Lady Gaga dreams of being a singer, but can only make cameos at a local drag bar.
Until he met a famous country singer named Jack Mayne, he took her straight to the stage and gave her the opportunity to sing and romantic love.
With the rise of girls, men's careers are increasingly losing.
This is the story of [the birth of a star], and this story has been filmed for four generations.
©Lady Gaga version [The Birth of a Star] stills 2018
From the Jenny Gaynor edition in 1937 to the Judy Garland edition in '54, to the Barbara Streisand edition in '76 to this year's Lady Gaga edition.
The latest edition, self-directed and self-starred by Bradley Cooper, has grossed more than $178 million in North America and has made it onto the best lists for many major awards of the season.
However, the success of each previous edition is actually no less than that.
The dream story of this "ugly duckling" girl seems to have established a cultural community of American people spanning generations.
© Four versions of the poster are the 1937 Jenny Gaynor edition, the Judy Garland edition in 1954, the Barbara Streisand edition in 1976, and this year
Just as each of its versions was starred by the "Lady Gaga" of the time, each version was part of the culture of the time.
From the 30s to the present, it almost just strings together a brief history of the development of song and dance films, and even the "history of male sacrifice" in the male perspective.
The 1954 version, starring Judy Garland and directed by George Cook, is considered the best of several.
It is based on the 1937 william H. Thompson novel. The original version of the same name directed by A. Wellman and starring Jenny Gaynor.
Before she starred, Jenny Gayno was already the winner of the first Academy Award for Best Actress.
She became famous by starring in films such as [Sunrise] by Maunau, "Seventh Heaven" by Frank Bauschacher, and became a hit with Charles Farlier in the 1920s and 1930s.
For many years in a row, she became one of the highest-grossing stars in the United States at that time, which also became the opportunity for her to star in [The Birth of a Star]."
©37 years of Jenny Gaynor's version of [The Birth of a Star] stills
A girl who came to Hollywood from the countryside to find her dreams, met a male star whose fame has been in decline for a long time, and she gets opportunities and love.
Typical romantic light comedy.
But there is a sad ending, the alcoholic and helpless man is getting down and down, and finally sinks into the water to save his wife's career.
[The Birth of a Star] was a huge success, soaring at the box office, with multiple Oscar nominations.
Interestingly, it has been controversial in film history, and it is so similar to a 1932 script called "Hollywood Values"!
© [Hollywood Values] poster
Except for the original happy ending, which was changed to tragedy, the story line has hardly changed, and George Cook is the director of this "Hollywood Value".
Twenty years later, it was he who directed the second edition [A Star Is Born], he said, because he couldn't turn down Judy Garland.
Among the greatest actresses of the century selected by the American Film Institute at the end of the century, Judy Garland's name was put together with Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and others for recognition.
And when people think of her, the first thing that comes to mind is the brave and kind little girl Dorothy in [The Wizard of Oz].
© Judy Garland in [The Wizard of Oz].
The song she sang softly in it, "Over the Rainbow," was one of the most successful pop hits of the 20th century, and "The Wizard of Oz" won her an Oscar special award.
Garland signed a contract with MGM at the age of 13 and starred in [The Wizard of Oz] at the age of 16, debuting as a child star.
After that, she made a series of song and dance films for MGM and became a famous song and dance film star at that time.
Then, by the time she starred in "A Star Is Born," George Cook added a lot of cabaret to the film.
© Judy Garland has a lot of cabaret elements in "The Birth of a Star."
The original version is not actually a song and dance film, and this version of 54 years has become a classic because of Judy Garland and the song and dance adaptation.
In the 1950s, it was the stage when the development of song and dance films reached its peak.
Hollywood song and dance films began to develop in the 1930s, and emerged in the context of the Great Depression of the 1930s and 1940s, becoming one of the most popular genres of cinema.
In the 1950s, as Technicolor's color technology matured, MGM hired Vincent Minnelli, a director of cabaret films known for its colors and costumes.
His collaboration with Jean Kelly [An American in Paris] was a great success.
After that, it was Jean Kelly who sang and danced solo in the rain with an umbrella in his hand.
©Stills from the 1952 [Song in the Rain] classic
Against this backdrop, it's not hard to understand George Cook changing the original [The Birth of a Star] to a song and dance film version.
And the cabaret girl Judy Garland is the soul of its beautiful notes.
In '76, the version starring Barbara Streisand was the third version of "A Star Is Born."
It is also the closest to this year's new version.
It made a change in the plot, and the protagonist changed from an actress who dreamed of Hollywood to a musician who dreamed of Grammys.
©'76 Barbara Streisand version of [A Star Is Born] stills
After all, it was the '70s.
Rock 'n' roll music went through the beginning of the 50s, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 60s, and by the 70s, it really ushered in the era of a hundred flowers.
David Bowie painted alien makeup and stepped on his heels to set off a gorgeous rock and roll trend;
Johnny Lawton and his sex pistols cast a shocking "no future" in dull Britain, followed by young boys and girls;
Unwilling to be lonely, the black Sabbaths, throwing their dark, evil, restless, and doomsday emotions into the tyrannical chord, a new heavy metal voice was born.
Bands such as Zeppelin and Queen brought rock music into the stadium that can accommodate tens of thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of people, opening the stadium concert.
©The 76 version of [The Birth of a Star] stills is a response to the musical boom of the 70s
And don't forget, there's a thriving disco that has a place outside of rock 'n' roll.
It's been a 10-year period surrounded by all kinds of sounds.
The 76th edition of [A Star Is Born] is like a hybrid of the sounds of these 10 years.
Christopherson and Barbara Streisand starred the male and female protagonists as declining and rising rock stars, respectively.
Compared with the previous two versions, their love is also more developed in the direction of catching horses, and the overall style of the film is more inclined to rock and roll psychedelic and camp.
©Stills from the 76 version of [The Birth of a Star], the film adds a lot of hippie elements
Even if some people call it pretentious, it does not affect the great success of the film at that time.
It grossed more than $80 million at the local box office and received four Oscar nominations that year.
The song "Evergreen" sung by Streisand in the film not only won the Oscar for best original song, but also won the Grammy Award for Best of the Year.
Barbara Streisand also dramatically became a musician who won the Grammys both inside and outside the play.
Similarly, before starring in [The Birth of a Star], Streisand was already a successful all-round artist.
Streisand began her singing career and broadway performances at the age of 18, and was nominated for her first Tony Award at the age of 20.
© Barbara Streisand
At the age of 21, her debut album won two Grammys of the Year album and female singer honors, and it has historically remained on the charts for more than 18 months.
A year later, the song and dance drama "Wonderful Girl" pushed her to the status of a superstar in the theater world, and since then she has become a pillar of Broadway in the 60s, and is known as the "Queen of Broadway".
And the movie version of "Wonderful Girl" has brought her an Oscar-winning little golden man in one fell swoop.
© Barbara Streisand in [Wonderful Girl].
Throughout the sixties and seventies, she was one of the best-selling female artists on records, Broadway, television, and movies.
Not to mention, she later embarked on the path of directing, and the legendary experience of winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for the first filming of [Yantel].
Such a general life, even more legendary than the [Birth of a Star] script, is obviously the traffic topic behind the movie.
Lady Gaga is probably Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand of our time.
A regular visitor to the Grammys, the darling of the fashion industry, everywhere he goes, he is the focus of the crowd and the center of the universe.
Gaga couldn't be more a good fit to be the protagonist of "The Birth of a Star."]
© Gaga in [The Birth of a Star].
However, the director and actor himself Bradley Cooper shows staleness and narcissism in the film is disappointing.
Gaga is beautiful, her singing voice is sweet, and the script is old.
In 1932, six of the eight screenwriters in the luxurious screenplay that wrote the story, the original script of [The Value of Hollywood], were male screenwriters.
This is also similar to the male and female ratio of employees at that time.
The same story is told from the 30s to 2018, and it seems to construct a hidden Hollywood gender myth:
The birth of a female star comes from the great help and sacrifice paid by men.
This sacrifice even includes life (this narcissistic mentality of men can be seen from several versions of the ending).
He found her, he guided her, he helped her, and he eventually defended her highlight career in the manner of death.
Bradley Cooper's script is even more concerned with the decline and psychological change of male stars than in previous versions.
© [The Birth of a Star] stills
His repeated drunkenness and abstinence, his relationship with his brother and father, his pride and loss, almost occupy the entire second half of the film.
Instead, Gaga becomes a supporting character attached to a man, a wounded and loyal puppet, a simple symbol that lacks psychological depth.
In several versions, the top traffic female stars of the time were also used to star, called "The Birth of a Star".
The spotlight tends to hit men, and perhaps its more authentic name should be "the decline of a star."
Perhaps, this is why every few decades, there are always directors who are willing to pick it up and reshoot it.