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‘A Star Is Born’ | Anatomy of a Scene
Bradley Cooper narrates a sequence from his film, in which he stars with Lady Gaga.
“My name is Bradley Cooper, and I co-wrote and directed “A Star Is Born.” So we’re at the beginning of the movie now where the two characters just met, and this scene is really the anchor for the rest of the film. If as a filmmaker I don’t securely plant the audience in these two people and their relationship, then the rest of the movie won’t work. When I first went to Hollywood and met some people that were really famous, and I remember going out with them in the night. And their access to stuff is always very interesting. But the other thing that always blew me away is to see somebody like that in a pizza place at 4:00 in the morning with regular people, or at a grocery store. You’re like, oh, they go to these places too. I always found that very thrilling. And this, I wanted to feel like you’re in real time, almost, with these people. That was the only way I could get my head around the fact that you would actually believe that they’re falling in love, is that you need to see these moments sort of broken down into three things. One is the first visual look that two people have. And then there’s the tactile moment. And then it’s revealing their souls to each other. And in my life, having met people and fallen in love, it usually happens when you feel as if someone’s seeing you in a way that no one else is seeing you. And this is the scene where she’s seeing him in a way. And the movie’s showing you him take in that knowledge.” “(SINGING) Tell me something, boy. Aren’t you tired trying to fill that void? Or do you need more? Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?” “Is that me?” “That’s you.” “You just write that now?” “Yeah.” “It’s pretty good.” “Her, from the very beginning of the movie, the movie knows she’s a star before she does it. And the movie’s almost searching for her. And with this scene, when she stands up and starts singing, the camera’s over her shoulder looking down at him.” “(SINGING) I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I’ll never meet the ground.” “So she’s in this empty lot at 4:00 in the morning in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and Jackson Maine, this very well-regarded musician, is one of her fans, almost like a boy. So I really love that shot of him just looking up at her.” “(SINGING) — shallow now.” “And what was great about when we found that location was it functioned as almost a stage. There’s all those lights behind her, as if she’s up on a huge stage at Coachella or something without even realizing it.” “I think you might be a songwriter.”
- A Star Is Born
- NYT Critic’s Pick
- Directed by Bradley Cooper
- Drama, Music, Romance
- R
- 2h 15m
By Manohla Dargis
“A Star Is Born” is such a great Hollywood myth that it’s no wonder Hollywood keeps telling it. Whatever the era, the director or the headliners, it relates the story of two lovers on dramatically differing paths: a famous man who’s furiously racing to the bottom (Bradley Cooper in this movie) and a woman (Lady Gaga) who’s soaring to the top. This latest and fourth version is a gorgeous heartbreaker (bring tissues). Like its finest antecedents, it wrings tears from its romance and thrills from a steadfast belief in old-fashioned, big-feeling cinema. That it’s also a perverse fantasy about men, women, love and sacrifice makes it all the better.
[Read our updates on the 2019 Golden Globes and see the surprises and snubs.]
Like the last iteration, the epically (empirically!) terrible 1976 remake with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, the new one takes place in a contemporary music world that is by turns exciting, suffocating and crowded with dangers — ravenous fans, crushing performance demands, celebrity itself. This is the world that has helped create and come close to ruining Jackson Maine (Mr. Cooper), a country-rock musician who, when the movie opens, is performing obviously wasted, leaning and nearly falling into a boot-stomping song. He’s a beautiful ruin adrift on an ocean of booze, one he routinely spikes with pills.
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A singer with a voice that can thunder, Ally Campana (Lady Gaga) becomes Jack’s safe harbor, taking on the roles of lover, partner, muse, ideal. That’s a heavy burden, but Ally is one of life’s chin-up survivors, with an errant mother and a loving, larger-than-life father, Lorenzo (a terrific Andrew Dice Clay), whose dreams cloud her own. Dad runs a limo business out of their Los Angeles home, where his male colleagues (Barry Shabaka Henley, among others) and their boisterous camaraderie fill the rooms, both warming and crowding them. Ally is accustomed to navigating around men larger than she is, elbowing past them to be seen and heard.
She and Jack first meet late one night in a Hollywood drag club where she sings after her waitress shift ends. Jack has just finished playing a concert and, after polishing off a bottle of booze, has stumbled into the club for more. There he watches Ally belt out the Edith Piaf standard “La Vie en Rose,” in a sheath and upsweep, her arched artificial brows adding quizzical punctuation to her face. In a swoon, he invites her out that night, and, as flirtation gives way to deeper feelings, they fall in love. He brings Ally onstage and then on tour, but she eventually goes solo, becoming a star whose ascent is shadowed by his decline.
[Read about “A Star Is Born” and male sacrifice.]
Mr. Cooper, who also directed, does a lot right in this take on “A Star Is Born,” beginning with the casting of Lady Gaga, whose disarming, naturalistic presence is crucial to the movie’s force. A post-Madonna pop artist known for her elaborate stagecraft and costumes, she has been stripped down here, her mask removed. You can see her skin, the flutter in her veins, which brings you close to her, and can make both the actress and her character feel touchingly vulnerable. This unmasking of Lady Gaga also makes Ally seem genuine, authentic, a quality that the movie champions and that serves as a kind of thematic first principle.
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