Long live Prince: Saying my peace about 'Purple Rain'

Prince in Purple Rain

Virtually everyone who knows me knows that I am an enormous Prince fan -- and it was very touching for me that in the hours after his shocking and sudden death was announced on Thursday that a number of friends and family members reached out to me to express their grief and offer their condolences. I always felt a special kinship with my fellow diminutive Gemini.

The last member of my personal big three of musical inspirations -- Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Prince -- is gone, and I'm still reeling and grappling with it. Jackson lived such a tragic life, I was almost relieved in a way when he died -- I didn't think seeing him at say 70 would have been a pretty picture.

With Bowie, he'd had serious health problems, so while I was heartbroken to hear of his passing, it wasn't totally unexpected. To lose Prince this way, however, at just 57, feels unfair. He seemed so perpetually youthful and exuberant, and although I'd heard rumors that he was rejecting medical procedures he needed because of his religious beliefs (he'd become a devout Jehovah's Witness), I dismissed them because he just looked so good.

Now that the news has sunk in -- the press and fans are doing their inevitable deep dive into his career.

And the one project that unsurprisingly has taken center stage is the 1984 album and film Purple Rain. Prince of course has many other hits and critical masterpieces in his catalogue, but this one represents the apex of his commercial popularity, and so it's fitting that it sticks out in many people's minds.

It also happens to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest album of all time -- so I can't quibble with the nostalgia surrounding it.

But what about the film? Over thirty years since its release (when it became a box office smash, and briefly turned Prince into an unlikely leading man) a consensus has formed that the musical performances are great, but the backstage drama -- not so much.

I wholeheartedly disagree, and not just because I am such an unabashed Prince fan. The entire movie works for me as both a time capsule of a period but also as a dark, emotional character study about a creative child born out of a culture of abuse. Although Prince's later cinematic forays would all fall short, this one feels fully realized and yes, the musical performances are some of the best ever captured on film.

The movie is undeniably dated in some ways. It has a misogynist streak that is pretty unforgivable and one particular moment of domestic violence is never addressed sufficiently. Still, it features a wonderful comic performance from Morris Day as Prince's foil (his "what's the password?" routine is one my favorite movie moments) and a credibly nuanced one from the Purple One himself.

In the first chunk of the film, Prince largely plays off of his soft spoken, mysterious persona. He poses, he struts, he treats his stunning love interest Apollonia with a degree of condescension. But as the film starts to show you more layers of his desperately sad domestic life -- and brooding father played brilliantly by Clarence Williams III -- a more complex portrayal appears.

Particularly in his scenes with Williams III, Prince does some terrific acting, and when one understands that even some of their dialogue is lifted directly from the singer's real life it starts to feel less hokey and more haunting.

Because of his one-of-a-kind looks and delivery, it's doubtful to me that Prince could have ever disappeared into other dramatic roles, although he could have made a delightful character in one of Tim Burton's early fantasies. Still, in this film he does a riveting job of playing himself both on and off stage.

It's easy to look at a movie from 1984 and giggle at the makeup and outfits, but the backstage drama of musicians struggling to get their sound appreciated and their careers off the ground is timeless, as is the Minneapolis atmosphere the movie evokes.

The next time you watch Purple Rain, come for the concert scenes, but stay for some of the more subtle, quieter moments, and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Long live Prince.