A Star Is Born

(1957)

The glorious contradiction at the heart of CinemaScope is the granting of a living canvas for free-flowing naturalism while at the same time providing sumptuous spectacle. No film in existence has ever ridden this line better and more beautifully than George Cukor’s A STAR IS BORN. Framed within a continuity of human experience vaster and more coherent than any other the medium has achieved – and one that makes Robert Altman look like a local TV commercial director – we are subject to a depth and resonance of color and scale and motion that somehow does not blind you to the unfolding tragedy at hand. Human pain and angst are depicted with such clarity and feeling that the same works for expressions of joy and abandon. The entire film lives in a place of manic depression, riding the wave of limitless hedonism until a nervous collapse into a comatose state. This is the film on a purely emotive level and makes it sound less intelligent than it is. The semi-biographical meta-realities achieved seamlessly here put post-modern deconstruction to shame with simultaneous reference to the character, actor, and their performances in the context of a Hollywood film about itself. The post-release butchering of the film is a testament to its inventive realism and the sheer staying power of the images it concocts which can outpace any muddled story point. You will watch from an admiring distance and then get punched in the gut when it invites you into the characters’ intimate personal lives.