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by David ParkinsonAmerican director George Cukor was approached by producer David O. Selznick in 1937 to direct a motion picture, one which would lampoon the very idea of making motion pictures, but turned it down – due to the fact that he had directed such a film, What Price Hollywood?, in 1932. The film, A Star is Born, would go on to be directed by William A. Wellman. However, Cukor was not yet finished with the idea of a movie examining Hollywood and stardom, and in 1954, his new version of A Star is Born, was released to the masses, shining a searing spotlight on the Hollywood studio system that fades as its 176-minute run-time lumbers on.
Cukor’s updated A Star Is Born closely follows the path set by its predecessor: a washed-up, alcoholic actor (James Mason taking the role of Norman Maine from Frederic March) encounters a young unknown one night (Judy Garland inhabiting the role of Esther Blodgett made famous by Janet Gaynor), and proceeds to bring her into stardom, as well as his own personal life. As her star rises, his diminishes. Cukor uses every minute of the almost-three-hour-runtime to explore the rise and fall of the husband-and-wife pairing, giving each an arc that, for the most part, continues steadily in opposite directions. There are moments – in particular a musical interlude so unnecessary in its execution and context that in its attempt to add spectacle it wholly detracts – where it feels as though Cukor and his creative team indulge too much in their epic scale, giving valuable minutes which could have been given to furthering the then-growing relationship between Norman and Vicki. Cukor’s first foray into Technicolor brings with it all the visual hallmarks of lavish classical colour cinema. Cukor and cinematographer Sam Leavitt embed their images with personality, with narrative service; shooting scenes at home with muted colours, as Norman’s domain, while Vicki’s musical numbers and Hollywood moments are drenched in glorious and rich colours and lavish tones, as well as the sweeping movements most associated with the Hollywood musical. Maine becomes more and more of an “ordinary” person as the plot progresses, his costume remaining a mix of dull earthy tones while Vicki becomes more and more extravagant; more of a star. Cukor’s direction mixes both the epic and the ordinary; romantic scenes often feel claustrophobic, intimate, with a particular musical number taking place entirely within a tight closeup of Vicki’s face, while the larger musical numbers feel as though they stretch on for eternity, Cukor making use of the Cinemascope stylings employed in the making of the film. Garland and Mason pitch their performances perfectly, as up-and-coming Vicki Lester (once Esther Blodgett) and down-and-out Norman Maine respectively. Mason conveys a sense of a man who knows his time is up, barrelling through scenes with outward charm, while his eyes bring out some semblance of inner pain. Garland, whose personal life mirrored in some ways that of both Vicki Lester and Norman Maine (she herself was born Frances Ethel Gumm, and saw her life brought to an untimely end after a decades-long struggle with alcohol and drug addiction) , brings vulnerability and emotion to her performance, commanding the screen and our sympathy whenever she is present in-frame. Mason shines in particular when he’s asked to portray his character’s descent into emotional wreck, betraying his recovery as a means of coping with a moment of cruel rejection at a horse race, while Garland shines in a heart-wrenching moment in which she breaks down in tears while speaking about Norman’s troubles, blaming herself for not stepping in. Supporting players, such as Jack Carson, whose performance as studio publicist Matt Libby seems a certain frame-of-reference for the later work of Alec Baldwin, and Charles Bickford as sympathetic studio head Oliver Niles, work their hardest to fully inhabit their roles, both featuring in heart-breaking scenes with James Mason. The audience is presented with a genre-mash-up that doesn’t quite land; it is at points a musical which hopes to be a drama, and at others it feels as though Cukor intends for the masses to ingest a drama with musical elements. Musical numbers play out for the most part as diegetic; we find Vicki – or as she is known then, Esther – singing to her bandmates while Norman watches on enthralled, we have Vicki sing to Norman in private on multiple occasions. However, as Dix notes, sound “may still migrate” from the diegetic model to non-diegetic within a motion picture (87). As previously mentioned, we are presented at almost the midway point of the film with a musical interlude, presented as Vicki’s silver-screen debut, which brings the film to a grinding halt, presenting us with fifteen minutes of repeated exposition, treating both audiences – those in the crowd within the movie itself, and those in cinemas or at home, as the same entity, using valuable minutes which may have been better served being used for non-musical relationship building earlier on in the film. It is unquestionable that Cukor’s take on A Star is Bornis a classic of Hollywood cinema, though what that term even equates to in a modern world, where “classic” has now become a buzzword for any motion picture made before the year 1981, is wholly questionable. It could be said that Cukor presents an idea of what Hollywood is, of what studios do to a person once they’re making money, and what they do to someone who is no longer seen as bankable, but it becomes clear that he can only bring this concept so far. The at once-downbeat, now suddenly upbeat, maudlin – and perhaps even self-defeatist and dismissive–conclusion, as Vicki embraces the role of Norman’s wife above the role of stardom, represents a typical Hollywood ending referred to by Dix as “equilibrium-restored” (125). It is quite obvious to the spectator, as the credits role, that any deep, pointed message suggested by the director or writer Moss Hart about the state of Hollywood and its star-making factory system, has been blunted by particular narrative choices, and genre hang-ups, with a Technicolor coat of paint slapped on for good measure. WORKS CITED A Star is Born, (1954). Directed by George Cukor, America: Transcona Enterprises. Dix, A. (2016). Beginning film studies. 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp.8, 125. A Star is Born, (1937). Directed by William A. Wellman, America: Selznick International Pictures.
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