This is It

This is It

By Jonathan Fisher, November 3rd, 2009


All of Michael Jackson, all the things that were at once appealing and unsettling about him, is on the screen in This is It. This is a full-bodied portrait of a man that has gone from being one of the most demonised public figures in life, to one of the most lionised in death. This is It suggests that, unsurprisingly, the truth about who the real MJ was lies somewhere in the middle. Jackson's death earlier this year at 50 is probably going to become one of the defining pop-culture moments in our society, on par with the death of Elvis Presley and maybe even JFK. But the truth was that no one really knew what his death meant, and as the grieving continued and the online tributes emerged, it became clear that we didn't really know what his life meant, either.

This is It was edited down to about two hours from over one hundred hours of footage shot on digital cameras during rehearsals for the This is It tour. The film's director is credited as Kenny Ortega, who was the creative director for the concerts. If nothing else, This is It dispels the rumour that Jackson's health was in tatters prior to his death on June 25. In all of the performances featured in this documentary, he's as energetic and riveting to watch as he ever was. His physical appearance suggested the deeper problems that we all knew existed within Jackson. Toward the end of his life, Jackson was very, very thin. And, of course, there was the obvious over-dose on plastic surgery that brought so much ridicule.

This is It stares right past those things, at all the things that really made who Jackson was to us, the public. As much as I love Jackson's work, there was something perpetually sad about him. He really was a kid who never grew up, probably because he never had a proper childhood in the first place. But he had such a wonderful gift. He could sing and dance, make people smile and laugh. In the first couple of decades of his career, he seemed to love it. But as he grew older, and the stories of his bizarre personal life continued to surface and disseminate throughout the community, it was clear that something was tragically off about him. It was reflected in his performances. They became less about the joy he took in his dancing, and all about the joy that he could bring to others. There's a moment in This is It, during the rehearsal for "Billie Jean", that this is illustrated beautifully. The song is, for all intents and purposes, over, but Jackson continues to dance. The camera pans to the few onlookers watching the rehearsal, and back to Jackson. Even to a crowd of a dozen people, Jackson lived for his audiences. During rehearsal, there was no need for an extended, improvised dance routine. But he did it anyway.

As a documentary about the process of creating an entertainment show, This is It is a lot of fun. Jackson is engrossed in his creative process in a way we've never really seen before. But there seems to be not a trace of pure egotism or impatience in him. Even when he takes an engineer to task for causing feedback in his earpiece, he starts with, "I know you mean well, but..." There's something disarming about him, from his responses of "God bless you" anytime someone does something he likes to the small smile he allows to cross his lips after a run-through of a song goes just right.

We see the makings of film clips that would have served as a backdrop for the live performances in London, including a spellbinding clip for "Smooth Criminal" incorporating Humphrey Bogart, and a modern revamp of Thriller. Even the accompanying clip for Jackson's overblown "Earth song" is spectacular and audacious, despite the fact it doesn't really work. I found much of Jackson's work post-Dangerous to be overly grandiose and pretentious. The film ends on a similar, but much more rending note with a performance of "Man in the Mirror", a song that in hindsight epitomises everything we loved about the 'old' Michael Jackson. A firm, but noble message, the playfulness of the 'na na nas', and the pure pop ingenuity of the 'sha-mons' and breathy delivery that Jackson created and pulled off.

There are moments, too, where the child-like naivete of Jackson's character shines through. One segment of the film focuses on the environmental message of Jackson's show, and when addressing the crew, Jackson says to them "we have an important message to tell. We only have four years to repair the damage we've done to the planet or it'll be irreversible."

Whaa? "Four years to repair the planet"? It's clear in a moment like that that there were very few moments in which Jackson resorted to cold hard logic and facts when expressing himself. Like a child, everything he said came from his heart. That was really the ultimate tragedy about Jackson's figure. He didn't really identify himself as an adult, and I got the impression he didn't want others to, either. He was in a permanent state of arrested development, always reverting to child-like behaviour and thoughts in order to find a childhood that he lost a long time ago.

As time rolls on, I think Jackson will continue to be a significant figure. For better or worse, and despite the uneasy personal story that coupled the dizzying success, the public couldn't get enough of Michael Jackson. This is It intimately shows that he loved giving to us. Right up to the end, he still had it.