La rosa

This is a most exciting, gripping and fabulous film. Bette Midler's electrifying performance was worthy of best actress. The Janis Joplin type performance is stunning - her heart and soul is in her voice which pulsates and vibrates into your very being and sends shock waves of electricity tingling coolly down the back of your spine touching your very soul. This is a gut-wrenching experience that teaches nothing but makes you experience everything.

I love this film, the music and the voice and performance of Bette Midler. What a thrill it is to see an artist like Bette Midler perform to such an extreme and lofty level. What a dazzling radiant star that burned so brightly for so short a time and then was so suddenly and prematurely snuffed out. But when an artist gives so much of herself in every song she sings, it is no wonder that her life was slowly drained and eventually terminated by the fans who loved her.

I was working with The Canadian Film Institute in 1980, one year after the release of this film, and we put on a festival in Ottawa at the National Film Archives Theatre in July. We started out with "The Rose" at 8pm and then concluded with Crawley Films Academy Award winning Documentary film "Janis" at 11pm. It was just like a live Rock Concert. The crowd was in a frenzy. The only thing missing was Jimi Hendrix! Love this one. Real entertainment and excitement!

I should note that the director, Mark Rydell, does an overview commentary on the DVD version of this film and it is like taking a university level cinematic studies course. He makes interesting and relevant comments on every scene in the film and it is well worth listening to. Highly informative and fascinating!

In THE ROSE, Bette Midler plays a character based on the life of Janis Joplin. This one of those rare movies where everything works perfectly. Although she is amazingly talented, I sometimes wonder if Bette herself ever looks back on this movie and wonders how she managed such an amazing portrayal, in the same way that an Olympic skater reviews the footage of a 10.0 performance and is stunned that every blade stroke really is picture perfect.

While the storyline is memorable, and the acting superb, music outshines everything else. This is a movie from 1979, a time when rock and roll was still considered a lifestyle, and big rock bands were treated with absolute god-like adoration. Music mattered. It was a vital part of peoples' lives, and in THE ROSE it reaches the heights of excellence that normally exist only in memories that have improved with age. In this case, the music sounds as vibrant, exciting, and fresh today as when the movie debuted.

Bette belts out these songs with soul and fiery passion. The only other contemporary singer I can imagine doing a similarly credible job is Melissa Etheridge.

Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), but in retrospect I'm sure a lot of people regret not having awarded it to Bette Midler. This was not only an amazing, high caliber performance, but one that the passage of time has not diminished. This is a stunning movie. My dream is to rent a movie theatre for an evening, invite 30 friends, and relive this great experience.

Movie theatres used to be bigger, and were aptly called "movie palaces". THE ROSE deserves to be seen in such a grand venue. In the rich pantheon of movie history, THE ROSE is true royalty.

Note added October 9, 2007: It has been over a year, and I have no indication if anyone has ever read this review. If you read it, even if you give it a thumbs down, please answer whether the review was useful to you or not. I just am so curious if anyone will EVER read it. Right now, I'm listening to the soundtrack. This movie is timeless.

Originally intended as a flat-out biography of Janis Joplin's last days titled "Pearl" ( Janis' nickname and alter-ego ) the filmakers allegedly ran into privacy issues with the Joplin family which caused them to take a more "loosely based" approach of a "composite" character! Even Bette Midler herself had some ideas of her own that promised to provide a fictious portrayal! Since I had always found Janis Joplin's life both fascinating and tragic I had to write off seeing this movie in the theatres when it first came out in 1979.It wasn't until sitting through it on HBO that I could truly appreciate how utterly great Bette Midler's performance was!It certainly stayed close enough to the "truth" while adding some dynamic elements that a Janis biography portrayed by anyone else would have sorely lacked! Bette Midler is truely at her best! She pours out her heart and soul into this role and leaves nothing behind!Her rock concert scenes alone show her broad talent as a stage performer! Her scenes drunk & stoned give a rare glimpse into a lonely and crazy world of rock stars(like Janis Joplin was!) Her scene with her childhood country-music idol reminded me of a similar situation between Janis and Johnny Cash! Her former lesbian lover is reminiscent of Janis' one-time "biographer/lover" Peggy Caserta! The "homecoming" concert at the film's end reminded me of Janis' 10-year-highschool reunion which she attended only shortly before her death! All in All I regret not having seen (in the theatre) this "loosely based" and yet "thinly disguised" story of Janis!With Bette Midler at center stage it stands as both a glowing tribute to Janis AND Bette!

The Rose is about a woman whose sole purpose in life was to give of herself completely. Protected from adult responsibilities by her manager, "Rose" dug further and further inside herself, alienating all those who loved her. With an adolescent attitude toward life, she indulged in every excess. The poignant scene in the phone booth, where she overdoses on a lethal combination of pain killers, heroin, and booze is certainly worthy of an Academy Award. We feel her pain, and we really believe we are seeing a woman in the last hour of her life. Killing herself before our eyes, yet we are helpless to stop her. We can't stop watching. The final scene, and the final song Rose sings, Stay With Me, is filmmaking at its best. It sums up her life, and the life of so many talented musicians (Kurt Cobane, Jim Morrison, etc). Rose was desperate to have someone, anyone, who was there just for her. Yet she pushed everyone away who truly cared about her. Bette Midler's passionate and inspired performances in concert footage is unforgettable. The Rose is one of the best movies ever made.

As a pumped-up, neurotic 1960s rock star named Rose, Bette Midler energizes this film with a soulful, emotional performance deserving of Oscar recognition. Midler animates the character so well that, paradoxically, she rather overwhelms the film's plot about a famous singer who nonetheless is insecure and fragile.

I would estimate that roughly a quarter of the film's runtime consists of Midler on-stage singing and performing in front of an audience of hundreds, and in one case thousands, of extras as part of a real-life concert. The technical logistics of putting together such a believable event is quite impressive, with multiple cameras, special effects, complex lighting, and in only one camera take.

The non-concert plot has Rose in various states of emotional highs and lows, mostly lows, as she laughs and cries, whines and moans, and argues and fights with those around her. This is a lady who is controlled by emotion, not reason or logic. She laughs one minute, cries the next, then laughs, then cries some more.

As such, the plot trends emotionally repetitive, though we as viewers sense that all this enormous gushing of raw feeling can't continue indefinitely. And thus with great effect, the film has a dramatic ending, one that combines character resolution with stunning visuals, followed by end credits set against the musical backdrop of Amanda McBroom's moving, hymn-like title song, "The Rose".

By far the best element of the film is Midler's electrifying performance. Yet, the concert footage and film editing are also impressive. The weak link is a plot that, though acceptable, seems anemic in comparison to Midler and the stunning visuals.

Inspired by the unnerving musical career of Janis Joplin, "The Rose" presents viewers with an emotionally moving story, character driven, that is set within an overall film production that is technically both competent and credible.