Creative Quotient
“This Is it,” Michael Jackson told his fans in London, announcing his forthcoming concert tour. “This is the final curtain call.” The curtain fell sooner than expected. What is left is this extraordinary documentary. Here was a spirit embodied by music. Michael Jackson was something else.

The energy, the precision which with he executes his lithe moves, all so characteristic of Michael Jackson, are all there. You marvel as he goes through the moves, and the accompanying pyrotechnics, chorus line routines, etc. with the finesse as he would on concert night.

This Is It offers Michael Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this summer in London’s O2 Arena. Chronicling the months from March through June, 2009, the film is drawn from more than 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. The newest one being the film’s title track This Is It.

Audiences get a privileged and up close look at Jackson as he has never been seen before in raw and candid detail. This Is It captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius, and great artiste at work as he creates and perfects his final show. Soft-spoken and courteous to his cast and crew, Michael with his director, Kenny Ortega, micro-manages the production. He corrects timing, refines cues, talks about details of music and dance. It is apparent that he was the auteur of his shows.

His audience in this case consists entirely of stagehands, technicians, and so on. These are working people who have seen it all. They love him. They’re not pretending. They love him for his music, and perhaps even more for his attitude. Michael plunges in with the spirit of a co-worker, prepared to do the job and go the distance.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
It might have been a hell of a show. Ortega and special effects wizards coordinate pre-filmed sequences with the stage work. He rides a cherry-picker high above the audience. There’s a horror movie sequence with ghouls rising from a cemetery (and ghosts that were planned to fly above the audience). Michael is inserted into scenes from Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart movies, and through clever VFX even has a machine-gun battle with Bogie. His environmental pitch is backed by rain forest footage.

Kenny Ortega, who was both Michael Jackson’s creative partner and the director of the stage show, is also directing the film.

The film has been assembled from rehearsal footage “captured by a few cameras,” an opening screen tells us, but they were professional high-definition cameras and the soundtrack is full-range stereo. The result is one of the most revealing music documentaries, that has been seamlessly edited and presented as an apt swansong to the King of Pop.

Dazzled by the stage goings-on, one tends to overlook the slow first half.