Michael Jackson is the memory of countless people's youth, everyone knows his great achievements in music, and less well known is that he also has a special love for the art of cinema.
Jackson's favorite film genres include old movies, sci-fi films, song and dance films, cartoons, his favorite movie stars are Charlie Chaplin, early Hollywood movie stars Gregory Pike, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando They are all Jackson's long-lost friends.
MJ and Elizabeth Taylor (1986)
Jackson once revealed in his personal diary that his goal was to surpass song and dance film legends Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, etc., "with Charlie Chaplin, Michelangelo, Walt Disney as the target, these people always demand perfect innovation." ”
As a result, Jackson has always held himself to the highest standards in his music career, shooting each of his song music videos as a short film, in which he not only performs song and dance, but also participates in the creation and production.
MJ and Jane Fonda (1981)
Next, the little movie is going to introduce you to another extraordinary achievement of Jackson, Jackson and his musical films, let's look back at the pop king's big screen road together.
1. The New Wizard of Oz (The Wiz, released in 1978)
The 2-hour, 14-minute film is based on the famous fairy tale The Wizard of Oz, which is entirely starred by black actors. The film was the first film appearance of 20-year-old Michael Jackson, who played the role of a scarecrow in the film, and Jackson became obsessed with film acting from this film.
Stills from The New Wizard of Oz
The film tells the story of Dorothy (Diana Rose), a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher, who stumbles into the mysterious "Oz Country", encounters scarecrows (Michael Jackson), Tin Man, and Coward lions along the way, and finally returns home safely after a series of adventures.
Jackson sang "You Can't Win" in the film, and he sang "Easy Forward" with Diana Rose.
MJ's scarecrow look
Objectively speaking, the influence of "The New Wizard of Oz" is far less than that of judy Garland's version of "The Wizard of Oz" in 1939, and the reason why this movie is still being paid attention to is mostly because of Michael Jackson.
2. Captain EO (released in 1986)
The 17-minute 3D sci-fi short film was funded by Disney and was only shown at Disneyland that year. The film was directed by Francis Coppola, director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, and starring Star Wars director George Lucas as executive producer.
Stills from Captain EO
The film tells the story of "Captain EO" (Michael Jackson) leading a group of stupid aliens to a dark planet ruled by the evil queen (Angelica Houston). "Captain EO" used his music and magic to impress the Queen and her men, and the planet began to become better.
Jackson sang the songs "Let's Change the World Here" and "The Other Side of Me" in this film.
Moonwalker (released in 1988)
It's an autobiographical musical film that Michael Jackson himself invested in, with the story written by Jackson himself and scripted by David Newman, who was a screenwriter for the first three Superman films.
Stills from Moonwalker
In the 1-hour, 33-minute film, Jackson combined the songs from his then-new album Awesome with a sci-fi blockbuster-like story that used the best cinematic special effects techniques of the time.
The film contains both a review of Jackson's solo singing career and a number of new songs jackson had just released at the time. The film also tells the story of a superhero-like character played by Jackson in a life-and-death struggle with a drug trafficker, and Jackson also showed his forty-five-degree tilt performance for the first time in the song and dance scenes.
Moonwalker was a hit at the time, and the music videos that followed sold well. But critics didn't get too high a rating of the film, which didn't quite fit the traditional concept of "movie" and looked more like a platter of song and dance and science fiction.
Jackson sang songs such as "Man in the Mirror", "Awesome", "The Devil of Speed", "Crime Master", and "Don't Disturb Me" in this film.
This distinctive film contains a variety of styles such as song and dance, science fiction, adventure, cartoons, etc., and the film has a strong Jackson personal style, which is a wonderful movie worth watching.
4. Ghosts (released in 1996)
The 39-minute short film was co-produced by Kingdom Entertainment, co-founded by Michael Jackson and Saudi Prince Alwaleed, directed by special effects guru Stan Winston, and co-written by Stephen King, Michael Jackson, and Stan Winston.
MJ and Stan Winston (1996)
The film tells the story of a strange man living in an ancient castle, and the mayor of the local town decides to drive this strange man away, so he brings a group of parents and children to the castle. The freak led a group of ghosts to give the visitors a strange and strange performance, and in the end, the freak not only succeeded in scaring off the mayor, but he also won the love of the local residents.
"Ghosts" MJ plays five corners
In this short film, Michael Jackson shows his powerful musical power and cool and gorgeous dance, in which he plays five characters: three ghost avatars of castle freaks, town mayors, and castle freaks. For this musical film, Jackson traveled to the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and participated in the French premiere of the film.
Jackson sang three songs in this film: "Pity", "Ghost", and "Thrilling".
Stills from "Ghosts"
The short musical was Jackson's powerful response to all the gossip about him, but due to the impact of the 1993 pedophile case, this elaborate musical film was met with market cold. Although the pedophilia case proved to be a false accusation years later, Jackson's musical career also suffered a major blow.
5. This Is It (released in 2009)
On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died suddenly. Sony Pictures has since edited rehearsal footage and interview footage from his unfinished London comeback concert," Which is It. The 1-hour, 51-minute film was directed by Kenny Ortega, who was also the general director of Jackson's "That's It" concert.
Stills from "That's It"
Jackson has been haunted by media demonization since the 1990s, and the film shows us the true side of a musical genius. The film not only shows Jackson's hard work in his music career, we can also see his humble and kind side to the staff and fans.
"That's It" was released simultaneously in nearly 100 countries and regions around the world that year, including Chinese mainland. The film eventually grossed $261 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all time.
Obviously, if Jackson were alive, he wouldn't have let the movie go to theaters in pursuit of perfection. But for his hundreds of millions of fans around the world, the film has the last of the best he left for the world, and it's the best memory of him.
MJ plays Agent M in Men 2
In addition to the above five films, Jackson also had cameo appearances in the 2002 science fiction film Men in Black 2 and a small-budget TV movie "Drifting Girl" in 2004, and since he has played small roles in these two films, he will not be introduced here.
In a 2001 tv interview, when a reporter asked Michael Jackson what else he wanted to do in his acting career, Jackson replied, "I love movies, I do more directing and acting work, and I think the most powerful form of artistic expression in the world is film." ”
MJ and Marlon Brando (2001)
Back in the 1980s, Jackson had the idea of playing the fairy tale character Peter Pan, and he planned to collaborate on this film with Steven Spielberg. In the early nineties, Spielberg made the film Captain Iron Hook, and Jackson quit the film because the character of Peter Pan in the film did not match Jackson's Peter Pan.
In the last years of his life, Jackson had been looking forward to starring or directing films on his own, and he had a number of film projects in the pipeline, including a film about horror writer Ellen Poe, but it was later lost for various reasons, which ultimately prevented him from actually starting his film career.
Moonwalker poster
Not fulfilling his film dreams may be a major regret for Michael Jackson, but fortunately he left behind several wonderful musical films in his lifetime. He is not only a pioneer in the era of musical MVs, but also redefines the expression of musical films in the pursuit of perfection in art.
It's been twelve years since Michael Jackson's death, and when we revisit the pop superstar's classic music videos and musical film masterpieces, his unique artistic charm will still shock and move us.