PURPLE RAIN REVISITED: AN UNNECESSARILY EXHAUSTIVE ANALYSIS

Purple Rain, the film, is now streaming on Netflix, and so for no reason at all, here is an unnecessarily exhaustive critical companion.

I know you probably don't need me to tell you that Purple Rain is flawed but let's look at it together shall we? If you're a Prince fanatic, please feel free to let me know if I've gotten anything wrong.

This film was the first directed by Albert Magnoli, Prince's manager, and despite the fact that as a director he clearly has no idea what he's doing in most departments, the film has a really great look to it, sometimes grainy, very raw looking: not the kind of slick treatment you would expect for this type of film. This is in all great likelihood likely the result of the expertise of director of photography Donald Thorin, given the rest of the their bodies of work up to this point. In any case, I would guess that a great deal of what's presented in Purple Rain came directly from Prince's own vision and that the studio was hesitant to let the still-fledgling let direct a major motion picture. In a few years Prince would direct Under The Cherry Moon, and after that Graffiti Bridge; it's a bit difficult imagining Prince directing a film, since, if interviews are any indication, the man hadn't spoken a cohesive sentence for the last 25 years of his life, and possibly even his whole life. Purple Rain was a a box office hit, and the two subsequent films were bombs, but it's impressive that any artist, even one as famous as Prince, was able to direct two movies starring and based on himself and actually get them into theaters was unheard of up to that point, and has been unheard of since.

It is stating the very obvious to point out that the strength of Purple Rain is the onstage performances. Watching it feels like being in the audience at a club seeing some very exciting new bands. This may seem like an obvious directional choice but it works, and it is something Hollywood has managed to screw up countless times. See the disastrous 2018 remake of A Star is Born for a good example. At no point in the numerous onstage sequences in that film do you feel as if there's an actual concert going on, or that there could be any alternate universe in which Bradley Cooper would be a legitimate pop star. It would be almost impossible to lose with any choice made in approaching how to shoot the stage scenes in Purple Rain, because all one would have to do is point the camera at Prince for the majority of the time and success is virtually guaranteed.

Whenever Prince is not on stage however, the film becomes more of a so-bad-it's-good affair. Prince of course cannot act, and neither can most of the rest of the cast. Both Prince and Morris Day have charisma out the ass, which somewhat attenuates their lack of experience as actors.

The film begins with a bang, with the Revolution performing "Let's Go Crazy". 

The bad acting is on full display as we set up Appolonia's character's back story. We see Prince on his purple motorcycle, Appolonia holding him from behind. They drive out to a lake, presumably outside Minneapolis, although as with all the settings in Purple Rain, we can never quite be sure. That the film is even set in Minneapolis at all is never mentioned, the word "Minneapolis" is never said once, the only reason we might know that is because Prince is famously from there. There are no establishing shots of the city, no famous landmarks, although I'm not sure how many famous landmarks there even are in Minneapolis that would be recognizable to the average American. Having arrived at the lake in question, the two dismount from the bike and walk by the shore whilst having a ridiculous conversation that puts their horrifically bad acting on full display. On their walk Prince queries Appolonia about her career plans and they both speak in voices that would be way to quiet to hear in this environment in real life, a consistent theme in Purple Rain, and in many films and shows in general. -- Note to filmmakers: have you ever been in a club? You have to shout to be heard. You cannot speak in sultry, hushed tones in that environment. It's simply not possible. -- This scene by the lake is obviously overdubbed - you can't see their lips moving but the directive must have been something like "just walk by the lake and we'll get it in post". In real life they'd just be shouting "What? WHAT? TALK LOUDER I  CAN'T HEAR YOU! WE'RE OUTSIDE! USE YOUR OUTSIDE VOICE!!" Appolonia explains that she's come to town from New Orleans looking to start her career, which is a strange move, considering New Orleans is one of the most famous music cities in the world and Minneapolis is... not, or at least it wouldn't have been at the time this film is supposed to have taken place, in the run-up to Prince's fame, and even after that the only things that made it a famous music city was Prince and Prince-adjacent music projects. (Around this time native sons The Replacements and Husker Du were just beginning to inject American rock and roll with a new energy, but it hadn't taken hold nationally yet and in any case it's certainly not the kind of music Appolonia would have been there to make.) She then asks Prince if he'll help her with her career and he says "No, you would never pass the initiation", a bit of dialog that, in real life, should have had Appolonia running away trying not to get herself serial killed. Instead she asks, somewhat incredulously, "what initiation?". Prince then says "you have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka", which, again, in real life that's your cue to run screaming. Instead she says "WHAT??". He repeats himself, she disrobes and jumps in the lake, and he informs her that's not Lake Minnetonka. She is now soaking wet, naked, and so of course Prince, who throughout the film is portrayed as a giant twat, leaves her there and takes off on his purple motorcycle. But then he goes back to get her, and for some reason, instead of punching him in the dick, she gets on back on the bike and gives him a peck on this cheek.

Another scene that I've always found confusing that I've now done some research on is where Prince is playing Darling Nikki onstage and Apollonia appears to be upset by it, as if the lyric is somehow directed at her, even though he states in the very first line that the subject of the song is named "Nikki" and even if that was just a pseudonym, the details of the song have nothing to do with Appolonia . Prince doesn't meet Appolonia in a hotel lobby or do any of the things with her described lyrically in "Darling Nikki", he meets her at one of his shows, where he stands behind her awkwardly without saying anything and she finally turns and says, again, in a voice no one would be able to hear in a loud rock club. "I liked your song too", only to immediately discover that he is no longer standing there.  The reason that the Darling Nikki scene may have once made sense is because the name of Appolonia's character was originally Nicartha, and she was supposed to have been played by Vanity, who quit the project at some hard to discern point after it was underway. Nicartha was supposed to have been much more streetwise and tough than the naif-ish Appolonia. At no point do any of the lyrics in Darling Nikki bear any resemblance to the storyline that develops around Appolonia which renders this scene incomprehensible to the viewer.

Prince's performance of "The Beautiful Ones" also seems to upset Appolonia, who sits watching at a table with Morris Day. I say "seems to" because, as is often the case in Purple Rain, it's very unclear what's actually going on. She may just be moved by the emotional performance. After the performance, he walks off the stage with his band, who for some reason congratulate each other for playing a set consisting of only one 5 minute song as if that was very artistic and admirable, and they walk by the owner of the club who is apparently supposed to look like a villain because he's upset about the aforementioned length of the performance, even though I'd say his anger seems pretty well justified. Prince heads out of the club, taking the fire escape, as one does, to his motorcycle, to find Appolonia waiting for him there. He tells her they have to go to her place, although we have no idea why, and we never will, which could be the result of a storyline that was left on the cutting room floor. So they take off on his motorcycle and go to his house, and then, in one of the many inexplicable moments in the film, they decide to hang out outside and peer through the window into Prince's living room, watching HIS PARENTS HAVE SEX. Appolonia then says, while observing this, "so those are your parents huh?" as if all of this is totally normal, and then follows the man who apparently (offscreen) suggested this activity into his basement. "Let me take you to my basement, but before we go first let's take a look through the window of my house and watch my parents having sex", he may have said.

It's interesting to note that despite the fact that only someone made of pure unadulterated ego could ever rise to the level of fame that Prince had, and yet he makes a couple of pretty humble moves in the story of the film. For one thing it is made to appear that Wendy and Lisa wrote the music to Purple Rain, they did not, in fact there is only one song that was co-written by either and it is "Computer Blue", which was, interestingly, correctly portrayed as having been co-written by Prince's father, John Nelson. 

Prince's real life relationship with his father was in fact tumultuous; however his father and mother divorced when Prince was only ten, so the film's portrayal of his father's abusive relationship with his mother is not accurately portrayed as happening when Prince was in his 20s. The film never really claimed to have been a biopic, and in subsequent interviews Prince claims it was written by Magnoli, even though again I would be very surprised if Prince didn't have a hand in it. And so the direction of the story was probably chosen in terms of what worked dramatically. Prince would have been around 24 or 25 when the film was shot, and he was 26 when it was released. He is presumably supposed to be playing someone much younger though because he lives in his parents basement and is consistently referred to as "The Kid" by much of the cast, including Morris Day, who was only 2 years older than Prince in real life. 

The climax of the film is of course is the Revolution's performance of Purple Rain, which by the end of the song gets everyone back in their corner, and they are encored. This segment of the movie, the performance of Purple Rain and the encores "I Would Die 4 U" and "Baby I'm A Star", were actually recorded and shot live, with some studio overdubbing later. This greatly aids the palpable feeling of amazement the audience seem to have, and that indeed even the band themselves seem to have; they're witnessing an undeniable moment in pop history. When Prince walks over to Wendy and kisses her on the cheek at the end of Purple Rain, she is visibly and legitimately moved, almost in tears, as you would be when you're hearing fucking Purple Rain come together for the first time. Like the rest of the cast, she is not a good actor, so it's unlikely that the moment is the manufactured outcome of a good dramatic performance. Of course we don't know how many takes and overdubs are involved, but given that the whole 20 minute sequence was shot and recorded live, it rivals Queen's performance at Live Aid as one of the greatest live performances actually caught on film of the decade, if not of all time.