October 29, 2009
I was hoping that this would explain the mystery of why Jackson's fans continue to adore him, and especially why he continues to be an inspiration to black people. Was he really such an incredibly brilliant performer and/or wonderful human being that you can overlook the controversies surrounding his personal life and his apparent loathing for his own appearance as a black man? On the evidence of this film - no.
The concerts that never were contained only super-expensively produced versions of his old hits, featuring the same choreography. His voice is whiny and weak. There is a certain macabre fascination in watching him rehearse and perform his own brilliant dance moves surrounded by a posse of top young professional dancers. They are the essence of bounding health and vitality, while Jackson is skeletally emaciated. When he's not performing he walks like an old person with arthritis; when he is he is often super-fluid and perfectly controlled, breathtaking, but equally often giving way to uncoordinated jerky spasms.
One sequence cruelly intercuts these episodes with historic footage of little Michael with the Jackson Five. For me it totally exposes the question, how could anyone celebrate a man doing this to himself? This clearly doesn't bother his fans, who have eagerly swallowed every astounding claim produced by the Jackson company, and clearly also Kenny Ortega genuinely respects and loves his weird subject, and wants to produce a tribute to his work. Inadvertently he shows us someone whose creative years are behind him, who sees himself as a victim even when surrounded by sycophantic employees, who sees no inconsistency between worrying about the damage humans cause to the planet and his own extravagant excesses. And I'm afraid the camera just lingered too long on this car-crash - it is after a while quite dull. One for the fans.
The concerts that never were contained only super-expensively produced versions of his old hits, featuring the same choreography. His voice is whiny and weak. There is a certain macabre fascination in watching him rehearse and perform his own brilliant dance moves surrounded by a posse of top young professional dancers. They are the essence of bounding health and vitality, while Jackson is skeletally emaciated. When he's not performing he walks like an old person with arthritis; when he is he is often super-fluid and perfectly controlled, breathtaking, but equally often giving way to uncoordinated jerky spasms.
One sequence cruelly intercuts these episodes with historic footage of little Michael with the Jackson Five. For me it totally exposes the question, how could anyone celebrate a man doing this to himself? This clearly doesn't bother his fans, who have eagerly swallowed every astounding claim produced by the Jackson company, and clearly also Kenny Ortega genuinely respects and loves his weird subject, and wants to produce a tribute to his work. Inadvertently he shows us someone whose creative years are behind him, who sees himself as a victim even when surrounded by sycophantic employees, who sees no inconsistency between worrying about the damage humans cause to the planet and his own extravagant excesses. And I'm afraid the camera just lingered too long on this car-crash - it is after a while quite dull. One for the fans.