How does Cooper’s A Star Is Born compare to those before it?
Movie goers can’t resist Hollywood’s much-loved romantic remake as the box office for Bradley Cooper’s latest incarnation attests. But how does it compare to the others that came before it?
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A star is born… again. That’s what critics are saying about the incredible performance of Lady Gaga in Bradley Cooper’s knockout remake of one of cinema’s favourite stories.
And movie goers agree.
The fourth incarnation of A Star Is Born went straight to the top of box offices around the world, including in Australia where it has a healthy $8.3 million since opening on October 18. And this weekend as Cooper’s passion project goes head-to-head with Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, moon landing epic First Man and Marvel’s new kid on the block Venom, pundits are tipping this to be one of the biggest weekends for Australian cinema so far this year.
While much of the water cooler conversation around A Star Is Born focuses on the performances of Gaga and Cooper and the stellar soundtrack, the movie’s success has also inspired renewed interest in its three predecessors. While each brings something unique to a story Hollywood loves to tell about itself, can the 2018 version be crowned the best?
Here’s how they compare.
1937: THE ORIGINAL
Star: Janet Gaynor and Fredric March
Budget: $1,173,639 (estimated)
A Star Is Born first hit the screens in 1937, starring Janet Gaynor (“as you have never seen her before” according to the official trailer) as country girl Esther Blodgett who heads to Hollywood dreaming of fame, where she meets alcoholic leading man Norman Maine, played by Fredric March (“more swashbuckling than ever before”). He helps her get her big break, just as his career collapses. A tightly-scripted movie, this Technicolor story about the hollowness of Hollywood and “intimate secrets in the lives of the great” entranced critics and audiences and won a Best Writing, Original Story Oscar for director William A. Wellman and was nominated for six more. Writer and critic Dorothy Parker also contributed to the screen play. Gaynor was already a big star, the recipient of the first Academy Award for Best Actress for the combined movies 7th Heaven, Sunrise and Street Angel. But post A Star Is Born, she never attained the same fame again. Fredric March — also a popular actor of his day — continued to work solidly, winning Oscars for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Best Years Of Our Lives and inspired a young Marlon Brando.
1954: THE MUSICAL
Starring: Judy Garland and James Mason
Budget: $5,019,770 (estimated)
In the fifties, the movie was re-imagined as a Technicolor musical billed as “The most awaited event in the history of entertainment”. It was a comeback vehicle for Judy Garland who played Esther as a showgirl opposite James Mason “clinging desperately to the only live he has ever known” as Norman. Garland’s movie had many parallels to her life — including a scene where she struggles with Norman’s addiction, saying she “hates him” for lying and adding, “I hate me, too”. The movie was a box office success and nominated for six Oscars including Garland for Best Actress, which she lost to Grace Kelly. Garland would make just four more movies, one of which, Judgment At Nuremberg, won her an Oscar, before she died of an overdose aged 47. James Mason conversely, worked non-stop up to his death aged 75.
1976: THE ROCK TALE
Starring: Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson
Budget: $6,000,000
Twenty-two years later the movie was reborn as a showboat for Barbra Streisand who co-produced it with Jon Peters. She changed the script to be set in the music industry, following aspiring singer Esther Hoffman. Kris Kristofferson was John Norman Howard, an alcoholic and now also drug-addled rock star. Streisand had originally offered the part to Elvis Presley and Kristofferson later said, “Filming with Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of the movies”. Director Frank Pierson was equally scathing, penning a tell-all feature about working with the diva which printed before the movie came out. “I look at Barbra. She’s not listening,” he wrote. Despite the furore, the movie was a commercial success, won a Best Music Oscar for Streisand’s Evergreen and was nominated for three more.
2018: THE MODERN MUSE
Starring: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
Budget: $36-40 million
Closest in storyline to Streisand’s effort, this time it was the leading man behind the reboot, with Bradley Cooper’s passion project seeing him preform as director, co-writer, producer and leading man. Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a country-rock star who helps propel aspiring singer Ally to stardom, while fighting a losing battle with alcohol. Cooper and Lady Gaga’s chemistry is tangible and the script explores both characters deeper than its predecessors. Critics have been wowed. Sunday Telgraph film reviewer Nick Dent gave it four stars. “Cooper disappears completely into the character of the grizzled rocker,” he said.
Lady Gaga’s casting was “a stroke of genius”, he said. “Just like Garland and Streisand before her, she invented her own vision of what stardom could look like; the film feeds into her personal mythology like it was always meant to be.”
It is a safe bet to assume it will dominate in awards season.