Florence, 25 June 2024 – They have passed 15 years since the death of Michael Jackson, which took place on 25 June 2009. An anniversary that offers the opportunity to return to one of the most sensational events of rise and fall in the history of entertainment. One of the absolute pop geniuses, the incredible dancer who changed the course of dance, the Peter Pan who didn’t want to be black, sank in a whirlpool of nightmares and judicial investigations. From a legal point of view, Michael Jackson was acquitted of charges of pedophilia: the trials began in 1993, the acquittal was in 2003, and in between there were many out-of-court agreements.
Even the details of his death bear the mark of an existential disaster: Jackson died because his personal doctor gave him drugs the surgical anesthetic to which he was addicted despite having already taken a significant amount of powerful drugs. It was in these conditions that she tried to face his return to the scene: just look “This Is It“, the behind-the-scenes documentary of that comeback that never happened, to understand the shadow of Michael Jackson during the “Thriller” and “Bad” years remained. And in the background we can also glimpse Michael’s story child abused by a violent and despotic father who taught him the Jackson 5’s choreography with beatings. From a musical point of view, Michael Jackson was the king of pop, he left three immortal albums such as “.Off The Wall”, “Thriller” and “Bad“, commercial phenomena from the history of recorded music, an icon who went beyond musical boundaries. His funeral was followed on TV by a huge audience in the four corners of the world. There are two generations who grew up with that music, millions of dancers , professionals and non-professionals, who dance imitating Michael Jackson.
A virtually unknown aspect of Michael Jackson was his faith. The Thriller star was a admirer of John Paul II. This is what Liana Marabini’s new film, “A Gift from God”, tells us. Jackson, a Christian, was originally a Jehovah’s Witness, which was his mother’s faith. He was in love with the BibleThat he knew by heart and gave gifts to those who worked with him. The director has collected several testimonies from Jackson’s former collaborators in this sense. When the artist left Jehovah’s Witnesses, he began a personal spiritual search that led him to study the Torah, the Koran and eastern philosophies, in search of another spiritual path. In 1987, during the “Bad” tour in Rome, he discovered the beauty of the Catholic liturgy, attracted into a Roman church by theHail Mary by Schubert that was sung there and begins a journey towards this religion. He remains fascinated by the figure of John Paul II, whom he calls “Beacon of light and hope for humanity” and to whom he dedicates a portrait. Born today George Orwell born on 25 June 1903 in Motihari. A visionary author, he anticipated in his dystopian novel 1984 (among the most important of the 20th century) many scenarios on the control of individual freedoms that would become reality with the web, as well as global geopolitical crises, for which he coined terms still in use today, such as ‘cold war’ between USA and Russia. He has written: “In times of universal lies, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
