This Is It

This Is It. It was, tho it’s hard (for me) to say exactly what ‘it’ was - or even approximately. I’ve never been much interested in anything Jackson-related. Certainly, Michael’s performance in what was merely a series of rehearsals is very impressive: both his singing (I didn’t realise how good he was) and dancing: at age 50, the movements of his feet still deceive the eye.


But two things were going on just as I tried to write this. A wonderful human being I know is dying, and posting his status at least once a day in Facebook (inviting comparisons of the value of one life over that of another, given that Michael died just after they finished shooting this film). And then iTunes shuffled in Beethoven’s op. 133. Whenever I hear the Grosse Fuge, intentionally or not, I have to stop whatever else I’m doing, and marvel. Which puts Michael Jackson’s choreography into radically different perspective.

This Is It (Kenny Ortega, 2009)


Garry Gillard | New: 6 March, 2017 | Now: 6 March, 2017