The Standpoint

THIS WAS IT!

by

Abhishek Mukherjee

It was announced in March by the man himself--

“I’ll be performing the songs my fans want to hear.”

“This is it. I mean this is really it. This is the final…this is the final curtain call.” (pause). “Ok? And…um…I’ll see you in July,”

The July never came.

Tickets for Michael’s concerts had sold at a rate of 11 per second. The concerts were arguably the biggest musical event of the year, and expected to be larger than life.

Efforts made to reveal the moonwalker preparing for live performances after a twelve-year long gap culminated into Kenny Ortega’s ‘This is it’ - a much-anticipated movie released as a documentary-feature.

A sincere attempt at showcasing the master artist at work, the film portrays the man as gentle and simple – at the same time a realistic perfectionist keen to ensure the best quality performance for his fans. Whether jamming to ‘Jam’, or lifting the hands and legs together with his band of dancers in ‘They don’t really care about us’, Michael seemed to have complete sense of technical details for the perfect music and rhythm.

He ensured that he does not give it his all in the rehearsals, to finally let loose on the day. Sometimes, just gingerly “luke-warming” and looking for the best possible rhythmic collaboration and synchronisation of dance with the music, he seemed to genuinely enjoy the moments, and the prospect of another gift for his fans.

Thematic videos of many of his popular songs such as ‘Smooth Criminal’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Earth Song’ were re-created bigger and exciting to capture the imagination of everyone.

And his team was just in a trance. To be able to share space with the man himself was simply overwhelming.

“Michael has a depth to him that people don’t really know.”

“This is a dream come true. When MJ comes in the room his presence is just amazing….”

The movie is not another spectacle of miraculous song-dance-action, but the revelation of the real man, as calm and wise as a seventy-year old and physically as young as a twenty-something. He wanted to be on stage for his fans and also for his children, as in his own words ‘they were old enough to appreciate it and he was still young enough to do it.’

His wish, however, unfulfilled:

“It’s an adventure…it’s a great adventure. Wanna take them places where we’ve never been before…wanna show them time that we’ve never seen before…”