Dissecting a Scene from A Star Is Born

The pivotal moment in Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” happens in a grocery store parking lot where his country rock star Jackson Maine and Lady Gaga’s aspirant pop star Ally are talking after hours. If she has not chased him away, she still hasn’t let him in, but then she does when she begins composing a song freeform, harkening back to the moment in the cop bar just before that has led us here when she tells him she doesn’t sing her own songs. She doesn’t sing them not because she doesn’t think they’re good, necessarily, but because she’s afraid of being seen, literally or otherwise. But by singing to him here, now, she’s letting him, and him only, see her, the true her, which he picks up on, perking up, in his own hangdog way, listening.

If Cooper prefers keeping his camera in his actors faces for most of the movie, here the camera is deliberately just behind them, cooling its heels just over their shoulders, as if we are eavesdropping on this private moment. That privacy is underscored by the natural sound design, which is just Gaga singing and the wind blowing, the latter of which the below screenshot almost imperceptibly picks up.

The song she’s singing is, of course, “Shallow”, and she’s creating it on the fly because she’s communicating to him how she sees him. “That’s me?” he says. “That’s you,” she says. It’s hard, however, to make it seem as if you are simply pulling lyrics out of thin air, in the throes of inventing a mind-bending bit of tuneage that in a parallel universe might win an Oscar. Even Joaquin Phoenix couldn’t quite do it with “Folsom Prison Blues” in “Walk the Line.” And Gaga can’t quite do it here, either, especially after she stands up...

...and then imparts how she’d been working on the song and needed a chorus which she conveys by closing her eyes and kind of wrinkling her nose as a means to denote that “Hey, I’m thinking here.”

I don’t mean to knock Gaga. My God, I love Gaga more than anyone! But in moments like these the actorly holes, like it or not, emerge in her performance. (Could Marisa Tomei have effectively wrinkled her nose? I’d bet yes.) Then again, it doesn’t entirely matter. Because her stock-in-trade is stardom, not acting, which is why when she simply exists on screen, she sets the whole screen on figurative fire. And so, as she crinkles her nose, Cooper tightens the camera to cut out the grocery store sign so it sort of looks like she’s standing on a festival stage, like she actually will later, and as she rips into the full force of the song, throwing her arm forward, twice, she’s in her element, and in that element, no one – that is, no one – is better.

Which is why when she concludes, he looks down, as if needing to gather himself.

Then he looks up with an expression that is almost sickly, as if there is some strange continuum between illness and eurphoria that circles around and meets somewhere. It’s the face of a man who can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

It’s been a decade now since I started listening to Gaga – a decade and not eleven years because I’m often late to the biggest pop stars – and, for reasons too lengthy and self-indulgent to address here, she metamorphosed from someone who made music I cherished into my heroine. A lot of what’s she done since I’ve adored, and some of what she’s done since hasn’t been my coiffure accoutrement, and I’ve never ever stopped loving her, but, as happens in the arts, other artists come along and, well, “your old music cannot sustain you through a life,” as Nick Hornby once wrote, and so I fell for other pop divas, Little Boots and Carly Rae Jepsen and a host of others. It wasn’t quite like initially encountering Lady Gaga, of course, because how could it be? Except that, selfishly, admittedly, “A Star Is Born”, whatever else it was, which was considerable if also lacking, gave me a chance to sit in that parking lot in Jackson Maine’s shoes and see Lady Gaga for the first time all over again.

A Few of My Favorite 2018 Movie Shots

A Star Is Born, outtake

“Almost Famous.” You know the scene. Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), guitarist for Stillwater, has walked out on his band, more or less, fled to a house party with some “real Topeka people” in the company of fledgling Rolling Stone scribe William Miller (Patrick Fugit). Things happen. Beers are drunk. Pills are popped. Russell winds up on a roof screaming about being a golden god. He jumps into a pool. He tells William the band is over, but it isn’t. The band’s bus shows up and the manager talks him onto it. Things are a little rough at first, a little quiet, but then Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” comes on. One by one, like one of those sports scenes where one guy claps and then another guy claps and then they all start clapping, etc., everyone begins singing along. All the bad stuff washes away. Music heals all wounds.

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Late in the recently released version of “A Star Is Born” country-western superstar Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) finds himself in a tailspin brought on by jealousy, a changing world, and, most of all, alcoholism. His diminishing status is made clear at the Grammy Awards where his part on a trio of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” is nixed, reducing it to a duet, and stranding him as a sideman, playing guitar only. As such, he has taken to the drink. And when he takes the stage to perform, he is so inebriated that he drops his pick and slowly, pitifully, bends over to pick it up. For a second, you’d swear he’ll fall right over. He doesn’t, thankfully, yet after a singing-only intro, when the spotlight is thrust on him, again, for a second, you’d swear he will forget or be unable to play. He comes through, barely, and blasts into the familiar riff. The guitar, however, is ear-splitting, like you’re standing right in front of the amp, nearly bowling you over. And Cooper, the director, sets the shot from below, making it seem as if this drunken dude is teetering on the edge of cliff, about to go right over. A few seconds later, the same sort of thing happens again, and again he comes through, this time really laying into the riff, seasoning it without going overboard like Marty McFly on “Johnny B. Goode.”

And now, for a second, you think Jackson’ll right the ship; you think he’ll tear through this song and a smile will erupt to instantly transform him from sloshed to sober; you think he’ll find that thing he’s been looking for. Instead, right as all that flashes through your mind, Cooper cuts to the next scene, jarring you right out of your prospective fantasy. Music does not heal all wounds.

A Star Is Born

The title card of the 2018 version of “A Star Is Born” evokes the predecessors on which it is based with an opulent, Technicolor-ish red even as it offers something new, stretching across the whole screen, leaving a small space in the middle for the eponymous star, Ally, to fit right through, twirling, like all the world’s a stage and she was born to glide across it. That’s true of Ally but also of the woman playing her – iconic pop star Lady Gaga. If Gaga intended her 2017 Netflix documentary “Gaga: Five Foot Two” as revelatory, she still felt guarded, covered up, even when she was literally topless onscreen. In Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, however, Gaga comes to life, playing Ally with an insecure exterior and a more forceful interior born of an Italian Catholic iron will. The latter is glimpsed in home scenes with her father (Andrew Dice Clay, moving, really) where she emotes with the loving exasperation of an entire upbringing, suggesting what has held her back and giving her strength to move forward. Even later in the film when Ally becomes a sensation and dons costumes and wigs, Gaga has so nimbly laid the groundwork in removing her character’s mask, that her real soul shines bright.

If Ally finds her way, Jackson Maine (Cooper), a country-western superstar, is losing his. Cooper’s croaked mumbles recall the Oscar-winning turn of Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart”, yes, but his head-down, demurring attitude is just as evocative of Joaquin Phoenix’s more polite moments as Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line.” Indeed, even if Jackson pops pills, drinks too much, suffers from tinnitus, and feuds with his manger brother Bobby (Sam Elliot, who cocks his head with as much get off my lawn gusto as Gary Cooper wielded a six shooter), Cooper invests Jackson with enough haggard compassion to suggest he’s less trouble than flawed. But he’s spiritually underwater, which his physical sluggishness illustrates, and he needs a way up.

He finds one when, in search of a drink, he unwittingly enters a drag club and sees Ally perform. That the gaggle of kindly drag queens makes way for a straight woman is written off in one line, and may or may not be rooted to truth, but comes across like one of those Golden Age films where a boarding house have banded together to navigate a patriarchal word. And Ally slithering around the club singing “La Vie en Rose” feels born of the Golden Age too as Gaga channels the ghost of Rita Hayworth as much as Judy Garland, eventually splayed across the bar and looking right into Jackson’s eyes in an electric scene evoking how the right music show on the right night can see right through you.

When he approaches her afterward in the dressing room there is less an air of fantasy than anxious hesitation as Gaga plays the moment with with a convincing, halting suspicion about what he really wants, pulling away her hand when he takes hers, demonstrating an honesty within her character and about the whole world. No, he must prove his courtliness, and does in an extended sequence where he tends to her wound after a bar fight. It is familiar stuff played with a ring of truth, where her eyes betray an escalating enchantment and his eyes are not puppy-dog so much as dumbfounded. And while Jackson removing Ally’s false eyebrows might symbolically connote her character’s veneer crumbling, when she spontaneously breaks into a song in a parking lot she is not just signaling her immense talent but saying to him “I trust you.”

Visually the scene mirrors the whole movie, with big close-ups the preferred angle, not that Gaga frequently over-emotes in them. When Ally is about to surge onstage, Gaga’s choking back vomit is ephemeral rather than emphasized. And while the banter over Ally’s nose is properly playful, you sometimes wish Cooper more often just let that nose speak for itself. You also might wish for a few more master shots, whether to establish scene and situation or just let moments breathe, the few wide frames being less for our benefit than Ally and Jackson’s, giving them flickers of privacy. Still, the visual strategy correlates to the movie’s narrative intimacy, mimicking “Million Dollar Baby” in so much as a movie about someone going global deliberately refrains from showing us the masses.

Jackson functions less as Ally’s mentor than a conduit to the industry, which happens when she walks out on her job to attend one of his gigs. Gaga plays this moment not with devil-may-care defiance but giggling like she can’t believe it as she throws caution to the wind, with Cooper intelligently not ending the scene on Ally’s boss punctuating the scene with some dumb one-liner to ensure the moment is hers. And when, arriving at the show in a palpable moment of adrenalized delirium, Ally seeming to float, momentarily disappearing in the popping bright white of a spotlight, emblemizing the turn her life is about to take, the whole movie becomes hers. Jackson summons Ally to the stage, leading her in a duet of a song, “Shallow”, she’s written, the lyrics, a la “Once”, matching the moment, Ally having swum, so to speak, far out from the shallow end, a fear which Gaga’s eyes evince even as that full-throated sonic uppercut she eventually unleashes signifies a self-confidence that had been rumbling inside all along.

Swiftly, marking the nature of Our Times, she becomes a star, culminating in a shot onstage playing piano alongside Jackson where her face appears on the giant video board hanging above. Cooper sets the shot so that essentially she’s singing to herself, visually demarcating the moment when the apprentice surpasses the master, and when the narrative hands itself off from Ally & Jackson to Jackson and his tailspin. The latter stems from jealousy over his her sudden success, though that jealously is born more from his increasingly alcoholic fog and an emergent dissatisfaction with, to quote “Shallow” itself, the modern world. All this tracks along a predictable line and to a predictable conclusion, whether or not you have seen the previous versions, which is not so much the problem as how many story beats need to be hit at precise intervals to get us there, sadly letting so much atmospheric air out as it opts for more basic and expedient narrative filmmaking.

It also suffers from a lack of Gaga. But then, her character has found herself, and this back half is not about Jackson losing himself so much as realizing he is obstructing her ascendant superstardom. That point is conveyed by Cooper’s sheepish smiles throughout, as if he’s almost embarrassed to still be the camera’s point, a fascinating, vexing paradox wherein the leading man seems to know he’s in the way even as the director – who, of course, is the leading man – makes him the focus anyway. You admire it more than embrace it with arms outstretched, this backslide into tragedy, which, inadvertently or otherwise, makes a solid case for the rock star fantasy of burning out rather than fading away.

Preparing for the Possibility of a Lady Gaga Oscar Nomination

Hi, friends. It is merely mid-September and so most of you, if not all of you, have no interest in a State of the Oscar Race missive. The Academy Awards, after all, are but a faraway Alpha Centauri-ish glimmer in the sky, and so there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of films striving for critical and peer praise that have yet to be released. But there have been significant developments in the last couple weeks. “A Star Is Born”, Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut and remake, of sorts, of the 1978 movie which was a remake, of sorts, of the 1954 movie which was a remake, of sorts, of the 1937 movie which was a remake, of sorts, of 1932’s “What Price Hollywood?” screened at the Venice Film Festival and then at the Toronto International Film Festival and was met with critical rapture, believe the hype tweets, and standing ovations. “A Star Is Born Looks Like An Oscar Contender”, brayed The Atlantic. “Oscar Voters Are Sure to Go Gaga for Bradley Cooper’s ‘A Star Is Born,’”, declared Variety in what sounds like a headline straight outta Tronc-approved journalism school. The latter is what interests us. Is it true? Might one Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta earn an Oscar nomination?

We are not here to say yay or nay. And we are definitely not here to say whether or not she will win if she is nominated. No, Cinema Romantico is merely here to prepare you for the possibility that Lady Gaga will be nominated for an Oscar. What, you might be wondering, will the pop culture landscape look like in the wake of such an event? Awards Backlashologists are already predicting the adverse response might be beyond the the damage assessment measuring capabilities of The Hathaway Scale. However, this blog is in a unique position to answer the most pertinent questions in the face of this suddenly very real possibility – that position being a person with a picture of Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen stuck to his refrigerator (which his Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife lovingly tolerates). We feel like any worries you might have should the name Lady Gaga be called the morning of January 22, 2019 are worries we can talk you through.

You Are Worried That….. Lady Gaga Will Wear A Meat Dress To The Oscars. Hey, you’ve lived through Barbra’s mauve cape, and Bjork’s swan, and Juliette Binoche draping herself in velvet, okay, so you’ll be fine wehther Gaga quotes Mitzi Del Bra, or shows up in a Gaultier sack-back gown, or, evoking her 60 Minutes interview, shows up sans makeup and drinking whiskey.

You Are Worried That..... Lady Gaga Will Make Some Sort Of Overdramatic Entrance. This is a problem? Give me a choice of Jimmy Kimmel dropping candy from the sky for the third straight Oscars or Gaga channeling her Venice entrance where she perched on the edge of a taxi boat wearing black stilettos and blowing kisses, her hair up in victory rolls like she was Betty Grable on her way to the premiere of “Song of the Islands”, and I’m taking the latter in a heartbeat. I hope she shows up to the Oscars riding a giant mechanical dragon puppet breathing foam fire. Try and ask the dragon a question before it eats you, Seacrest.

You Are Worried That….. Lady Gaga’s Acceptance Speech Would Be Over-Earnest, Cringe-Worthy Dreck. I was at Lollapalooza 2010 when Ms. Gaga had but one and a half albums at her disposal was forced to significantly banter between songs to fill time, though her banter was less Neko Case-y comical than counting her blessings, over and over, which struggled to blend with declarations of taking a ride on other people’s disco sticks, and such. It didn’t really work, even for me, person with Lady Gaga on his refrigerator, and I can only assume if she did somehow win the Oscar that her speech would last way too long and get way too emotional. She already went Sally Field at TIFF. But Sally Field went Sally Field at the Oscars and the world’s still turning.

You Are Worried That..... Lady Gaga’s Oscar Nomination Will Complete Her Mainstream Ascension. Ah, I see you original Gaga fan! You, Little Monster, before Little Monsters became as trendy as Hufflepuffs. And you should know better than anyone that Gaga is neither Mainstream nor Punk Rock; she is Artpop. An Oscar nomination will merely make her more powerful.

You Are Worried That..... Lady Gaga’s Oscar Nomination Would Inevitably Lead To A Lady Gaga Jukebox Musical. Too late! I am already shopping my “Highway Unicorn” script around Hollywood!

You Are Worried That….. Lady Gaga Will Get An Oscar Nominaton Before Kirsten Dunst. This is a very real fear, and it is a very real fear that I understand. I am, after all, a Dunst Completist, a Kiki Enthusiast. That she has not received an Oscar nomination is a literal crime in the kangaroo court of Hollywood. And yet, if in the wake of a Gaga Oscar nod I was called to testify on behalf of Ms. Dunst, given my long-standing love of her acting and steadfast belief she gave the best performance of 1998, I would raise my right hand, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then tell everyone clamoring for Stefani’s head, in my official capacity as a Dunst Devotee, to just, like, chill out, okay?

You Are Worried That...... Lady Gaga Can’t Act. That’s probably only because you think Lady Gaga can’t sing.

You Are Worried That….. Lady Gaga’s Nomination Will Push Out A More Deserving Performance. For the love of god, this happens every year. Remember when Cinema Romantico was convinced two years ago that it was Annette Bening’s “time”?

You Are Worried That….. It’s Supposed To Be Glenn Close’s “Time”. If it’s her “time”, it will be. A Gaga nod will not impede Close.  It’s not Gaga’s “time”; it’s Gaga Time. It’s always Gaga Time, at least in Little Monster Land, perched beneath the big rainbow between Mountain and Pacific. And if she gets that Oscar nod, whether you like it or not, all time in the United States, from coast to coast, will be governed according to Gaga too.

Parallelism vis-à-vis Cinema Romantico-ism

“Hey...” 

“What?”  

“I just wanted to take another look at ya.”

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“What are you looking at, sir?” 

“Why I’m looking at you, miss.”