Lady Gaga was magnificent in A Star Is Born
Lady Gaga turned in a transformative appearance in A Star Is Born, the classic Hollywood love story between a man on his way down and a younger female star on her way up.
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I hope you had a nice weekend. Like always, I’m Jeff in Chicago; the producer of the program is JR in Dallas. You never know where JR is going to be, but he’s in Dallas these days. I haven’t ever really done a movie review yet, so let me give you a little warning. No spoilers exactly. I will talk about the overall plot, the sort of thing you might get in a trailer, but I won’t give you any spoilers: I won’t give away any crucial details of the movie, like the part when—. Just kidding. No details. I’ll drop a few hints, so if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about, but if you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it for you. So here we go.
Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper impress in ‘A Star Is Born’
You know Hollywood loves remakes, and there are some stories it can’t help but remake over and over. “A Star is Born” is one of those stories. The first version came out in 1937 and starred Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. The 1954 version starred singer Judy Garland; in 1976 it was Barbra Streisand’s turn to play the aspiring star. And now in 2018, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper played the protagonists.
The details have varied over the years, but the story arc is the same: an established male star past his peak finds and cultivates an up-and-coming female talent, only to see his own fame and stardom eclipsed by girl he promoted. This being Hollywood, the two always fall in love.
In 2018, director Bradley Cooper also stars as the popular country music singer Jackson Maine. The film opens with him on stage, obviously drunk, playing before a huge and adoring crowd. He polishes off a bottle of liquor in the car after the show and goes into a drag bar in West Hollywood, just looking for a place to drink some more. While he’s there, he sees Ally perform “La Vie en Rose” in perfect French. Struck by her performance, he invites her out to a late night bar, and the two quickly become attached.
Ally, played by Lady Gaga, is a waitress who occasionally performs at the bar. She had dreams of stardom, but everyone always told her that although she had a beautiful voice, her nose was too big. Jackson Maine gradually pushes her forward to stardom, inviting her on the stage with him, and giving her the confidence to step out on her own.
Jackson Maine is what you would call a flawed hero. He’s got a great voice and inspires millions of fans. But he drinks too much, passes out in public, gets in bar fights, and, when the alcohol isn’t enough, he supplements it with pills. But he is the first man to treat Ally like a star in her own right; the first man to believe in her and her talents.
Lady Gaga turned in a transformative performance as Ally. She had been known for her provocative lyrics and visual experimentation: she once attended the MTV Video Music Awards in a dress made of raw meat. But she emerged as a thoughtful, emotionally deep actress. As Ally, she supports Jackson as he crashes from one personal crisis to another; she fights out of her father’s shadow in her own house; she takes tentative steps toward stardom; and, when she’s captured the hearts of her fans, she deals with the demands of a sleazy manager. Her performance is the kind of thing American audiences love: a relatable, down-to-earth character, the kind of person you meet every day, finally hitting it big in the music industry.
Bradley Cooper also played his part well. Through his troubled eyes and graying beard, he showed the heavy emotional burdens he carried from a difficult childhood through a turbulent run as a music star. He showed glimpses of his true self when he was with Ally, only to put up his celebrity façade or fade into intoxication when things turned bad.
The film had a few flaws. The scene at the Grammy’s was too much. It attempted to show the depths to which Jackson had fallen and the damage his fall was doing to Ally’s career, but the actual events it showed were too unrealistic. It’s too bad, because the scene at the Grammy’s wasn’t even necessary to develop that overall point. The secondary plotline between Jackson and his brother had both too much and too little detail: some details, like everything about the father’s farm, seemed to add nothing to the storyline; then the issue of his hearing, which could have illustrated more about Jackson’s character, was a point that was left only half-made.
But these are minor quibbles. The film delivers raw, heartbreaking emotion; we see a brilliant side of Lady Gaga that the world has never seen before; and both she and Bradley Cooper surprised me with the quality of their voices. Bradley Cooper sang all his own parts in the film, and he has a great voice.
I did not know—listen to this—I did not know until after the movie was over, that Ally was played by Lady Gaga. I was in shock. I was like, that was Lady Gaga? Really? Just based on the topics I pick, you all might have been able to guess that I’m not really into celebrities and things like that. I don’t remember actors’ names and I don’t watch awards shows, so the world of Hollywood celebrities is a little foreign to me. I thought, gosh that actress has a great voice and I’ve never seen her in anything before. It’s Lady Gaga. I had no idea.
My favorite time of the program, where I say hi to some listeners. Maria is from Mexico, but is a musician and music teacher in Italy. She listens to Plain English as she cooks both Italian and Mexican food. I just love that. I can close my eyes and imagine an Italian kitchen, with the aroma of two of my favorite kinds of food in the air, Italian and Mexican, and the mellifluous sounds of Plain English on the radio. I love it.
Also hello and thank you to Luis and his wife Victoria in Guatemala City, Gabriel from Sao Paulo, Rodrigo from Sao Paolo, Andreina from the Dominican Republic, Adam from Hungary (living in Denmark now), and Ronaldo from Novo Hamburgo in Brazil. Thanks to all of you for listening and sending us notes this week. If you’d like to be in touch, maybe let me know if you agree with my assessment of A Star Is Born, send me a note to [email protected]. Did you also think that scene at the Grammy’s was too much? I’m curious.
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