Blaine: “A Star is Born” has been redone four times in the history of cinema. The first one was in 1937, then another version was made seventeen years later starring Judy Garland. Then there was a 1976 version with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. And finally, there’s the 2018 version.
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
A famous rockstar, Jack, meets a talented young lady, Ally, who can sing, but doesn’t put her musical abilities to any use, except in a drag bar. Jack helps Ally get a career in music by having her join his band and sing songs with him up on stage.
Blaine: While Bradley Cooper was working his way up to the film business, as an actor, he would sometimes have ideas going on his head of how he would see the movie he was apart of. Clint Eastwood was supposed to direct “A Star is Born” back in 2011, but the project was put on hold after he dropped out. While Clint was working on “American Sniper”, he told Bradley Cooper about “A Star is Born”. Bradley decided to take a look at it himself. “A Star is Born” sounded like the type of romance Bradley would make as a director. Bradley always knew he would want a romance to be the first movie he directed. A lot of the inspiration for wanting to become a director for Bradley came from directors he had worked with like David O. Russell, Clint Eastwood and Todd Phillips. Bradley wanted to try out directing, but he kept holding himself back. Bradley realized he was now 40 and told himself to quit holding back and just do it. Bradley participated in this cancer fundraiser and Lady Gaga was on stage singing the song, “La Vien Rose.”
Bradley wanted to meet with Lady Gaga after that and she invited him to have pasta at her house. While they were eating, Bradley suggested they sing together, so Lady Gaga printed off a song called “Midnight Special” and she was nervous to be singing it with Bradley at first. While they were singing, Lady Gaga was really amazed with Bradley because he sung so beautiful. She never knew he could sing. Bradley recorded the moment with his phone and the both of them were just having a great time. Bradley felt positive about directing “A Star is Born” after spending some time with Lady Gaga. Bradley told Lady Gaga about it after they were done singing together and this was an offer she had been long awaited for. Before she had a dream of being a singer, Lady Gaga wanted to be an actress. A lot of people didn’t believe in Lady Gaga, that she could be an actress, but Bradley did and she was very grateful to him for offering her a job in acting.
Lady Gaga saw a bit of herself in the character she was going to be playing, Ally. When Lady Gaga was in high school she thought she was ugly and her escape from all that pain was singing, writing songs and acting and Ally is someone who doesn’t think she is good looking and loves to create her own songs too. The only difference between Lady Gaga and Ally is that Ally gives up on herself and is depressed. Lady Gaga fought hard to become a singer and believed in herself along the way. Jack pushes Ally to become a singer because he likes her very much and knows her talent shouldn’t go to waste. Jack inspires Ally to sing on stage. Lady Gaga devoted herself to “A Star is Born”. Lady Gaga had some music tours coming up, but managed to make time for the movie. Lady Gaga wrote a lot of songs for “A Star is Born” and Bradley wrote a few songs himself while they were rehearsing. Lady Gaga was so impressed with Bradley on how he was doing so much for this project, directing, acting, singing and wanting to learn so much about the music industry. She was also amazed on how Bradley wasn’t worn out from all the work he was doing. He devoted himself to this project just as much as she did. Bradley Cooper wasn’t nervous directing his first movie and Lady Gaga wasn’t nervous acting in her first leading role because they were a team and they supported each other.
Lady Gaga has been apart of the music business for a decade and through her performance as Ally, she makes it look like it’s all new to her. There’s a scene where Ally is singing one of the songs she wrote in front of an audience for the first time. The song is called “Always Remember Us This Way” and for Lady Gaga it felt like she really was performing a song she wrote for the first time. They did a few takes of that scene and the last one, Bradley Cooper told Lady Gaga to have fun. Lady Gaga suggested to Bradley that they sing the songs live in the film instead of lip singing and Bradley decided to go with it because one of the things he learned from the directors he worked with was that they were open to suggestions. Plus Lady Gaga was his partner on this project and it was important that they work as a team. So they sung a lot of the songs in the movie live and every time Lady Gaga sang, everyone on set forgot they were making a movie because they were more focussed on her singing.
Bradley was nervous to be singing live, but Lady Gaga hooked him up with her vocal coach. Singing live was harder than Bradley thought it was going to be with singing in front of 20,000 people and using a lot of air in his lungs. Lady Gaga would look at Bradley as if he were a real rockstar because he was doing a lot for this part. Bradley’s thanks go to Lady Gaga for helping him become a musician. Lady Gaga also thought of Bradley as a great leader because he was the director and the director is in charge of everything that goes on when making a movie. At the beginning of the movie, Jack is singing on stage in front of thousands and it only took 8 minutes to shoot that scene because in real life Bradley was opening for Jamie Johnson and Willie Nelson. Bradley wanted the song “La Vien Rose” in “A Star is Born” because Lady Gaga sung it so professionally when he first had her in mind for the film. She spent a lot of time learning the lyrics for “La Vien Rose” before “A Star is Born” came her way. Lady Gaga had to sing “La Vien Rose” more like a show act because Ally sings the song at a drag bar and Lady Gaga had sung it before at special events in front of thousands.
Another thing that was interesting for Lady Gaga was that she was going to be showing her face without hiding behind makeup. She does have makeup on her face half of the time, but not too much. She wore some makeup to the set one day and Bradley wiped it off because makeup was forbidden. Ally wears these fake eyebrows when she performs “La Vien Rose” and Jack and Ally make a joke about those eyebrows. Ally starts off her career singing on stage with Jack, then she becomes a pop star as her fame rises. I was seeing a lot of Lady Gaga in Ally after she became a pop star, but not too much. Ally wears these skin tight outfits and dances like Lady Gaga. I see Lady Gaga, but I feel Ally. Bradley wanted the romance in “A Star is Born" to be believable. The romance between Jack and Ally is very strong. You see the characters argue with each other from time to time, then they kiss and make up for it and then you see how madly in love they are with each other. There’s an OMG moment when Jack proposes to Ally with a ring he made out of a guitar string and they plan the marriage in just a day. They know they love each other very deeply and they have spent so much time together, so there’s no question why they would get married so fast.
Jack is an alcoholic, but he manages to quit drinking, but then he starts drinking again. Then he goes into rehab to get sober after making himself look like a fool at the Grammys. It was very hard for me to watch that Grammy scene because Ally is giving her acceptance speech and Jack is humiliating her because he is drunk. Jack feels terrible for what he did at the Grammys, bursts into tears as he apologizes to Ally when she visits him. Ally accepts his apology.
Bradley Cooper had Sam Elliot in mind for Jack’s older brother by twenty years, Bobby. Bradley invited Sam over to his house for a meal and during their conversation, Bradley played a recording he did of his own voice making it sound like Sam’s. Sam was amazed because it sounded like him. Bradley told Sam he was going to direct a new version of “A Star is Born”, that he wanted Sam to play the older brother and if they’re going to be brothers in the film then they have to sound like brothers, which is why Bradley was making his voice sound like Sam’s. Sam said yes to the project immediately because it sounded terrific. Bobby knows Jack more than anyone because he raised Jack after their mother passed and he has been looking after him all his life. What I loved most about Sam’s performance was the two scenes where he shows a lot of tears in the eyes.
Things don’t go so great for Jack in the end, just when you think things were going to get better for him. Jack was straightening up his life, until Ally’s manager visited him and tells Jack that his and Ally’s marriage won’t last after what he did at the Grammys. That gets to Jack and he hangs himself to death in the garage because of that. Ally is in terrible pain for her loss. I blame that manager.
Jack wrote a song for Ally called “I’ll Never Love Again”, before he took his life and she sings it in the end to honor his memory. Ally goes to the front of the stage with the audience facing her and I liked how that was framed with a wide angle and the spotlight hitting Lady Gaga. While Lady Gaga is singing, the camera is moving around from her left side. The camera focusses on Lady Gaga from the left side, then the camera comes in and does a little close up on the Lady Gaga’s face from the left side, then moves to her back side a bit and then it’ll just repeat itself and wander around Lady Gaga’s left side. That was a long take, of course it would cut to two pieces of footage of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper together. Lady Gaga sung “I’ll Never Love Again” with a lot of emotion because her character, Ally is weeping a bit while singing. Ally misses her husband so much and he was everything to her just as much as she was to him and that’s what the song represents. There was never a man who was as kind to Ally as Jack was and he was her first and only love. Also because of Jack, Ally was able to achieve a career in music. Lady Gaga also made her voice sound like it had a lot of power as she was singing. “I’ll Never Love Again” ends by cutting to Jack, while he was still alive, singing to Ally and finishing the last lyrics of the song. This was Bradley Cooper’s first movie as a director and he did a terrific job in making it something you could really get sucked into and he was lucky to have Lady Gaga on his side to support him.
My rating on “A Star is Born” is five out of five stars.
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga at the Venice Film Festival
