It’s Truth vs. Fame in Remake of ‘Star’
In the new version of “A Star Is Born,” the seasoned, fading rock star Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) seizes a private moment with the singer and songwriter Ally (Lady Gaga), just as she ascends to full stardom. Against the backdrop of her new billboard, he tells her she has to “dig deep” in her soul; he continues, “You don’t tell the truth out there, you’re [finished].” (He uses a stronger word.) He’s calling on her to make music with honesty and openness, to imbue her songs with authenticity.
The movie’s visual style telegraphs authenticity with countless close-ups. For the music that functions as outlet and self- definition for the characters, the equation isn’t as simple. It’s an album of peaks and troughs, of wide- open emotionality and thudding calculation. It’s both a souvenir of the movie and a pop statement on its own. And it’s the latest episode in the story arc of Lady Gaga, the self-invention of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
She arrived a decade ago as a dance-pop diva, flaunting costumes, makeup and dance routines in a barrage of proudly superficial guises.
Her songs were driven by glossy, thumping dance- club beats, even as her lyrics insisted on darker impulses of attachment and obsession. At the same time, she was eager to prove that she was a skilled pianist and singer. Like Madonna, she made pop spectacle and full-tilt self- expression parts of the same package. But a battle between the perceived ephemerality of pop and the assumed durability of something more authentic has raged on in her music.
“A Star Is Born” tells a tragic love story, so the album is full of love songs. And this new version determinedly extols sincerity and truth-telling. Jackson Maine arrives onstage in the movie’s opening sequence to sing, “It’s time to testify/ There’s no room for lies.” For his character, the trappings of authenticity are straightforward. He’s a long-running rock archetype: a gruff-voiced, guitar-slinging road warrior. But as Ally, Lady Gaga gets the better songs.
In the plotline, Ally’s genuine voice and charisma draw Maine to her in the first place, and her psychologically charged songwriting and unspoiled attitude seal their bond. Her stardom is born when a reluctant stadium performance of a song she had just written makes her an overnight sensation by going viral. It’s “Shallow,” the leadoff single and best track on the album. Though Cooper starts the song, Lady Gaga takes over for its exponential buildup, from breathy to belting.
The album’s other showstoppers are hushed-to-heroic piano ballads that rely on Lady Gaga’s finesse, timing, emotionality and lung power.
But as soon as Ally gets her big chance, she discards her truest assets. By the time Maine gives Ally his counsel about staying soulful, she has taken on a manager and let him recast her with tacky dance- pop numbers that the actual Lady Gaga would have rejected (or twisted and vastly improved). And in the movie’s cynical universe, that’s the material that apparently carries Ally to the Grammys. In Cooper’s “A Star Is Born,” pop is irredeemably shallow, a mere commercial trick.
It’s odd for Lady Gaga to be pitting modern pop against authenticity. Not that long ago, her hits insisted that the most outsized artifice could also hold something true. Remaking an old story, the 2018 “A Star Is Born” relies on the old, time-honored solidity of the pop ballad. It tugs its heartstrings, but its path to authenticity is a return to the past.