Michael Jackson: A Life in Film

Michael Jackson's impact on the art of the music video is as indisputable as his impact on the art of popular music. But the two media are of course not separate from each other; as compelling as his videos often are aesthetically, the insights they provide — into his music, his personae, his world view — go beyond what can be gleaned from the music itself. The videos comment on the music, and, considered chronologically in the context of his albums, paint an appropriately complex picture of one of music's most complex figures.

Off the Wall

Released pre-MTV, Off the Wall became a sensation when the music video was still a cultural trifle. The two videos from the album, "Rock With You" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," are reminiscent of Jackson's later work only in that they feature spectacle beyond that of Jackson's dancing. Later videos would be principally narrative-driven, starting as soon as the first single off his next album, but at first Jackson simply offered impassioned lip synchs of the hit tunes, augmented by surprisingly effective blue-screen and split-screen effects. From a technological perspective, what's notable here is how good they look and how well they use special effects compared to other artists' later, early-MTV travesties like "Mickey."

Jackson dances exquisitely in both videos, particularly "Don't Stop." These are disco tracks, and like everything else that was ever associated with disco, they're heavy on the sexuality ("And we're gonna ride that boogie/ Share that beat of love"), but Jackson's dancing in both videos stops far short of the overt gestures — the crotch-grabbing, et al — that would come to typify him. He simply exudes the carnal energy of a young man out on the dance floor, and that's plenty.

Thriller

The most important video from Thriller isn't the title track; it's "Billie Jean," one of the masterpieces of the form. The Off the Wall videos introduced the basic ideas of performance and dance to Jackson's film palette, as well as that can't-be-neglected formalwear — these elements all appear in "Billie Jean." This video's most significant additions to the mix are supernatural trickster-god mischief; the surprise or shock ending, which will pop up time and again in these short films; supernarrative — a video story that's separate from the song's story; and cats.

"Billie Jean" also has the privilege of being attached to perhaps Jackson's very best song, and so the video's power includes that weight, along with the magnetism of Jackson's still-daunting, surgically unenhanced physical presence. But over the song's narrative of Jackson insisting (or, more accurately, trying to convince himself) that an acquaintance's child is not his son, the video tells the story of a paparazzi pursuing, but failing to capture, Jackson, who glides through the video turning everything he touches into a source of white light and then disappearing without warning. The climax of the video is when he gets into and disappears from Billie Jean's bed, leaving the paparazzi without a story and with the attention of two policemen who frown on peeping into bedroom windows.

More fascinating than all of that, however, is the video's technique, courtesy director Steve Barron, which today would seem like an overeager film student's foray into Eisensteinian montage but then was appropriately forward-thinking and groundbreaking. The video's chronology collapses in on itself, whether you're considering its presentation of the same moment through excellent split-screen work, the manner in which footage is repeated and recontextualized throughout the video (think of the white cat turning into the tabby) or the way that freeze-frames are flashed on the screen in advance of the shot that contains them. While Jackson would have equally technically intricate videos later, only one approached "Billie Jean's" innovation, and none surpassed its artistry.

The other two significant videos from Thriller — "Thriller" and "Beat It" — would fully flesh out Jackson's bag of tricks; these three videos are the touchstone for almost all of Jackson's later video work. "Beat It" is his first treatment of black youth and the streets; it's also the first to suggest that dancing together is tantamount to getting along. And both "Beat It" and "Thriller" became famous for their mass choreography, another Jackson trademark.

"Thriller," directed by John Landis, changed the landscape of the music video, cementing in viewers' minds the potential of videos to be both short films and major media events. In terms of how it contributes to our understanding of Jackson, however, "Thriller" only really innovated in two ways: its expense and its introduction of The Girl (also featured in "The Girl Is Mine," a very minor work that's only worth mentioning because it has more levity than any prior video, although the subsequent "Thriller" has its share of laughs.) The most instructive part of "Thriller" is how it puts a finer point on the matter of Jackson's interest in the trickster: Over the course of the video, Michael goes from a serious, clean-cut teenager to a were-creature (it may be a wolf, but it has cat eyes); then, from a slightly rougher-edged, comic youth to a zombie; and, finally, from a safe, trustworthy beau back into his cat-eyed self. The triple feint is crucial to Jackson: He repeatedly asks you not to limit him to the blandest persona he presents. The last shot of the cat eyes is a joke in "Thriller," but he'll do something very similar nine years later and won't be kidding.

Bad

Bad features two masterpieces of Jackson's video repertoire, a handful of great entertainments and one genuine car wreck of a short film.

One of the masterpieces, "Leave Me Alone," was actually a late addition to Bad; Jackson had penned a diatribe against tabloid culture (his first of many) and had animator Jim Blashfield create the accompanying video. The video brilliantly conceives of Jackson as a passenger on an amusement park ride, and that ride, you realize, turns out to be built in and on the sleeping body of Jackson himself, tied down Gulliver-style by dogs in suits. (Jackson really harps on the cat/dog thing.) When Jackson awakes, the construct built around him is crushed — the video seems to be warning gossipmongers of the singer's pending wrath against them, but time would prove that promise empty, unless you count a series of increasingly acerbic songs.

The other masterpiece is "Bad." The most interesting thing about "Bad" is how out of context the video proper is from the short film that surrounds it. "Bad" is directed by Martin Scorsese, with his technical dream team: Michael Chapman behind the camera and Thelma Schoonmaker in the editing bay. Having brought us Raging Bull earlier in the decade, they now offer up another tale of how violence divides two brothers, shot in glorious black and white. It's basically about how a prep-school attendee, played by Jackson, returns to the inner city and is ragged on over Christmas break by his brother (Wesley Snipes) and their friends, a group for whom any high school whatsoever was not necessarily in the picture. (They think Jackson's character is attending college.) Tired of the harassment, Jackson agrees to prove his worth and help stage a mugging, but has a last-minute change of heart which causes his brother to insist that Jackson defend his clearly dubious "badness."

The film switches to color now and the traditional video begins, with Jackson — who had been wearing a hooded sweatshirt but now re-appears in a leather jacket surrounded by tough-looking hangers-on — now going to great lengths to explicate his badness quotient as he and the other dancers strut across the subway floor. The group choreography here lends itself more to leaping and sweeping group movements than earlier Jackson videos — old-fashioned musical stuff no doubt attributable to Scorsese's interests — and it is, please pardon the expression, a little gay. (The falsetto back-up singers intoning "He's bad, bad/ Really, really bad" doesn't help.) But it's still a powerhouse, particularly considered as a fantasy expression in the context of its bookends. Where the traditional video leaves off is when Jackson breaks into an a capella rendition of select lines from the song, which redistribute the emphasis of the lyrics, explaining that while his brother does bad things and is likely to bring down the law on him, Jackson has an indefatigable inner badness that's disassociated from the victimization of others. Having said his piece, Jackson and his brother clasp hands and walk their separate ways. As the film closes, Jackson, back in his hooded sweatshirt, doesn't seem any more settled or self-confident than he did when his brother first questioned his machismo.

The long version of the video doesn't give you the unassailable sense of Jackson's toughness that the short version does, but the short version is the only one that gets airplay anymore. Similarly, the circulated version of "The Way You Make Me Feel," which is basically a high-energy catcall, excises an opening portion that shows a group of black men taunting women and cajoling one another in the street one night; Jackson is trying to keep up, but he's not seasoned enough. Dejectedly splitting from the crowd, he's called on by an older man who, basically, encourages Jackson to "be himself."

Those are significant words, because it offers a different meaning for Jackson's album persona — the leather jacket; the throaty growl on some tracks; the hard, guitar-driven rock. There's a toughness, but it's not really a street toughness; Jackson fully expects to be able to dance away. The short form of the "Bad" video only gives you the dancing and the bragging, and suggests that the badness Jackson is calling down upon himself is a thuggish, leather-jacket kind of badness — just what he's trying to eschew in the long version, which is really another reiteration of how artistic expression can smooth over potentially violent personal differences a la "Beat It." But, again, if the goal is to make Jackson seem more macho as he enters the hair-rock era, then the short version does that more expediently than the long. Who's zooming who, however? I suspect Jackson the artist prefers the long version and the complete story it tells, whereas Jackson the master marketeer is happy to drop "Bad's" subtext; ditto the removal of the emasculating part of "The Way You Make Me Feel" for mass audiences. (The long versions of both videos are not available on any major Jackson video collections, but can be seen online.)

Other notable Bad videos include "Dirty Diana," a concert-type video accompanying a song about the wiles and easy virtue of a groupie — it's the "Billie Jean" prequel — that plays up a sort of Prince-ish sexuality and ends with the stinger of Jackson leaving the stage and being surprised to find Diana in his car. "Speed Demon" is Jackson at his most tricksterish; the long version has him escaping from rabid, Claymation-created fans on a studio tour before launching into the short verion, which is Jackson as a Claymation rabbit on a motorcycle chase through city streets. The Jackson rabbit switches identities throughout the video, including becoming Tina Turner and Pee-Wee Herman, and at the end of the video the rabbit persona gets the best of Jackson by forcing him to give away at least one autograph. It's a clever video on the fringes of the Jackson canon, but it definitely reinforces the supernatural-mischief motif.

Bad's 800-lb. gorilla, however, is "Moonwalker," the central feature on the Moonwalker tape. In brief: Three kids are looking for Michael one night when they spot him coming out of his brownstone — but he's instantly fired upon by minions of Mr. Big (Joe Pesci). Flashback to when Jackson and the three kids were out playing in the woods one day when a search for a stray dog led them to Mr. Big's lair, where they overheard a plot to get drugs into the veins of every kid everywhere forever. Once discovered, Michael and the kids flee, but — flashback over — Mr. Big has found him, and so Jackson runs for a very long time; finally cornered and out of resources, Jackson remembers he can turn into a super-car and zooms away in a ball of fire. Jackson meets the kids outside of The '30s Club; once Jackson enters the club, it's "Smooth Criminal" — a fun video with Jackson rasp-singing in an almost Godfather-y voice as he works his way through patrons indulging in the club's various vices (gambling, brawling, whoring) — before Mr. Big reappears and kidnaps one of the kids, ending the video. Drawn to Mr. Big's lair, both Jackson and the kidnaped child are assaulted until Jackson remembers he can turn into a super-robot that can turn into a super-spaceship. Deus ex machina ensues; having defeated everyone, Jackson-as-spaceship flies off, leaving the kids teary and disillusioned until Jackson-as-pop-star re-emerges from the fog one night, and takes the kids to a concert at which he gives them back their dog and launches into a head-scratching performance of The Beatles' "Come Together."

This is Jackson at his most out-of-control; it's a kid's movie with a quasi-orgy in its center (that's an interesting moment in the "Smooth Criminal" video, which had a different director than the rest of the film) that's made with all the discipline of a 6-year-old. ("Oh, and he can turn into a car, too! With rocket engines!") It really is drudgery to watch, although the camera loves Jackson. As much as anything, it reinforces the need for Jackson to have strong (and strong-willed) collaborators; without them, he gets away with stuff like "Moonwalker."

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