Review a star is born film năm 2024

Now, taking the tale to a 21st-century audience, we have Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper: the former in her first big-screen starring role, the latter making his startlingly assured directorial debut (he also produced, co-wrote the script and contributed to song composition). Capturing the slow grind of touring and the speedy ups and downs of pop stardom can be a notoriously tricky business. But from its uncannily realistic performance footage to pinpoint observations about modern in-ear monitors (“it’s just in my head; I need to be here”), this new incarnation of an old story paints a painfully precise portrait of life seen from the other side of the stage.

Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a grizzled, axe-wielding country-rocker who stumbles out of a gig and into a late-night drag bar in search of booze (“They got alcohol? Then it’s my kinda place”). Here he sees Ally (Lady Gaga, brilliant) singing La Vie en Rose. It’s a show-stopping turn, striking a chord with the tinnitus-tormented Maine, who thinks he’s found an artist with “something to say and a way to say it”. But Ally, who hides her own songwriting light under a bushel, thinks the music industry is full of men who say: “You sound great, but you don’t look so great.” So Maine, in an act of both sacrifice and salvation, foists Ally on stage in front of his adoring crowd, with spectacular results.

For one enchanted moment, their chemistry is perfect, with each firing the other’s dreams (“It’s been a long time since he played like that,” says Jackson’s long-suffering brother, Bobby). But these star paths are crossed rather than entwined. He’s dependent on a self-destructive cocktail of steroid injections, booze and boot-crushed pills. As for her, fame brings its own baggage, as pop-savvy manager Rez (Rafi Gavron) moulds her image with new dancers and hairdos and publicity photos that “don’t even look like me”.

Watch a trailer for A Star Is Born.

Beyond the jokes about her unmarketable nose, there’s more than a touch of Streisand’s Funny Girl persona in Lady Gaga’s thrillingly spiky performance. We know from her pop pedigree that she can cut it as an onstage sensation, but it’s her more down-at-heel scenes (taking out the trash in a soul-crushing job) that really impress. Never once did I doubt that the rock’n’roll high life (popping corks on Jack’s private plane) was a new and astonishing experience for this real-life megastar. Significantly, Ally has the cover of Carole King’s Tapestry framed on her bedroom wall and there’s a hint of the King-inspired 1996 film Grace of My Heart in her progress from songwriter to recording star, particularly in a lovely scene in which Maine suggests using a piano keyboard to unlock her natural studio voice.

Yet for all his support, Maine is unsettled by Ally’s success, and the independence it brings her (“why can’t I be enough?”). A poignant shot of him watching as the increasingly Gaga-esque Ally rehearses an angular routine casts him as a wounded old bear lost in a futuristic neon world, his reddened face counterposed with the cold blue light of an alien environment. It’s as if he’s wandered out of his own movie and into hers. Elsewhere, the narrative’s infamous awards ceremony outrage is revisited in excruciating hues that will have you hiding you face in your hands.

Strong supporting turns include Sam Elliott as Bobby, the brother from whom Maine apparently “stole” his voice, Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s protective yet clumsily undermining father and Dave Chappelle as an old musician friend of Jackson’s who found a way out of all the craziness. Expect to see A Star Is Born nominated in numerous categories in the forthcoming awards season, not least for acting, direction and songwriting. Its Oscar-bait earworm tune may be entitled Shallow, but the film itself is as deep and resonant as Bradley Cooper’s drawl, and as bright as Lady Gaga’s screen future.

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Video

transcript

transcript

‘A Star Is Born’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Bradley Cooper narrates a sequence from his film, in which he stars with Lady Gaga.

“My name is Bradley Cooper, and I co-wrote and directed “A Star Is Born.” So we’re at the beginning of the movie now where the two characters just met, and this scene is really the anchor for the rest of the film. If as a filmmaker I don’t securely plant the audience in these two people and their relationship, then the rest of the movie won’t work. When I first went to Hollywood and met some people that were really famous, and I remember going out with them in the night. And their access to stuff is always very interesting. But the other thing that always blew me away is to see somebody like that in a pizza place at 4:00 in the morning with regular people, or at a grocery store. You’re like, oh, they go to these places too. I always found that very thrilling. And this, I wanted to feel like you’re in real time, almost, with these people. That was the only way I could get my head around the fact that you would actually believe that they’re falling in love, is that you need to see these moments sort of broken down into three things. One is the first visual look that two people have. And then there’s the tactile moment. And then it’s revealing their souls to each other. And in my life, having met people and fallen in love, it usually happens when you feel as if someone’s seeing you in a way that no one else is seeing you. And this is the scene where she’s seeing him in a way. And the movie’s showing you him take in that knowledge.” “(SINGING) Tell me something, boy. Aren’t you tired trying to fill that void? Or do you need more? Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?” “Is that me?” “That’s you.” “You just write that now?” “Yeah.” “It’s pretty good.” “Her, from the very beginning of the movie, the movie knows she’s a star before she does it. And the movie’s almost searching for her. And with this scene, when she stands up and starts singing, the camera’s over her shoulder looking down at him.” “(SINGING) I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I’ll never meet the ground.” “So she’s in this empty lot at 4:00 in the morning in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and Jackson Maine, this very well-regarded musician, is one of her fans, almost like a boy. So I really love that shot of him just looking up at her.” “(SINGING) — shallow now.” “And what was great about when we found that location was it functioned as almost a stage. There’s all those lights behind her, as if she’s up on a huge stage at Coachella or something without even realizing it.” “I think you might be a songwriter.”

Review a star is born film năm 2024

Bradley Cooper narrates a sequence from his film, in which he stars with Lady Gaga.CreditCredit...Warner Bros. Pictures

A Star Is BornNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Bradley CooperDrama, Music, RomanceR2h 15m

  • Oct. 3, 2018

“A Star Is Born” is such a great Hollywood myth that it’s no wonder Hollywood keeps telling it. Whatever the era, the director or the headliners, it relates the story of two lovers on dramatically differing paths: a famous man who’s furiously racing to the bottom (Bradley Cooper in this movie) and a woman (Lady Gaga) who’s soaring to the top. This latest and fourth version is a gorgeous heartbreaker (bring tissues). Like its finest antecedents, it wrings tears from its romance and thrills from a steadfast belief in old-fashioned, big-feeling cinema. That it’s also a perverse fantasy about men, women, love and sacrifice makes it all the better.

[Read our updates on the 2019 Golden Globes and see the surprises and snubs.]

Like the last iteration, the epically (empirically!) terrible 1976 remake with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, the new one takes place in a contemporary music world that is by turns exciting, suffocating and crowded with dangers — ravenous fans, crushing performance demands, celebrity itself. This is the world that has helped create and come close to ruining Jackson Maine (Mr. Cooper), a country-rock musician who, when the movie opens, is performing obviously wasted, leaning and nearly falling into a boot-stomping song. He’s a beautiful ruin adrift on an ocean of booze, one he routinely spikes with pills.

Image

Review a star is born film năm 2024

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in “A Star Is Born.”Credit...Warner Bros.

A singer with a voice that can thunder, Ally Campana (Lady Gaga) becomes Jack’s safe harbor, taking on the roles of lover, partner, muse, ideal. That’s a heavy burden, but Ally is one of life’s chin-up survivors, with an errant mother and a loving, larger-than-life father, Lorenzo (a terrific Andrew Dice Clay), whose dreams cloud her own. Dad runs a limo business out of their Los Angeles home, where his male colleagues (Barry Shabaka Henley, among others) and their boisterous camaraderie fill the rooms, both warming and crowding them. Ally is accustomed to navigating around men larger than she is, elbowing past them to be seen and heard.

She and Jack first meet late one night in a Hollywood drag club where she sings after her waitress shift ends. Jack has just finished playing a concert and, after polishing off a bottle of booze, has stumbled into the club for more. There he watches Ally belt out the Edith Piaf standard “La Vie en Rose,” in a sheath and upsweep, her arched artificial brows adding quizzical punctuation to her face. In a swoon, he invites her out that night, and, as flirtation gives way to deeper feelings, they fall in love. He brings Ally onstage and then on tour, but she eventually goes solo, becoming a star whose ascent is shadowed by his decline.

[Read about “A Star Is Born” and male sacrifice.]

Mr. Cooper, who also directed, does a lot right in this take on “A Star Is Born,” beginning with the casting of Lady Gaga, whose disarming, naturalistic presence is crucial to the movie’s force. A post-Madonna pop artist known for her elaborate stagecraft and costumes, she has been stripped down here, her mask removed. You can see her skin, the flutter in her veins, which brings you close to her, and can make both the actress and her character feel touchingly vulnerable. This unmasking of Lady Gaga also makes Ally seem genuine, authentic, a quality that the movie champions and that serves as a kind of thematic first principle.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

What was the point of the movie A Star Is Born?

A key theme in 'A Star is Born' is how addiction destroys not only the lives of its victims but also the lives of their loved ones. There is a scene where Jackson apologizes to Ally for something he did while he was drunk. He is ashamed and knows he hurt and embarrassed her.

What did Barbra Streisand think of the remake of A Star Is Born?

While on the Australian talk show “The Sunday Project,” Streisand said she thought the remake (of a remake of a remake) was “the wrong idea,” but that she “can't argue with success.” Gaga won her first Academy Award, and the film received a best picture nomination and grossed $436 million, churning out a No.

Did A Star Is Born get good reviews?

While the remained of A Star Is Born is still good, I was left feeling a little disappointed that it couldn't keep up that same exhilarating energy and emotion from the first act, as things quieten down and become a little more predictable.

Is Lady Gaga really Singing in A Star Is Born?

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga perform all of their performance scenes live. Yes, LIVE. There were no back-up tracks to lip-sync to during filming. Every time either one of them sing or play an instrument it is all them, 100%.