“A Star Is Born (1976)” Deserves Your Attention
Here’s why (and yes, there will be spoilers — both 1976 and 2018).
There is Oscar buzz about the 2018 remake of “A Star is Born” already, and friends are posting adoringly about it on social media. “So inspiring!,” they say.
Agreed, Bradley Cooper’s achievements here are not trivial: directorial debut; magnetic leading man performance; newly-acquired musical skills effectively displayed. Lady Gaga’s singing made me gaga over her voice, where previously I had always ignorantly dismissed her as a Madonna knock-off.
But the film as a whole, though engaging, fell flat for me. I cried at the end — what monster wouldn’t? Then I drove home in a hurry, determined to watch the 1976 version again. (I’ve seen it at least four times before, the first when I was about 16.)
Two fresh viewings later, I must tell you why you just gotta see the Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson entry in the ASIB lineage.
Admittedly, an appropriate subtitle to this version might have been “brought to you by Schlitz beer.” If blatant product placement annoys you, try turning it into a drinking game. Don’t do it by the can, though, or the candlelit bathtub scene will have you lit before you’re even halfway through the film.
My 16-year-old self would have gone for the “every Schlitz you see” version of the game. She would also have emphasized her loyalty to Streisand and Kristofferson by telling you the 2018 film “SUCKS!!!” without even having seen it.
Now three times older and at least that much wiser, I no longer immaturely worship the 1976 version just because I saw it first. Nor because it was shot mainly in my home state of Arizona, features horses in multiple scenes, and has the stunningly sexy Kris Kristofferson — one of my favorite country stars — in the role of the falling star. (Bradley Cooper’s shaggy-haired and bearded Jackson Maine character pays gorgeous homage to Kristofferson.)
I still love all that about the film, but I can also tell you Barbra Streisand is both a singing and acting powerhouse. Lady Gaga impresses vocally when given the right song, but her occasionally-captivating acting debut is merely competent overall. Though the older film can be melodramatic, the actors, the story, and the best of the music (“Evergreen,” anyone?) make it all worthwhile.
It’s simply a much better love story.
It’s more tightly written, thanks to a screenwriting team that included the venerable Joan Didion.
It has a stronger female character. Streisand’s Esther Hoffman is a woman who reliably sticks up for herself and who has a real singing career in progress before the male lead appears. (Esther’s song “Woman in the Moon” is a paean to the women’s lib era of the 1970s that’s all the more relevant today, when the promises of that era have gone unfulfilled for another 40-plus years.)
And it features a kinder, more supportive leading man. Kristofferson’s John Norman Howard comes along to “discover” Esther and lift her from obscurity as the movie’s title has prophesied, without the cognitive dissonance of Cooper’s Jackson — despite having similar substance issues and a career that’s far more wrecked.
Let’s face it: these movies are about an addict and a codependent in a doomed relationship that starts off with the glaring red flags of such entanglements. But it’s easier to understand how John wins Esther’s heart and why she remains loyal to him, than to fathom Ally’s permanent attachment to Jackson (even as both leading men engage in conspicuous nose-touching behavior designed to show they adore their lady’s prominent schnozz).
Esther meets John when he is interrupting her singing gig in a bar, then rescues him from a fight his fans cause. The next day, John personally takes her to his stadium concert, flying in with her on a helicopter (unlike Jackson… who just sends for Ally… who then arrives chaperoned by a friend after spontaneously quitting her crappy job).
John sings a real, full-length song directly to Esther — one we’ve heard already (in contrast to the new film, wherein all the songs feel like half of one and come out of nowhere). Esther is both dazzled and discomfited to be courted in front of 50,000 people. When John tries to pull her to the microphone with him, she runs offstage (none of this “trust me” crap). He wants her so genuinely that he follows her, briefly leaving an angry audience behind. She appears alternately delighted and dismayed by his charming yet reckless behavior.
John does not push Esther to sing for his audience at this concert, even though she is already a performer. Jackson shows no such restraint, crazily thrusting the untested Ally into the spotlight at his stadium show. They then proceed to perform Ally’s song, which Jackson has somehow arranged and expanded from the tiniest of hints the night before, and they miraculously improv his version without missing a beat. This is ludicrous. When John and Esther work together on songs, and when he does finally goad her into performing, the film leads up to and pulls off these scenes in a believable way.
Ultimately, Esther is better rewarded for falling in love with John Norman Howard than Ally is for getting herself mixed up with Jackson Maine.
It’s not just the romantic months they spend together building a dream house in wide open southern Arizona. More importantly, John never puts Esther down. He never smears cake on her face in public when he’s jealous of her musical success. Or stoops lower than low, drunkenly calling her “ugly.” Such Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior is a hallmark of the kind of narcissism that addiction produces, but John doesn’t display it. He actually cleans up his act (in the addiction sense) for a long time, thanks to Esther’s presence. A series of humiliations drive him back to coke and booze, though, and he drunkenly gets into bed with a music writer. This is a betrayal, certainly; but is it worse than the way Jackson chips away at Ally’s confidence by criticizing her music?
When the movies reach their tragic conclusion, Esther has to lose John just as Ally has to lose Jackson, but at least John’s death can be perceived as accidental. Esther is not left guiltily fearing that she drove her beloved to suicide.
Now, what makes no sense about the ending, in any of the ASIB movies (only half of which I’ve actually seen), is the idea that the falling star’s death is supposed to clear the last obstacle to the rising star’s ascension.
Uh, what now?
The female lead is always fatalistically attached to the mentor-lover leading man.
Hence his death is far more likely to shatter her tenuous confidence and send her into her own downward spiral of tragically lost potential, than to propel her to even greater glory in tribute to his memory. Since ASIB ignores this reality, we are left only to evaluate which version does the most justice to the faulty ending premise.
The 2018 conclusion flashes backward from Ally’s performance on stage of a new song written by Jackson, to the two of them working at home to craft it. This resolves where the hell the song came from, but it also detracts from Ally’s moment.
The 1976 film lets the star actually be born, rising from the ashes of her brilliantly-portrayed devastation, right there on stage. If there is anything inspiring in the oft-told ASIB tale, this is it.
Behold the tears pouring down Streisand’s face as she squeaks “I… want… One More Look At You,” and then whispers her way into belting out “Watch Closely Now” — both John Norman’s songs; one new, one old — and try not to weep.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, or always believable (get a load of the Grammies, held in a venue only slightly nicer than a Holiday Inn banquet room). I’m certainly not claiming it isn’t dated (check out the scene where Streisand appears in a hilariously old-school shorts-and-tube socks ensemble).
All I’m saying is, it deserves your attention. Based on innumerable choices in his remake, I’m sure Bradley Cooper agrees.
