This Is It

We just saw the Michael Jackson film This Is It, gleaned from the nearly 100 hours shot during rehearsals for his London tour. We arrived forty-five minutes ahead of show time, thinking that it would be a near sellout, but we shared the theatre with only about two dozen people. What might have been another teary-eyed replication of the overlong television coverage following his death was instead a moving tribute to what might have been. Michael showed every one of his fifty years, was obviously way underweight, wasn’t quite up to his non-stop dancing and singing from previous years and previous tours, but he still showed enough of the old magic to make this film a must-see for anyone with even half an ear for his music and his influence on a whole generation of singers and dancers. I never realized until I saw this film just how much of a perfectionist he was, how much he was in command of every choreographed move by him and his backup dancers, how every note had to be timed exactly as he heard it. I was never before much of a Michael Jackson fan, probably because of his eccentric lifestyle. But I’m now a fan of the singer/dancer/performer I saw on This Is It.