By Megan Bianco
Like many people over the past couple of weeks, the death of Prince has caused me to revisit the musical prodigy’s impressive resume.
When I was in high school I added my parents’ CD copies of “1999” and “Purple Rain” to my iTunes files and eventually included his greatest hits. And if I were being honest, I think I listened to them slightly more than Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” though both were quality pop artists.
As a teenager, I watched “Purple Rain, but I don’t think it had much of an effect on me because it was a little before my time. I couldn’t connect with the mid ‘80s in all its glam glory. So I think I would consider myself a casual fan of Prince, and Michael Jackson, someone who appreciated all their talent and contribution to music.
With the exception of catching censored parts of the film sporadically on VH1 or MTV, last week was the second time I viewed Purple Rain in its entirety. And this time I had a bit more pop-culture history to draw on.
The movie’s always gotten mixed reviews, and it’s not really a surprise when you watch it. The musicians’ acting is bad, the direction is sloppy, and there’s some minor misogyny — Apollonia Kotero in lingerie for most of the film. But the reason the film was a box-office hit 32 years ago and still gets regular airplay on TV is because it captured a specific period in the early 1980s.
During the concert sequences, everyone from the band to the audience is smoking and drinking; boys and girls are wearing flamboyant make-up; some are wearing jeans and a T-shirt; and fog is everywhere. In a way, Purple Rain reminds me of an ‘80s “Saturday Night Fever.”
Even with such popular artists as Prince, Morris Day & the Time, and Apollonia 6 jamming on stage, we still get a story that includes some pretty dark themes. Prince, or ‘the Kid’ as he’s called in the feature, still lives at home with an abusive father and depressed mother; Apollonia is practically selling herself to get a stage gig at the same club as the Kid and Morris; there’s more than one occurrence of domestic violence; and suicide is attempted. Ironically, in such a heavy R-rated film, no drugs are used or seen at all (most likely because of Prince’s drug-free image, though has death may have been due to an overdose of prescription painkillers).
The more I watched the musical, the more I felt like Prince was trying to do for his movie what Michael Jackson did for the music video turned short film “Thriller” one year earlier. In both “Purple Rain” and “Thriller” it’s not about the acting, dialogue or plot — it’s about the music.
Essentially Purple Rain is a 100-minute music video, but it’s a decent one. Granted there are some things that are stuck in the ‘80s, such as one of Morris’ exes being tossed into a dumpster for comedic effect and later the outdated insult “faggot” being used toward the Kid. But the feel and fun of the songs and the vibe of the musical performances make up for it. The soundtrack to “Purple Rain” was Prince’s most successful album and stayed number one on the charts for five months, and he even won Best Original Song at the Oscars for the title track.
“Let the music do the talking,” as Aerosmith once sang, and that’s exactly what “Purple Rain” and Prince have been doing for 32 years and will continue doing.
Megan Bianco is a Southern California-based movie reviewer and content writer with a degree from California State University Northridge.
