Judy Garland's role in "A Star Is Born" is one of the greatest in film history and likewise the film itself is enhanced by the image of its star. Counting the original "What Price Hollywood?" (1932) and, now, with the 2018 Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga version, there've been five Hollywood iterations of this meta narrative of performers playing performers, but none of the others resonate at the level the 1954 one does due to both the fame of Garland, as both a film actress and singer--arguably the greatest performer ever recorded when combining the two talents--and compounded by her real-life image as a tragic figure. Moreover, her star and tragic images play into each other, as Hollywood cast her as the relatable girl-next-door type and a perpetual ingénue. The emotive and low-range of her contralto voice always made her seem more mature, too, even as a juvenile actor. When she sings such lyrics as, "the road gets rougher; it's lonelier and tougher," for the Oscar-nominated "The Man That Got Away" song in the nightclub scene, there's no doubt that she knows of what she speaks.
The film, too, was made something wonderful by Tinseltown and, then, quickly ruined--treated as another commodity to be cut to pieces and discarded by industry demands rather than be preserved and treasured. How utterly fitting that the picture's narrative takes place in the very same Hollywood (complete with Garland not being rightly honored at the Oscars, albeit in a different way than that of her character within the film). Today, we're left with an incomplete restoration. In other words, it's an imperfect picture, but so was its star, which only makes them more precious and beloved. It was imperfect to begin with, too. The early use of CinemaScope is a mixed blessing. Properly restored, the color and production design may be striking, but the anamorphic lenses create a shallow depth of field. Take the nightclub scene again, for instance, when Judy lunges forward in song, she's momentarily out of focus before it's conspicuously racked. And I don't know where the blame belongs for some awkward edits, such as the jump cut during the rear-projected driving scene. But, then, there are more moments that standout for their beauty, such as the process shot for the waves reflected in the glass of the beachfront home.
Perhaps, the picture was, if not still, overly long, as well. The stills added in 1983 to the recovered soundtrack, to approximate something of the original cut is interesting historically and for getting a fuller understanding of the narrative, but the picture would probably flow better, especially for casual viewing, without these scenes. The lengthy "Born in a Trunk" number in the film-within-the-film, allegedly added without director George Cukor, gets some of the blame here, too, but its layered thoroughness is congruent with the picture's self-reflexivity. Like the outer narrative, it's part semi-biographical of its star, with her being born into show business, then reflects the narrative we've already seen a version of in her being discovered by an older man. It's sort of a film-within-a-film-within-another-film sequence--building the picture up to four levels before intermission: the story told in "Born in a Trunk," the storyteller character played by Vicki Lester in the musical film mise-en-abyme, Garland's Vicki Lester/Esther Blodgett character in the main outer story, and, finally, the real Judy Garland/Frances Gumm, with each narrative playing off the others.
Some of the musical numbers aren't anything special, but besides the ones aforementioned, "Someone at Last" appreciably makes some fun of filmmaking and musicals in particular. Judy was an amusing comedienne when given the opportunity. Here, she does a Charlie Chaplin shrug before launching into an impersonation of Marlene Dietrich--20 years before Madeline Kahn was nominated by the Academy for a similar parody in "Blazing Saddles" (1974). Although, since this was 1954, after all, Judy, then, mocks ethnic stereotypes. Oh well, she, at least, left out the blackface this time when singing "Swanee," which is best remembered as sung by blackface performer Al Jolson. The sequence involving Garland singing "Lose That Long Face," by contrast, is emotionally devastating, as her up-beat song-and-dance performance stands beside her hysterical and weeping confession in her dressing room.
Moreover, any qualms in the case of this film seem beside the point; this is Judy's picture. Part of this is her camp appeal and status as a gay icon--how she transgresses traditional Hollywood aesthetics of beauty and even emotional stasis, then brings the house down with her singing. Having Cukor, who besides being gay, understood production design and performance (the so-called "woman's director"), as director here certainly helped. Additionally, whereas others have suggested the character of Esther's friend Danny as being secretly in love with her, I prefer a queer reading of him--the on-screen representation of the friends of Dorothy. Note that he's the one who supports her in her darkest moment.
What makes Judy's performance doubly transcendent is that she's effectively occupying two characters: both the one she physically plays, the protégé whose star is on the rise, as well as the part played by James Mason as her alcoholic lover whose star is waning. From this perspective, this is a very dark construction. He's the tragic image of Judy's real-life tribulations, abuse, drug addiction and otherwise--that shadow occupying a space between the surface of the screen projecting her acclaimed comeback in "A Star Is Born" and the light from Judy's star backstage. He literally shadows her in an inebriated state to join her in her first stage performance in the film. Although I wonder what would've been the result had Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart or Frank Sinatra--all of whom were considered at one point--been cast as Judy's co-lead (likewise had William Powell taken an expanded press agent's part), Mason does admirably here; while he doesn't sing, he has one of the more memorable voices in film history, which compliments Garland's remarkable voice well. Like Mason's character, we also sense "that little something extra" in her voice, or infer it from her appearance or a look here or there, of an inner torment shadowing her. Indeed, Judy's star was born and shone brightly, but she had few great performances left by this point, before she burned out all too quickly and devastatingly.
