A Star Is Born

There’s a scene in the 2018 remake of Wellman, Carson and Parker’s 1937 film, A STAR IS BORN, in which Ally (Lady Gaga) soulfully belts out a tune she wrote, in front of a Super A grocery, for a disheveled rock star named Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) who finds her in a drag bar, after his concert, while looking for booze.  How the director (also Cooper) gets us there makes far more sense on screen than it might seem to on paper.

Hollywood loves nothing more than to romanticize itself, and coming into the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, I was expecting another TRUMBO or THE ARTIST.  However, the two leads, Cooper and Gaga, create something far more intimate than a love song to a myth.  “Yeah, but stars aren’t scouted or discovered in bars any more,” I say to myself.  Just before I can finish the thought, a British producer named Rez (Rafi Gavron) pops into the picture to take the doe-eyed Ally straight from an onstage duet and into studio sessions, dance rehearsals, and a world tour.

If that makes the pacing of the film seem somewhat warped, it probably is—and not without design.  Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, turned gigging in clubs into a recording career, foretelling  the rise of celebrity-obsessed meta-pop.  If one thing is missing from the setup of A STAR IS BORN it’s how “overnight” successes don’t actually happen overnight—between 2003 and 2007, Gaga attended and dropped out of Tisch, forged a song publishing career (writing songs for Britney Spears, The Pussycat Dolls, among others), recorded and produced music before her big break into the spotlight.  But the film avoids this kind of biopic time-lapse in favor of a more fractured narrative for good reason.

Surrounded by enablers, Maine’s substance abuse spirals his career out of control.  Barely able to slur out a coherent sentence, he suffers from chronic pain and tinnitus—self medicating with prescription narcotics, steroid injections and, his father’s demon, alcohol.  He drinks himself into a blur, performs, passes out, wakes up in a different city.  We see his career unraveling while Ally’s takes off.  His older brother, Bobby (Sam Elliott), tells him to, “Show a little fuckin’ pride in what you’re doing.”

Back home with her crooner-obsessed dad (Andrew Dice Clay in a surprisingly heartfelt performance for the former shock comedian), sporting a Yes t-shirt and trying to make sense of everything happening so quickly, Ally resists the urge to get with a drunk.  Opportunity of this scale almost never knocks twice.  On stage later that night in Arizona, she covers her face in between verses—still in disbelief.

Where the film stumbles a little is toward the end of the second act.  Ally’s known and coped with the fact that her mentor and lover is a drunk.  At first unable to find him immediately following a soured money-grab appearance on a television program honoring Roy Orbison, she tells Jackson she’s not going to keep looking for him when he gets lost.  This too upsets our perception of where we are in the story. After tragedy strikes, we are given as little time as Ally to process it before the show.  While the fragmented narrative serves a purpose, at times it’s difficult to follow.  But Cooper’s and Gaga’s performances transcend everything else going on.

As a director, Cooper has a keen sense of when to strip away all the madness and be in the moment—for better or worse.  There are stretches of silence and long stares when Maine is on the precipice of consciousness, offset by intimate moments happening right before crowds of thousands.  The damaged son of an alcoholic, we know little about who he wanted to be before he “became” Jackson Maine.  I don’t think that’s a detriment because the point is that Jack doesn’t remember, either.

If VOX LUX is a B-side, A STAR IS BORN is the A-side.  Gaga’s life manifests in performance art characters she plays on- and off-stage.  Her third album, ARTPOP, was  criticized by Simon Chandler, Helen Brown, and others, for failing to deliver on its promise of revealing the person behind the curtain.  With its “genre fluidity” (Anne Zaleski, AVClub), Joanne demonstrated her range as a vocalist and musician, yet received largely middling reviews.  But it did hint at her potential legacy—evolving into an artist as skilled as Prince.  A STAR IS BORN cements that legacy.

Confronted earlier with the opportunity to cut her own single, Ally says, “I don’t want to lose the part of me that’s talented.”  Darlin’, you’re just beginning to find it…