It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie of the week podcast devoted to a classic film and the way it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Tosha Robinson here again with Scott Tobias, Keith Phipps, and Genevieve Koski.

In our last episode, we discussed the classic 1954 George Cucor version of A Star is Born, which is a remake of the 1937 film, which was remade again in

1976, and now has been remade again in 2018. In each case, the film was obviously redesigned

for its specific era. A lot of the details stay the same, including the overall arc and the

central relationship. But the details of performance and what it takes to be a star change

with every decade, and so do the ideas of what it means to compromise yourself for fame.

The 1954 version was reportedly influenced by the real-life marriage of Barbara Stanwick

to Frank Fay, a famous but troubled vaudevillian, who slipped into obscurity as his wife

rocketed to fame. The 2018 version seems equally inspired by the career of its female lead,

Lady Gaga, who talks repeatedly about all the men who told her she'd never make it as a singer,

given her face, and especially her nose. When her character, Ali, finds fandom anyway,

she's immediately surrounded by men who want to remake her in a very specific pop star image,

but she fights back. That plot goes in

and out of focus, compared to her character's relationship with Bradley Cooper's singer-songwriter

lead character, who latches on to Allie as a great and shining talent, boost her to fame,

then gets jealous and resentful as she becomes something he doesn't recognize. The 2018 version

of a Star is Born deals more directly with viral fandom and the

ways artists can now bypass gatekeepers if they get lucky and get the right people's attention.

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