Saturday, October 31 2009

SINCE his death in June, the image we’ve had in our minds of Michael Jackson is of a man overwhelmed by drugs, with a frail body enduring a rapid and undignified decline; reeling in the after effects of plastic surgery. Jackson’s personal life, soft voice, bizarre behaviour, as well as the reported details of the state of his corpse, did not help. We heard of the phantom needle marks all over the King of Pop’s body, black marks on his legs, his peach fuzz of hair which he constantly covered with wigs, the state of his skin and his nose, claims that he penciled in his eyebrows and lips.

But, This is It brings to the forefront another story. The film is based on rehearsal footage for a planned series of concerts (called This is It) which was to be held at The O2 arena in London. The series was scheduled to begin in July 2009 and continue through March 2010. But less than three weeks before the first show was due to begin, and with all concerts being sold out, Jackson died after suffering cardiac arrest in the wake of a drug overdose.

This Is It is a compilation of interviews, rehearsals and backstage footage of Jackson and his crew as he prepared for his series of sold-out shows in London.

The film, directed by Jackson’s long-time collaborator Kenny Ortega, is actually a touching and, ultimately, tremendously entertaining documentary featuring candid footage which, more than anything in recent years, reminds us of the genius of the most important pop icon of the century. If you thought Jackson would not have been able to endure a 50-stint concert series, this makes you think again.

We see a side of Jackson that has rarely seen as he hones his craft and painstakingly works with those around him to get their collective output to the standard that he required. The film is in fact a long (it runs for about two hours), competently edited music video in which Jackson performs his classic hits one after the other. It works as a classic piece of entertainment, because it simply focuses on the music, trusting in the fact that Jackson and his work was genius. If you are searching for the closest substitute you could have gotten for the O2 tour, then this is it.

Here was an artiste who was in form, whatever the state of his personal life and his physical health. Although this was just rehearsal, Jackson’s voice sounds perfect; he renders “Human Nature” with a kind of alien, effortless grace that brings goose-bumps. Even at the 8.30pm showing of the film at MovieTowne, Port-of-Spain, on Wednesday, members of the packed audience broke out in applause almost after every song.

We come away feeling like we got a better glimpse of the man’s talent. For instance, during sound checks he stops to correct a single wrong note in the band, saying wryly: “That’s why we have rehearsal.”

He warns a guitarist at one stage to “funk it up a bit”. For a complicated sequence in which he has to give a cue with a giant video screen behind him, he tells the directors he will have “to feel” the image when it rises. At one stage, he implores the band to let a pause “simmer” for a bit before resuming in order to achieve the full effect.

This was a man, then, who in his last days remained utterly attuned to his craft. His music was so integral to who he was that we feel that seeing him on stage was seeing him entirely, even though questions over his private life remain.

Going into the film, many voiced concerns over whether or not the film simply represents commercial exploitation; another chance to make money off of Jackson’s tragic death. The film will make money and is designed to make money. But it is redeemed because it serves as a fitting tribute (which is perhaps not final) to genius. Perhaps the approach, in showing this pure footage complete with only glowing personal tributes from Jackson’s crew, is correct. For only through the very things that may have contributed to his decline, could Jackson have lived and sustained his peculiar art. And it is his art that lives.

But what, ultimately, we come away with is an even deeper sense of tragedy; a sense that we were robbed of something great. Jackson may have stepped off the concert stage decades ago, but in this film, it is as though he never left.