David Gest knew Michael Jackson. You probably already knew that, because he tells you every time he is on TV. He’ll break out an anecdote or just casually mention a time he just happened to be around. He also knows Tito.
I saw Gests’ Legends of Soul tour earlier this year. Wasn’t the best of line-ups, but Doo Wop legend Little Anthony did his first ever UK performances and Dennis Edwards - the last surviving classic Temptations lead singer - also performed. It was kinda cool when Gest wasn’t on stage. I played a game to pass the time during his lame attempts at comedy. “Let’s See How Long It Takes Him To Mention Michael Jackson”. If you are wondering: it was 45 minutes. Longer than I expected.
Gests’ masterpiece of “I knew Michael Jackson”-ness is his 2011 documentary Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon. It got quite a large release, has deluxe packaging and runs for over 2 ½ hours. It’s gonna be epic, right?
No.
I literally JUST watched this (on Netflix, I didn’t buy it…I have standards). It is without a doubt the weirdest “official” documentary I have ever seen on musician. It comes across more as an E! True Hollywood Story-type thing. The biggest accomplishments of Jackson’s career are glossed over, whilst minor details are magnified analysed. Remember when the Jackson 5 did a disco-flavoured cover of the Supremes song Forever Came Today? Me neither. But Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier does (even though nobody mentions it was originally a Supremes song), and he would like to talk about it. At great length. How it was written, why it was written. Michael liked it too, and that’s why they recorded it. And the brothers all performed brilliantly on it. Oh, and by the way, Off The Wall was released in 1979.
Over an hour of the 2 ½ hour length are spent on the Jackson 5 years at Motown. It is very thorough, although it doesn’t quite talk to many people who were there - and Bobby Taylor who was one of the people who takes credit for the Jackson 5 seems to take way more credit than he really should. There are many clips of Jackson 5 performances (although none of the really famous ones), a lot of rare photographs that don’t seem to match the era they’re talking about; many photographs that are clearly Motown publicity pictures are used to illustrate the Jackson kids on the Chitlin circuit or at home in Gary, Indiana. Excuses are made for Jackson’s abusive father, Joseph, presumably because Gest is still a friend of the family and doesn’t want to upset anyone.
Then they leave Motown (an event which is for some reason soundtracked with Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me), and then there is NO music from Jackson, either solo or with his brothers. No album covers, no official publicity shots. You see, the film was released by Universal, who now own Motown. My guess is they couldn’t - or couldn’t be bothered to - get the licensing for Jackson’s Sony archives. So, for example, Off The Wall is dealt with in a matter of seconds, the monster success of Thriller is glossed over, and apparently the Bad, Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible albums just didn’t exist.
Instead, we get Gest telling us that he introduced Jackson to Petula Clark. And he introduced Jackson to Paul Anka. And that he and Jackson produced a show together at Madison Square Garden that was all HIS idea. And Jackson once went to a party at his house and threw peanuts at Gloria Gaynor. And that Liam Neeson was his neighbour (yeah, by that point, it seems he’s forgotten that this is a documentary on Michael Jackson and just started talking about himself). Then, for some reason, they interview Mickey Rooney.
The remaining hour or so of the film is spent dealing with some of the controversies in Jackson’s life, and completely ignores his output throughout the entire period. The molestation charges are dealt with surprisingly well, to be fair, if expectedly one-sided, and attention is drawn the skin disorder that you may or may not believe (judging by some of the testimonies here, it’s worth believing), Jackson’s marriages and his plastic surgery - which, again in fairness, isn’t excused as much as you might think.
But there’s interesting avenues that could have been explored, and are staring you in the face, but the question is never asked. For example, when talking about Jackson’s secret addiction to prescription medication, they hark back to Jackson’s infamous Pepsi commercial, where his hair caught fire and caused serious damage to his scalp, leading to several very painful procedures, and specify that Michael never believed he was abusing drugs because he was using prescribed medication. This is not long after talking about his marriage to Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie. Elvis, too, didn’t believe he had a drug problem, because he was using prescription drugs. Is that not an interesting parallel that is worth exploring about the dangers of extreme fame? No, apparently Whitney Houston wants to talk about Bubbles the Chimp sucking her toe in Michael’s kitchen.
There’s also some stuff that made me cringe a lot. Firstly, Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo seems to make a bit too much of a deal about the fact that Michael “definitely wasn’t gay”. Nobody seemed to have asked the question, there is no way of knowing that this is where we were going here. He just yells it out. Why? Who cares? It’s kind of offensive that you are offended that somebody would think he was. What the fuck is wrong with being gay?
Then there’s a horribly cheesy moment at the end where Gest is sitting on a couch with Jackson’s mother. I watched it from between my fingers.
Overall, it makes me wonder how Gest made it as a producer. If this is the best he can do for someone he claims was one of his closest friends, then he really must be shit. It seems more like a tribute to himself. He even shows footage that must have been a bitch to track down, of Jackson thanking him at some awards show that Gest himself was producing (and chose Jackson personally to win that particular award). It’s an exercise in David Gest masturbating, and it’s only a little bit more unsettling than what that would literally look like. All the talking heads appear to be his “showbiz friends” who have little-to-nothing to do with the Jackson story, but Gest knows them and they’ve heard of Michael Jackson…so, fuck it, put em in there! And why is it that a man who claims to be so close to the Jackson clan not get clearance to use more footage from the Jackson archive?
All of this makes it all the more ironic when a whole section of the film is taken to have a go at people for using Jackson for their own ends.
There is a fascinating documentary to be made about Michael Jackson. His life story is too interesting, too contradictory and too widespread not to document. This ain’t it.
Until this hypothetical professional film is made, I would recommend this. This is a 100% unofficial film that was posted on YouTube. It is four hours in length, but it is extremely well executed. It’s mainly chronological, although occasionally jumps back to the lead up to Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial and doesn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions, some of which aren‘t answered and none of which are glossed over. I watched it one day when I was unemployed a year or two ago. Unlike Gests’ film, it doesn’t spend the entire duration saying Jackson was “a gift from God” or “he was the greatest entertainer who ever lived” and a “musical genius”, which is great because Jackson was none of those things (how can you possibly gauge who is the greatest entertainer who ever lived? And surely the greatest entertainer who ever lived wouldn‘t lip synch so often?).
It is very compelling, though not always comfortable viewing, and I would recommend watching it at some point if you are wanting to see a good documentary on Jackson. Kudos to the person who took the time to make this.
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