously scarred, obviously older, is no less fascinating than he was at the peak of his career. His charisma on the big screen - the kind that eludes the mulititude of young and restless who assay our cinemas these days - still there. Martin Scorcese called Michael's persona shamanistic, Spielberg described him as ‘an emotional star child, Mark Romanek (director of Scream) remembers him as 'metaphysical, Anjelica Houston - 'a meteor.' Whatever the word used, all of these highly creative individuals were each trying to convey the sense of difference they felt in Michael's prescence. You can hear it in his entire body of work, in every note of his songs. And his voice, my God - that voice. That soft yet hard, delicate yet bullet-bright force of power and beauty he could produce at will. Once heard, it crept inside you, beat a path to the fortress of your innermost being, before offering – everything. It elevated the merely kinetic to the kaleidoscopic, music into magic and a thousand songs into the substance of soul. Some say Michael should be thought of as nothing more than an 80s artefact, a relic of the bad, brash, primary-coloured, Lucas filmed, pre-9/11 times when we thought the whole world loved America and people adored their stars like the old movie idols from back in the day. Maybe. But what they fail to realize is this; every kid I know is discovering Star Wars for the first time. The Sistine Chapel is no less beautiful now than it was when its painter first stepped down and exhaled. True art is immortal and it lives forever. Michael often quoted Michelangelo – who said: ‘I will bind my soul to my work. This is what Michael Jackson did. He put all that young idealism, that thirst for freedom, that yearning to move and be moved, his desire to be the best, his love and joy, his rage, his pain, his sorrow, his confusion and his loss – into his work. And when all the lies and the untruths have faded with time and the predators who even now pick at his memory like vultures to the bone have finished their feasting - his work will remain. In the years to come, perhaps reasons will emerge from the rubble as to why a supernovic talent with a history of unparalleled giving and a persona of complex innocence was systematically and wilfully humiliated, tortured and stripped of his dignity and spirit for a period of over 15 years, on the basis of astonishingly non-credible accusations – and more importantly why this was actively encouraged. What we are left with is youtube, the testimonials of friends, Dvds - and amidst the music, the echoes of an exceptional human being's epic, embattled life here. In the end, how people feel about This Is will pretty much come down to how they feel about Michael Jackson. So see it, don't see it, hate it, love it, whatever - it's your choice. Just don't blame Michael for not being who and what he used to be. That shame rests with Tom Sneddon, Diane Dimond, Evan Chandler, Janet Arviso, and the - mostly American media. What was done to this beautiful man and peerless artist must never be forgotten. Our loss, whether we know it or not - is incalculable.

 

Love lives forever. RIP, Michael Jackson.

 

Armond White is a retarded bitch.

 

Thank you Armond. It is so refreshing to read a review written by someone who loves and understands the uncompromising musical genius of MJ. I don't think anyone but a person of color can understand why we embraced MJ though out his entire life. I took my four African-American grandchildren (two girls and two boys, ages 9-13) to see This Is It and they related to the movie almost as strongly as I did. They too, were moved to tears and laughter. We left the theater singing with pure abandonment. I must read your book.

 

Yeah, I think Spielberg, Stone and Scorsese wisely recognized two insurmountable impediments to featuring Michael in a movie: the self-inflicted deformities that caused him to look like a reptile are even more repulsive in close-up; and the majority of the public believes that he was a child molester because we find it inconceivable that an innocent man would pay off anyone who falsely accused him of such a disgusting and humiliating crime.