I was genuinely scared this film would disappoint. Yes, Michael doesn't dance or sing full out, but he never has in previous rehearsals for other tours. I knew This Is It couldn't be a return to the glory days of Bad or Dangerous, to expect that would be to expect too much - even from Michael. But I didn't anticipate what I saw either. The film is an emotional journey through Michael's past, and ours - and it moved me. From fear, to exultation, to laughter, and finally - inevitably to a grief I have felt since June 25th. The reality that Michael was no cheap addict trying to get high, but a sensitive man with serious physical burdens and a wounded psyche who was unable to sleep, is not one you'll see promoted in the press - but it is the truth. Personally, I consider myself privileged to have seen the inner workings of a Master - albeit a damaged one. The film is, of course, commercially viable, but it is also a labour of love with an abundance of heart. You can see the crew and the dancers - and Kenny Ortega especially, willing Michael to reclaim the crown he once wore with surety. Did they have their doubts? Did we? Certainly, the fact that Michael's re-crowning came via the road-we-will-all-travel-at-some-point, makes these questions more poignant than they were when Michael first announced his tour all those months ago. The Michael we encounter in the film, obviously scarred, obviously older, is no less fascinating than he was at the peak of his career. His charisma on the big screen - the kind that eludes the mulititude of young and restless who assay our cinemas these days - still there. Scorcese called Michael's persona 'shamanistic,' Spielberg called him ‘an emotional star child, Mark Romanek (director of Scream) recalls him as 'metaphysical, Anjelica Houston- 'a meteor.' Whatever the word used, all of these highly creative individuals were each in their own way trying to convey the sense of wonderment they felt in Michaels prescence. You can hear it in his music. Its seeded in every note, in the dynamics and harmonics of the songs he sang. If you listen and look, you can feel it in his entire body of work. And his voice, my God - that voice. That soft yet hard, delicate yet bullet-bright force of power and beauty Michael could produce at will. Once heard, it crept inside you, beat a path to the fortress of your innermost being, before offering – everything. It was deceptive, Michael sang disco songs when he came out and it was therefore easy to see him as ‘just' that; but inside those songs (whether they were his or how he interpreted them) were the stamp of his essence. It elevated the merely kinetic to the kaleidoscopic, music into magic and a thousand songs into the substance of the soul. Some say Michael should be thought of as nothing more than an 80s artefact, a relic of the bad, brash, primary-coloured, Lucas filmed, pre-9/11 times when we thought the whole world loved America, and people adored their stars like the old movie idols from back in the day. Maybe. But what they fail to realize is this; every kid I know is discovering Star Wars for the first time. The Sistine Chapel is no less beautiful now than it was when its painter first stepped down and exhaled. True art is immortal and it lives forever. Michael often quoted Michelangelo – who said: ‘I will bind my soul to my work. This is what Michael Jackson did. He put all that young idealism, that thirst for freedom, that yearning to ‘move' and be moved, his desire to be the best, his love and joy, his rage, his pain, his sorrow, his confusion and his loss – into his work. When all the lies and the untruths have faded with time, and those predators who even now pick at his memory like vultures to the bone have finished their feasting – Michael's work will remain.
In the years to come, perhaps reasons will emerge from the rubble as to why a supernovic talent with a history of unparalleled giving and a persona of complex innocence was systematically and wilfully humiliated, tortured and stripped of his dignity and spirit for a period of over 15 years on the basis of astonishingly non-credible accusations – and more importantly why this was actively encouraged. What we are left with is youtube, the testimonials of friends, Dvds, and amidst the music - the echoes of an exceptional human being's epic, embattled life here. In the end, how people feel about This Is will pretty much come down to how they feel about Michael Jackson. So see it, don't see it, hate it, love it, whatever - it's your choice. Just don't blame Michael for not being who and what he used to be. That shame rests with Tom Sneddon, Diane Dimond, Evan Chandler, Janet Arviso, and the - mostly, American media. What was done to this beautiful artist and human being must never be forgotten.
Go see it and pay your respects, and ignore those who talk about how tedious they find the concept of the film - I have seen it, and it is beautiful.
