Short Take: Great for fans, and enjoyable for all

Director: Kenny Ortega

Cast: Michael Jackson

Length: 1h 42m

Synopsis: A documentary comprised of fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes footage of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his This is it concert tour that was canceled due to the singer’s untimely death.

Analysis: The King of Pop’s “This is it” tour was meant to be the last big “hoorah” for a great and legendarily successful career. Unfortunately, Jackson’s untimely passing kept that dream from being realized. This is it is now the last compilation of Michael’s work to be collected on film, and judging just from the scope that was captured on camera this was set to be a show of inconceivable proportions. What the camera captures is more than just what the show was intended to look like, though, as it also captures MJ in perhaps his most natural-feeling moments – the moments in preparation for a show. We can’t see the show as it was intended to look, but what we do see is the great degree of effort that went into it.

The film’s structure is vastly different from the narrative fiction filling the other theaters. Not containing any real plot but simply documenting the progression of the concert, what we the audience are witness to is more along the lines of an extended montage displaying the construction of a work of art. We watch Michael, his dancers, and his crew build a vibrant, breathing entity. If one is familiar with watching concerts on film, this is not too dissimilar. The biggest difference is, of course, that there was never a final product. This lack, for some people, might be forgivable but nevertheless unimpressive.

What some highly successful concert films like, say, Madonna’s In Bed with Madonna do is mix concert footage with behind-the-scenes footage, editing them together to show their compatibility, continuity, and consonance. Others like The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night mix concert footage with staged behind-the-scenes footage to simulate a plot and (some might argue) make self-commentary on their own music. This is it never gets so complex. In some ways it can be shown to be related to backstage musicals in general, being that we’re privy to various rehearsal conversations, dance practices, tryouts, etc., but the presentation is fixed primarily on the intention of making the film into a substitute for the would-be concert tour. Being that so many fans missed out on the tour – one that promised to be one for the ages – it was thought best to be resourceful with the terrific rehearsal footage and create another kind of show from it. What results is the equivalent of having someone describe to you a beautiful painting, though you’re not really able to look upon that painting with your own eyes. You may love what you hear, but you nonetheless aren’t seeing what you want to see.

One inescapable fact makes itself known from beginning to end, and that is this show was/is all about Michael. Not just him as a performer, though, but as a person. There’s no psychological probing, but his depiction in this film makes him appear as an artist; far more human and impassioned than what we see via the paparazzi. For some, this may be the film’s most significant accomplishment.

Side Note: I give concert and film director Kenny Ortega and his editing crew a lot of credit for making the film coherent, which couldn’t have been easy using the type of footage they had to work with (which for all we know was supposed to be garbage footage). They did the best they could with what they had and, given that, what they made should be considered at least moderately impressive.

Rating: 7.0