‘A Star Is Born’ (1954) Or A Star Dies? The Tragedy of ‘Norman Maine’ and Judy Garland.

Judge George J. Barnes

Were you Norman Maine the actor?

Norman Maine

Yes.

‘A Star Is Born’ is a 1954 American musical tragedy film written by Moss Hart, starring Judy Garland and James Mason, and directed by George Cukor. I am pretty sure most of you if not all of you who are reading this have seen the film. Probably quite a few times. I watched it again very recently on the BBC iplayer and this time maybe because I am much older (and possibly a little wiser) saw it in a completely fresh light.

I had in the past been completely overwhelmed by the star personality and performance of Judy Garland. And of course that had been the intention of her then husband Sidney Luft. On the face of it the film is the story of a vocalist with a dance band who catches the bleary, wistful eye of a topnotch male star, an alcoholic, now skidding on the downgrade, and gets his help toward motion-picture fame. Garland is incredible as singer, dancer and actor. Her performance is so perfect because it is so believable. I have no doubt she drew from her own life experience at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The core of the drama is the story of their marriage and their struggle to hold fast to the fragile thing of love as fame and failure divide them — and of the husband’s sacrifice at the end. But of course that is not the real core of the drama. That is what the publicists would have you believe. The core of the drama is as tragic as anything Sophocles or Shakespeare or Goethe had written.

The tragedy of a man propelled to God-like status who cannot abide the suffocating falseness of his life in the unreality of Hollywood. It is not a story about the rise of a star but the Faustian story of a man losing his soul to the Devil, slowly and publicly. He keeps going with the aid of alcohol which of course only exacerbates the pain and hatred that Norman Maine actually has for himself and the roles he is playing, as both Norman Maine (not his real name) and the characters he inhabits upon the silver screen. The film is the bleakest of tragedies balanced by some of the greatest songs and set pieces ever in a musical. For tragedy to really work and to make it really…