Everyday [Re -] Create Your History : ‘This Is It’ Review
If there is one thing This Is It teaches the audience about Michael Joseph Jackson it’s that he knew the power of his catalogue. He understood the impact he had on Pop music. Call it hubris, call it a ‘fame monster,’ but no matter what you call it, by the time the credits roll you too will be unable to deny how much Michael Jackson not only defined, but was popular culture.
This is best illustrated in a scenes where Michael tells the band he wants to hear The Way You Make Me Feel ‘the way I wrote it,’ when he tells the band ‘you gotta let it simmer,’ and as he walks the dancers through the details of the choreography even in numbers he himself does not partake. He was a perfectionist because he knew what each song, each performance meant in the scheme of popular music.
Understanding the impact and importance of his catalogue, Jackson never once bends to sensationalism and controversy to get attention for his would-be show. There are no sequences with him hanging from a cross, images of John McCain and Hitler, ridiculous bagpipes, or unneeded guest spots by younger artists, just the classics as we knew them with a few extras to give them some more kick live.
The visuals for This Is It may have re-treaded some standard Hollywood tropes – Gilda, the New York City skyline with 1920s construction crews, and a rainforest, but those classic images also fit with Jackson’s music which has turned out one classic after another.
The real question surrounding This Is It however, was how did Michael, who was apparently on a cocktail of different drugs at the time look? Underneath the layers of Balmain, Versace, Christian Audigier, and Raybans you can still make out the shape of a rail thin, frail body that despite its many transformations and weak appearance, was still home to the same genius that first brought the precocious little boy to the public’s attention way back in 1969. There were no visible or subtextual signs that Michael was incoherent, weak, or strung out at all. In fact, despite his weak frame, Jackson was able to keep in perfect sync with dancers half his age without ever missing a beat.
All the signs of This Is It point to what would have been an incredible show. No, it’s not worthy of every conceivable award as Dame Elizabeth stated, but Taylor was correct in stating “Michael knew how to put together every tone, every nuance to make magic.”
In the end the film highlights the dual tragedy that many of us will never get the chance to see Michael Jackson perform live and that Michael himself was never truly afforded the opportunity to reassert his greatness to the masses in his lifetime.
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