Welcome
to today’s extra-long post. The review
will be coming, I promise, but bear with me while I get some Prince ramblings
out of the way first. For me, Prince’s
death was a lot like David Bowie’s. I’ve
never been a “fan” on his – not because I don’t like him, but just because I’ve
never really sought him out. I was more
aware of him as a cultural icon than anything else. I knew that he was weird and wonderful, I
knew about the love symbol, and I knew that he was a Minnesota boy, which I
loved. Truth be told, my familiarity
with Prince was even thinner than my familiarity with Bowie. At least with Bowie, I knew a handful of his
more famous songs, and I knew his voice well enough that I could probably
recognize him on songs I didn’t know.
But I can honestly say that the only song I knew that Prince wrote was “Purple
Rain,” and 1) that’s only because I’d heard of this movie and 2) unless I heard
the title in the chorus, I wouldn’t have known that’s what it was. We’re talking very little Prince exposure, people.
But it
still hit me hard to hear that he’d passed.
Like Bowie, he seemed like the sort of person who wasn’t really meant to die, a strange, ethereal
creature who would just glide off to the stars when his time came (granted,
Bowie hit the “alien” button a lot harder than Prince ever did, but it’s still
much the same idea.) And so, I smiled
sadly when I heard about the 35-W bridge in Minneapolis being lit purple all
weekend, and I read tributes and remembrances online, and I found videos to
give me a better picture of this icon beyond the ruffles and heels. This last point is the important one, because
if you loved Prince, you won’t be surprised to learn that what I heard blew me the hell away.
One of
the first clips I found was his Superbowl halftime show from 2007, where he
brought the house down in pouring rain.
As I looked for more, I heard about SNL’s “Goodnight, Sweet Prince”
special, so I watched that on Saturday night.
I’d remembered the old “Prince Show” sketches with Fred Armisen and Maya
Rudolph (it occurs to me now that these are probably where most of my original Prince
education came from,) and the performance clips cemented a few things that I’d
already strongly begun to suspect from my YouTube browsings. First, Prince could put on a show.
SNL musical guests can be hit-or-miss for me, even if I’m a fan of the
band in question, and it feels like many have a show-up-play-go-home vibe. But each Prince appearance was a full-out
performance, delivering excellent music, stunning visuals, and infectious
energy. Second, I’m pretty sure the name
of the game with Prince was “versatile.”
Everything about him – from his writing style, to his singing voice, to
his multi-instrument talents, to his signature fashions – was so varied and
wide-reaching. (Also, his guitar solos
are so badass. I’ve been thinking about
this for a few days now, and there’s no other word I can use to describe
them. Such displays of his immense
talent, blended with such amazing musicality.)
By the time the special got to the clip of his impromptu performance at
the after party for SNL’s 40th anniversary and I watched the
celebrities in formal wear filming Prince on their phones because they were so
blame excited, I was full-on grinning behind watery eyes.
This is
around the time that I heard my local cinema was doing special showings of Purple Rain. By this point, I’d pretty much decided that,
if I wasn’t currently a Prince fan, I really needed to be, so I ordered my
ticket and saw the movie on Sunday night.
Again, my only prior knowledge of the film was that it was a movie
starring Prince with lots of popular music, which he wrote.
Plot
first. The Kid is an aspiring musician
working at the Minneapolis club First Avenue.
He has an arresting androgynous style, colossal talent, and, per the
club’s owner, a difficult time keeping butts in seats. A rival musician, the smug, slimy Morris,
wants to supplant the Kid by producing a new girl group, and the club owner has
warned the Kid that he’s out if Morris’s group takes off. Meanwhile, the Kid has an instant connection
with Apollonia, a young singer and dancer who’s new in town and dreams of
making it big. However, for these two,
music, stardom, and love are all battling for their affections, and it isn’t
clear which will win out for either of them.
We’ll
get the obvious critques out of the way first.
Virtually all the acting is patently ridiculous, much of the dialogue is
ludicrous, and the story is nothing to write home about. The movie deals with some heavy subject
matter that’s handled with all the subtlety of high melodrama crossed with an
afterschool special. But none of that is
the point.
The
point is, of course, the music. By the time
I saw the movie, my Prince searching had led to a couple of the most famous
numbers – namely “Let’s Go Crazy” (which I now love a lot) and “Purple Rain,” both of which were even cooler in the
context of the movie. Most of the others
were completely new to me, although I’d heard many of their names in online
chatter about favorite Prince songs/memories.
Throughout the movie, whenever I’d get to a chorus and heard a
recognizable title line, I’d think, “Oh, so that’s
‘The Beautiful Ones’/‘When Doves Cry’/‘I Would Die 4 U’!” each seemingly
catchier and better performed than the last.
Because, major “duh” moment, Prince is fantastic here, as a singer,
instrumentalist (mainly amazing
guitar, but some nice piano, too,) and electrifying stage performer. He’s so infinitely watchable that any gripes
about the acting or the script don’t matter.
I also
like how thoroughly the movie drives home the point that he’s fabulously
androgynous, stunningly odd, and
perfectly sexy, all at once. It’s
interesting to see the way he took looks that were allegedly the complete
opposite of male sexual appeal and proved, in essence, that the haters don’t have
a clue what they’re talking about. His
dressing and visual performance are very much about inviting the female gaze,
and it’s no surprise when Apollonia’s finds its way to him. (On this subject, probably the most genuinely
intriguing moment in the script, for me, is when the Kid runs off with Apollonia
and Morris, perceiving the Kid as having “stolen his girl,” shouts after him
that he’s a faggot. Even though he’s
just run off with Apollonia. Who’s he’s
obviously into. Who’s obviously into
him. And Morris obviously feels threatened
by him. Having a little trouble
reconciling gender expression with sexual orientation, are we?)
RIP,
Prince, an incredibly original and versatile talent who left us too soon. I wish I’d known just how wonderful he was
years ago, but I have a lot of catching up and a lot of unquestionably great
music to look forward to.
Warnings
Sexual
content, language, drinking, violence (including spousal abuse,) and thematic
elements.
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