'Purple Rain': 25 Years Later

by Brett Parker

2009 marks the 25th Anniversary of Purple Rain, the film that transformed Prince from an offbeat musical artist into a pop legend. For the most part, I’ve regarded the film as a spunky piece of 80s nostalgia. As I look around now, however, it seems like the 80s is making a curious comeback in our culture. Kids are running around with loud shades, flamboyant styles, and rocker sensibilities, all while listening to tech-heavy heartfelt pop. In this sense, perhaps Purple Rain does in fact have a timeless feel. You could release Purple Rain as is nowadays and it would probably seem just as hip and popular as it was in the 80s.

Purple Rain is one of those nostalgia trips people of my generation are always curious to check out. Certainly we’ve all seen the film’s music videos on VH1’s throwback hours. I’ve always been a huge fan of Prince and certainly treasure this odd little film. Whenever my friends ask me if the film is worth seeing, I always tell them the same thing: if you’re a fan of Prince’s music, you’ll dig it. If not, you’ll probably be bored. But so awesome and inventive is Prince’s music here that it’s extremely hard not to get caught up in his musical greatness.

The film is a thinly-veiled account of the early years in Prince’s career. Nearly everyone in the film plays themselves and even use their own names. Prince is referred to as “The Kid” and is the lead singer of a pop group called The Revolution. They share a billing at the legendary First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis, a venue with a reputation of launching musical acts towards superstardom. The Revolution, however, seem to have hit serious roadblocks on the path to fame. The band is beginning to strain due to The Kid’s inflating ego. He’s late to rehearsals, stand-offish towards them, and downright refuses to perform anyone else’s music but his own. His band mates Lisa (Lisa Coleman) and Wendy (Wendy Melvoin) constantly try to convince him to check out one of their own songs, the song that will eventually become “Purple Rain.”

The plot follows the Kid as he tries to balance his shaky musical career with emotionally taxing aspects of his life. His father (Clarence Williams III) is a failed musician who takes out his seething resentment on his own family. He was a talented musician, but he refused to share his genius with those around him, a trait the Kid fears he may have inherited. He also fears he may have his father’s jealousy towards women. He’s hopelessly in love with Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero) but despairs of the fact that she’s joined the musical act of his professional rival, Morris (Morris Day). While the Kid tries to make sense of his own life, he pours his wounded emotions into his offbeat music which has an original sound but may be a little too unconventional for the commercial crowd.

On paper, certain aspects of the plot should probably come across as cheesy, but director Albert Magnoli has a quiet way of bringing the film’s feelings to the forefront without ever having to explain them directly to us. The screenplay, co-written with Magnoli by William Blinn, is more observant of quiet behavior than it is of dialogue. Most of the Kid’s interactions with people are done with penetrating stares than obvious dialogue, helping to flesh out the enigma of Prince’s behavior. The dialogue, when it does pour out, can be unique and puzzling, the perfect antidote to what could be a conventional plot. Notice how the Kid courts Apollonia when he first meets her; almost nothing he says is normal or routine. You can accuse this material of being strange, but you can’t accuse it of being mundane.

What’s surprising about Purple Rain is how it boasts a musical star in a movie based on his own life and isn’t afraid to point out his numerous flaws. The movie doesn’t attempt to glorify Prince but shows what is perplexing about him as a musician and as a human being. As he hits his girlfriend and alienates his band members, Prince and the producers don’t make the Kid the most likeable character but do everything in their power to show the raw emotions behind the struggle of being a musician. In a sly way, the film becomes a wonderful meditation on the struggles of an artist trying to pour his complex emotions into a commercial art form, a concept artists of all generations can strongly relate to.

These dramatic scenes hold such promise that we wish they were meatier than they turn out to be. So much of the film is devoted to Prince’s music that it comes dangerously close to becoming a concert film. That could be a problem in another film, but Prince’s music truly does achieve pop perfection. The bruised heart of the movie can be strongly felt in the concert scenes, in which the Kid bears his soul through inventive pop that is infectious with emotions. The music is effectively elevated by quick-cutting clips heavily influenced by the emergence of MTV and music videos in the early 80s. Armed with a glam rock fashions, a soul star swagger, and divine vocals, Prince draws us in with a ferocious energy and bleeding passion that becomes the real star of the show. The songs may have that 80s vibe about them, but its dreamlike sounds and deep feelings fit in perfectly with tastes of any era.

I always found it strange how certain characters are negative or indifferent towards the Kid’s music, which is nothing short of sublime. Each song plays like small masterpieces in comparison to the film’s other music, performed by Apollonia 6 and The Time (which is competent and energetic pop in its own right). Picture A Hard Day’s Night if every character told The Beatles their music was too unconventional to work. I’m always amused by the film’s innocent conviction that singing the perfect song is a great way to win over a woman. This could be a dangerous concept for another film, but with Prince’s music, we truly believe this could be possible. There’s the scene where Morris Day is trying to swoon Apollonia with a romantic dinner at First Avenue until the Kid unleashes an electrifying performance of “The Beautiful Ones” that moves Apollonia to romantic tears, ones we can nearly feel. It sounds corny, but when Prince points to her from the stage and howls “do you want him or do you want me?” we know he means business!

This all builds up the ideology behind the film’s final and breathtaking act. The Kid is told by First Avenue’s management that he only has one last chance to “kick ass “ or he’s kicked out of the club’s billing. He finds himself losing his father, his girlfriend, and his own handle on things. If he can write the perfect song, maybe he can get everything back. He finally decides to collaborate with Wendy and Lisa’s ideas, leading to the film’s best moment in which he privately begins to compose the pop masterpiece, “Purple Rain.” As he performs his set at the club, the Kid absolutely pours everything he has into this song and we feel like we’re listening to the pop ballad to end all pop ballads. The camera lingers on Prince as he sings in an almost unbroken shot, with periodic shots of the audience in a blown-away trance. In 9 out of 10 films, a situation like this could implode the whole movie, but “Purple Rain” is the real deal, a heartfelt power-punch of a ballad that even the skeptical Simon Cowell of American Idol calls one of his favorite songs. The club’s audience becomes emotionally leveled and ecstatic by the song, and so are we.
Purple Rain is probably one of those rare occasions where the movie soundtrack is more treasured than the movie itself. When Entertainment Weekly named the album as the #1 New Music Classic of the past 25 years, I wasn’t at all surprised. However, if one experiences the music through the film, they will feel a dramatic experience with it accompanied by styles and trends that are still felt today in our contemporary culture. Countless rock bands of today can be seen imitating the hipster-glam swagger of Prince’s image. Outkast has stated Prince’s influence on their work numerous times. We can even sense how Morris Day’s soulful swagger and pop showmanship have influenced R & B artists like Kanye West. And you can’t tell me Lady Gaga isn’t a student of Apollonia 6’s ideal of “sexy but not dirty.” It says something that at a recent Gym Class Heroes concert, the band tried their own rendition of “When Doves Cry.” They totally missed the melancholy aspect of the song, and it sounded more Morris Day than Prince, but at least the kids are acknowledging it!

Perhaps Purple Rain really is just hokey 80s nostalgia, cheesy musical drama, and an oddball Prince concert, but it holds more wisdom and energy than most musical stories of today. It’s a glamorous, energetic, rhythmic, and heartbreaking ride through a specific awakening in the history of pop music, one that would forever influence rock, soul, and dance. It’s also a vivid account of one of the most fascinating and mysterious figures in the world of rock music who will stand the test of time to become a legend. You can do a lot worse than a film tightly focused on such a character. So if the emo rockers and clueless popsters of today are getting you down, rent this flick and come have a look at what a real musical superstar looks like.