The enduring appeal of A Star is Born is apparent in Cooper's rendition. Two lovers connect for a brief moment in time, inspiring one another to creative and emotional heights, only to burn up in a cloud of inescapable self-destruction. Jackson Maine woos Ally with his philosophy that success comes from "having something to say in a way that people want to hear it." She's helpless to resist his Southern drawl and aching vulnerability. Most of Ally's ascension is observed at a distance through Maine's drunken haze. One particularly painful scene finds Maine watching from offstage as Ally performs on SNL. Flanked by gyrating back-up dancers, Ally wags her finger at a pretty boy sitting on the stage, chastising him, "Why'd you come around me with an ass like that?" All Maine can do is take a swig from his beer bottle and die a little bit inside. If he wasn't depressed before this debacle, he certainly is after watching Ally debase herself on national television.
This is, perhaps, the most compelling (and untapped) theme swirling around A Star Is Born; one must smother their artistic integrity in order to become a pop star. The genuine girl slugging her way through life – the girl Maine fell in love with at the cabaret – is long dead by the midpoint of the film. All that's left is a fashion model, meticulously crafted to maximize the bottom line. Indeed, re-visiting each version of A Star Is Born and tracking what constitutes stardom in that particular era is more fascinating than the films themselves. If 1954's version was a celebration of Hollywood glamour and the 1976 update was a celebration of sleazy excess, this modern edition is a celebration of selling out. Ally can't wait to succumb to the trappings of stardom. She manages only a tepid refusal when her image-obsessed manager Rez (Rafi Gavron) enrolls her in dance classes and encourages her to abandon heartfelt songwriting. "I don't want to lose the part of me that's… you know… talented," Ally insists, only to completely abandon all substance in favor of style.
Unlike the 1954 and 1976 versions of A Star Is Born, Ally seems perfectly willing to not stand by her man. Visiting Maine during his hospitalization for substance abuse, Ally casually drops the suggestion that he might not want to come home again. In this moment, the audience (as well as a clearly shaken Maine) realizes that Ally has become the embodiment of all that she once despised. Had Cooper focused on this surprising trajectory for Ally, A Star Is Born might have found some much needed energy in its final act. Lady Gaga undoubtedly soars during her vocal performances, displaying a startling range, particularly in the film's pop chart single "Shallow", but she isn't asked to do much heavy lifting in the acting department.
Bradley Cooper is more problematic, particularly when compared to the previous incarnations of his character. James Mason's 'Norman Maine' from the 1954 version is a raw nerve; a snarky buffoon who transforms into a 'mean drunk' at the slightest provocation. Even edgier is Kris Kristofferson's portrayal of 'John Norman Howard' in the 1976 revival. Compared to these burnouts, Cooper's version of Maine looks like a misunderstood angel. He gets drunk and passes out after the show. Sometimes he'll smash some pharmaceuticals into dust with his cowboy boot and then snort them. Otherwise, we aren't troubled with the ugliness of addiction. Maine's decline is precipitous and contrived, culminating with his nadir at the Grammy Awards. His edge is further dulled by an unnecessary backstory involving his stage manager/brother (Sam Elliott) and the ghost of their alcoholic father; all designed to make an implausible ending seem slightly more plausible. Source: www.popmatters.com
Cooper delivers one of his most emotionally rich performances yet as Jackson Maine, a character who could have easily come off as creepy and self-entitled but is charismatic and sympathetic in Cooper's hands - making it all the easier to believe that people would flock to him, despite his self-destructive behavior. Cooper the director offers a window into how unnaturally charismatic even the sloppiest rock stars are, and why the people who know them best usually seem to take a kinder hand. Ally helps Jackson’s embattled brother/roadie Bobby (Sam Elliott) drag him into bed after he drinks himself unconscious, and they share a knowing exchange about the magnetism of his talents, even as both remain aware that he’s burning every candle at every end. A Star is Born is refreshingly unsentimental about what a come-up in the entertainment industry looks like, and the film carries itself knowingly when it comes to lingering over the things people force themselves to do, just for the sake of maintaining comfortable illusions. Curiously, A Star is Born feels like a tighter version of what La La Land was trying to do, a melancholic musical about how the realization of superstar dreams usually comes at a great personal cost. Source: consequenceofsound.net
A Star is Born never complicates the idea that the further from Jackson’s influence Ally gets, the worse her music becomes. What makes a star isn’t just talent, Jackson argues. You have to have “something to say.” And as an anguished Jack reiterates to Ally in front of an airbrushed billboard of herself, it has to come from deep down in her “fucking soul.” In music criticism, the turn of the 21st century was marked by the struggle between rockism, which Kelefa Sanneh defined in the New York Times as “idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star”; and 'poptimism,' which Saul Austerlitz fretted in the Times a decade later, had replaced the exacting standards of rock with the glib worship of artifice. A Star Is Born treats Jackson’s suicide as both a noble act of self-sacrifice and the ultimate validation of his tortured lyrics.
The first time he sings to Ally, he’s foreshadowing his own death alongside the “old ways” he represents, framing the world as “one big old Catherine wheel” of endless torment. In the bluesy duet “Diggin’ My Grave,” he looks forward to a time when “I’ll be gone from here/ and you’ll all be dressed in black,” and in “Too Far Gone,” he proclaims, “I can’t go on if I ain’t livin’ in your arms.” One hopes “I’ll Never Love Again” isn’t true for Ally, as moving as the rendition she sings at Jackson’s postmortem tribute is, but it’s certainly true for him. It doesn’t take much to imagine Jackson Maine’s death casting an ineradicable shadow over his work, the way it has for Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse. Perhaps Jackson was always doomed, and the best Ally could ever have hoped for was to slow his descent. But it’s telling that his final act effectively sets her back on course. After Jackson dies, Ally appears at a concert in his honor. Having dropped her surname to go pop, she takes his on for the first time, introducing herself, “I’m Ally Maine.” She’s a star, but the song is his. Source: slate.com
Brady Corbet's latest film Vox Lux, which had its North American premiere at TIFF 2018 and boasts original music by Sia, is almost definitely going to be overshadowed by Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born, even though the two have almost nothing in common. While the crowd-pleasing A Star Is Born is about a pop star who deals with fame and addiction, Vox Lux has a pop star, and fame, and addiction, but focuses instead on political and philosophical questions about what we're doing to ourselves as a culture. Vox Lux was a true surprise – an almost antidote to A Star Is Born. Just as Corbet really goes for it as a director, showing zero fear of haters, Portman gives a big, loud, unrelenting performance as the adult Celeste that's bold in all the right ways, while teetering on a bit too much. She captures the confidence of a woman who takes for granted that she's always the most talented, interesting, powerful person in the room, but isn't unusually smart or empathetic. During one of her very best scenes, Portman's Celeste answers questions from reporters about why international terrorists have started wearing masks from one of her videos, and we can tell that she both believes and doesn't believe what she's saying; that she's impatient with the questions, but feels a professional responsibility to be polite; that she's trying to hit the talking points her managers gave her, but she really doesn't care and wants the whole thing to be over. Source: www.popmatters.com
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