Critical Film Studies (Film - Purple Rain)

This is my first time writing to this board so I'm not sure how it works. Am I doing it right?

One thing I found very surprising about Purple Rain is how it goes out of its way to demystify Prince.
In 1984, Prince was already a superstar. He was controversial and unlike anyone else. Part of his appeal was surely his otherworldly sexuality and his mystique. And yet his film debut, released at the height of his career so far, deliberately diminishes and humanizes him at every turn. The whole film hinges on his flaws: his inability to trust, to relinquish control or change, his powerlessness in the face of his home life. The story is not one of "The Kid" finally being recognized for his talent, but of his learning to recognize the talent in others (his band, his father, Apollonia).

The film is littered with plot points and scenes meant to show Prince as nothing more than a dumb, scared (if talented), kid: From his first meeting with Apollonia to the reception his performances get, to the scenes of him alone in his tiny bedroom. The choice to have the biggest performance, the breakthrough career moment, the title song of the whole friggin movie be written, in fiction, by someone other than The Kid was mind-blowing to me. I can't think of any other star who would make the choice to give up the credit for the sake of an honest story.

For someone often thought of as ego-driven and larger than life, and for a film that, on the surface, is a pure vanity project, this is a remarkably small, humble and honest piece....

Apart from one thing:

The Performances.

Much like The Kid, it seems like Prince couldn't bend when it came to the performances. Each one of them is an incredible feat: electric, ecstatic, mind-blowing. I've watched just the performances several times since I first saw Purple Rain and they've fast become some of my favorite musical scenes ever.

And each of them is followed up by Morris Day or Billy Sparks saying how they're terrible and the crowd hates them!

It seems that no matter how much work you do to demystify or humanize Prince, once he gets on that stage he becomes what he truly is: A transcendent superstar who defies categorization or explanation.

Stray Observations: Man, they really go out of their way to make Morris Day seem like a dick here, eh? Remember that one scene where he has Jerome put that lady in a dumpster?

First off, this is a very beautifully shot film. Especially the vivid lighting in the club. The murky purples still seem very modern and I can't think of another movie to compare them to.

It's hard to evaluate Purple Rain as a narrative movie. It has a lot of conviction in it's emotions, and very little in it's plot. At times it seems like it's jumping between different stories, just assuming the conventions of each genre will be sufficient to keep us engaged.

Similarly, Prince's central performance is equal parts comically empty and self-aware gestures (anything involving his sunglasses or motorcycle made me laugh) and deeply felt outbursts that overlapped with his onstage singing and growling. I expected the campier parts of the movie, but the more raw and genuine stuff surprised me. At their best, usually involving Prince's parents and their intense, abusive relationship, segments of Purple Rain provide a context and origin for the songs Prince performs and his public persona, which had previously been sometimes off-putting or plastic to me.

I like everything Matt said about Prince's approach to playing "The Kid" as a version of himself, emphasizing his vulnerability, his childish cruelty at times, and his need to evolve. It reminded me of James Dean in East Of Eden, where his self-effacing, realistic portrayal of arrested adolescence got him memorialized as something like a pure, immortal sex symbol.

When I say the plot lacked conviction, or was ancillary, I mean the backstage music business stuff where Prince's music is somehow not a hit and has his band on the verge of losing their spot in the club's regular rotation, and this intersects with Prince's immature aloofness in refusing to play a song written by his bandmates. When he does finally play it, as a reaction to his Father shooting himself, "Purple Rain" is born and instantly solves all the movie's problems (followed by a closing montage of songs where Prince is much more upbeat and playful).

But it's generally worth it in the support it gives to the excellent musical numbers, and also to the various characters, almost all of whom seem to be played by musicians associated with Prince, making the multi-layered world of the movie both more authentic and more self-reflexive.

For me, Morris Day steals the movie as a comic villain who's always working an angle but never entirely unsympathetic. He's cartoony, but at the same time his cool feels more real and human than Prince's. He seemed like the star in his own, different movie, who contrasted and intersected with the movie Prince was in and kept it lighter.

Apollonia, by contrast, gives the most normal and polished performance, but also the least interesting. She reminded me of the female lead in a lot of the 80s movies I saw as a kid, a lot of "Aw shucks, how did I end up here?" and plucky "I'll show you, Mister!" Being a true Prince vehicle, Purple Rain's immediate and unquestioning sexuality didn't leave her a lot of room for inner life.

On the flip side, it found space for grace notes for virtually every other character. Prince's Father is a powerful mix of poise and brutality, self-awareness and self-destruction, that collects in brief scenes the whole power, influence and mystery he has in his son's life. He regrets his actions even as he commits them. But Morris similarly is seen leaning against the wall, reflecting on a particularly cruel and unfair insult he's lobbed at Prince moments earlier when showing off for his friends. Or, my favorite, the waitress who likes Prince only to be ignored by him is the first one to arrive in his dressing room after he sings "Purple Rain" moved to tears by her understanding, only for him to brush past her one last time.

(Matt also mentioned Morris Day having a woman tossed in a dumpster, albeit emerging without any dirt on her. The movie's treatment of women throughout isn't really defensible, but I think we'll find that about a lot of older movies viewed thru any type of modern lens.)