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Lady Gaga's career informs a character capable of adapting to her time, unlike her counterpart
"Look," Jackson (Bradley Cooper), a graying rocker, confided to unknown singer Ally (Lady Gaga) in the first minutes of A star is born. "Talent happens everywhere, but there is something to say and a way to say it so that people listen to it – it's all a bag." In the orange glow of a dive bar and between two flirts, Jackson prompts Ally to perform her own songs and never apologizes for the message she wants to convey.
"You do not worry about why they listen or how long they will listen," he advises in his beaten dog sled. "Just tell them what you mean." Ally becomes a star with the help of Jackson, of course, and eventually wins a coveted spot on stage. Saturday Night Live.
In a dark corner of the 30 Rock studio, Jackson watches Ally perform "Why Did You Do That?", A skinny electro-pop single that contains a lot of xylophone, as well as the phrase "Why did you come with me? "Jackson recoils, watching with horror the emotional composer that he pulled out of the dark – the one he urged to immerse himself in songwriting, which broke with the ballad inflamed power "Shallow" with him at his side – roundabouts through the choreography and synchronizes his hook on national television.The implication is clear to A star is bornAudience: Jackson interprets the SNL performance as a bastard of Ally's talent, and he turns away, unable to bear a second without a soul.
But … Ally looks pleased with the performance. And "Why did you do that?" Worth applause from the studio audience. Ally may be playing pop music with a plastic sheen, but she is hugely successful in doing so: she has a contract with a record, a savvy manager, tour dates and billboards bearing her name. As the classic story goes, Ally continues to become a strong and confident star while Jackson is increasingly using drugs and alcohol to fall asleep in his professional gear; he accuses his partner of becoming artistically inauthentic while his own career turns sour.
The remake led by Cooper A star is born, released last Friday (October 5), could easily have been rockist … or at least anti-pop-imitation. There is a world in which the film explicitly defends one type of musical performance over another and turns its history of authenticity into an anti-bubblegum. the SNL The performance could have been as disheartening for Ally as it was for Jackson, and she could have followed the advice of the country-rock guitarist hero who will later remind her that she has something to say, damn it, and that it's all right. she should say it without a drum machine! From there, Ally abandons the general public, Jackson helps her find her balance as a songwriter, she is gaining momentum with her "real" voice and the rules of rock & n 'n & nbsp; Roll the day. It would have made a film more orderly and worse.
In reality, the ideological debate of A star is born There is no winner. This is neither pro-pop nor anti-pop, but a world in which pop music becomes a cleavage between its two protagonists; The dramatic tension degrades the opposing viewpoints of his main characters – Jackson's traditionalism versus Ally's modernism – ultimately complicates and strengthens the film. We can think that "Why Did You Do That?" Is a clumsy and unapologetic single, and sympathize with Jackson when he is upset to see Ally perform a song designed to sound anonymous. But we can also feel the warmth of Ally's smile as she finishes the song on a triumphal note, and think that Jackson is out of line as he will later mock Ally's career. When Jackson makes fun of Ally's words as she hovers in the bathtub, Ally defends her pop-making as "my song," giving up hope that she lets it go. Jackson has nothing to fight his challenge, so he makes fun of his wife, "You're just fucking naughty."
"Why did you do that?" Is presented as a radical change from the traditional writing of an undiscovered ally, as evidenced by "Shallow" and other cuts prior to the superstard , such as "Always remember us this way" and "Look what I found. "The BPM changes when it hires a British manager named Rez, slips too much and reserves the SNL step. But his career – and, by extension, pop music as a whole – is never described as unsatisfactory in the second half of the year. A star is born. Ally begins to expect a career in the mainstream, but she soon embraces her red hair and supportive dancers and evokes sheer joy when her character is informed during a photo shoot in a magazine that she was nominated for several Grammys. Are we A star is bornThe audience, supposed to think less about the character of Gaga because she opted for a synthesizer instead of a six-string, to get them?
A star is born follows the general narrative arc of her previous editions, but with Lady Gaga as the lead actress, the movie makes a sneaky wink at her own career of metamorphosis. From her beginnings in the Fame dance-pop style to Springsteen's appearances of Born This Way in Joanne's country-rock twang, Gaga has always been able to bend pop music to her will, often incorporating unorthodox artistic ideas into the general public (see Cheek to cheek, his duet album with Tony Bennett who made his debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200). Some Gaga epochs were more successful than others, but the constants were his talent and his artistic agency; she can do something completely unique and mass-marketed without compromising her vision. The role of Gaga in A star is born and his soundtrack is simply his last transformation, both consecrated and friendly, but fiercely by his own creation.
"During the celebrity and The monster of glory I've been constantly questioned and asked questions, "Gaga said in a 2011 interview about her. Born like this album. "Like, 'Is it the real you?' And I never knew what to say, I never knew how to answer." The quote again recalls the bathtub scene, where Jackson, out of ignorance, challenges Ally to give up the artifice and behave like the "real one".
There are moments in A star is born in which the audience wonders if Ally can change the sounds without sacrificing its authenticity. Having first resisted the dancers of reinforcement, can she ever fully accept the role of pop popular idol? However, like Gaga, Ally is able to refract his talent through the norms of pop music; she shapes her gift to succeed and never expresses regret or unhappiness in changing her approach. Jackson, on the other hand, can not understand such a change, which makes him frustrated by Ally, as well as by his own professional stagnation.
The conflict that installs the tragedy of A star is born It's not between pop and rock, but between an artist who can adapt to his time and another who bristles at the idea of doing it. In the tragic story of love, there is an examination of artistic integrity, which eventually brings us back to Jackson's original hint to Ally: "What you mean. He was just not ready for this vision to be pop.
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